11/21/16 "Não convertas o cão!"

Dear friends and family,

We stopped at a little café one day this week so Elder Cottrell could powder his nose, and I sat on the steps just out front. Just to explain the situation a bit more, these cafés always have at least 3 drunk men watching soccer, 24/7 haha. Anyways, there was a dog chilling on the doorstep of the café. I sat as I waited and said "olá" to the dog, gave him a pat, one of the men rounded the corner to the entrance and said "Ei! Não convertas o cão também!" or, "Oi! Dont convert the dog too!"

I laughed, good stuff. At least he knows why were here!

But yeah, this week was pretty good. Not going to lie, this week was pretty normal. Nothing super out-of-the-ordinary happened. But I´ll try to still share the juicy parts.

Elder Cottrell and I have started a game between us to help motivate ourselves to keep up a good level of work. We individually keep score of how many times we can get rejected in the day. So, to explain, I would walk up to somebody, introduce, converse, explain our message and try to get their contact, etc. If such person declined in any form, it´s a "rejeição", and like so, we keep score. By the end of the day, we end up with 50-70 rejections each, but I will admit, Elder Cottrell has won recently, he seems to get the side of the road with more people.

Now, you might be thinking "oh what a bad idea... you should keep score of people who accept!" Well yeah, that´s always good. But sometimes we get caught up in judging people too quickly, and sometimes we just dont talk to people because we think they just wont accept... but when we switch sides, we want to be rejected, so, with such motivation we end up literally talking to everyone, be them drunk, busy, or running away from us haha.

At one point Elder Cottrell was ahead of me by quite a bit, so to try and even the score I walked into another café like that one a couple weeks back to rack up 7 or so rejections at the same time. But, its a good thing, because we never know when one person might actually be waiting to hear what we have to say. With this method/game, its more likely we wont miss one of these people!

We´ve run into a handful of new people this week, we´re still searching for the Lord´s elect, teaching those who are willing to hear. Unfortunately many of the people weve found have not been showing the real intent that is needed for them to make changes... but we will keep on keeping on. 

No worries, I´m enjoying the work here. It´s always a fresh day and lots of work to be done. Im doing quite well, the language is going very smoothly, work is good, learning a lot from Elder Cottrell about really working hard. Good stuff.

But yeah, we shall see what the next week brings. We´ve got some more travelling ahead of us this week too, Im looking forward to it.

Take care folks, happy thanksgiving,

Elder Ward

​"Nothing happens by chance" — Amen, grafitti artist, amen.

 An alleyway with like a dozen cats, you have to look closely to see the others... notice the eyes haha

Lots of doors here in Portugal have these little knockers, they are supposed to represent the hands of the pope haha. Quite catholic here indeed!

Music by the Shore

14 November 2016 Sou de Rússia

Dear friends and family,

The title is "sou de Rússia" (I´m from Russia) because that´s what I say when people ask me if I´m from the US. I do so to avoid the shmogus bogus that can come up in conversation. I´m here to talk about the gospel, not about politics haha.

No, its not a huge problem here, but every once in a while people want to bring it up. We had a meeting with our branch mission leader, Simão (featured below). He´s really funny, and has an enormous testimony. The first words that came out of his mouth were about the elections, but we had a good meeting anyways. Afterwards he said "hey, but dont worry, your guys´ real president is in Utah" (referring to President Monson, of course.) So, it got me thinking about how I really am focused on another task now, preaching the gospel. Its so nice because I literally dont have to worry about anything else, just myself, my companion, and our area.

Anyways, it was a good week. We worked hard, met some new people, taught some too, the usual.

​​A quick little story. We were walking at night towards the end of our day earlier this week and this guy who was smoking, said "ey Elders!" A thing we here a lot. We were on our way to visit somebody, but we stopped and talked to him. His name was Luís, and turns out he´s a member, he was baptized 20 years ago as a teenager. We chatted with him for a bit, and he gave a list of reasons he stopped coming to church, life, work, problems, family, business, etc etc a big list to describe why he stopped coming to church 20 years ago.

Surprising or not, this happens quite a bit. There are a decent amount of people who are baptized, make those covenants, go to church for a little while, but fail to endure to the end... And usually they dont feel like coming back around. So, I thought about what I could say to him that could make a difference, make him have a desire to return.

I shared with him 1 Nephi 3:7 (I will go, I will do the things the Lord commands...), a classic that everybody knows. I talked about the experiences that Nephi was going through at that time. How his family was journeying in the wilderness, etc. We explained that the circumstances that he was in weren´t exactly easy, and yet the Lord still asked more from him and his family. I shared that with Luís and then explained to him a bit more the attitude that Nephi had. I continued sharing my thoughts, and how the words of this prophet can apply to him when suddenly he interrupted me and said "wait when does church start again?" I stopped, closed the Book of Mormon, and smiled, a bit surprised to be honest. We shared such information and he responded "I oughtta go back, sometimes I miss it."

He then had to go, he had to go back to Lisbon. He lives there, and stays the weekends in Beja once in a while. We took his number, and tried to get him to come this last sunday. Unfortunately no contact with him and no cigar, but what matters is that he felt the need in that moment. In that moment I felt honored to be a tool in the hands of the Lord. Such a simple conversation in the street with a scripture from a prophet changed the heart of Luís for a moment. Maybe his heart has already hardened a bit since, but I really felt like the Lord wanted us to be there at that time to do something so simple for him.

I share this becuase I learned that the Spirit can really touch the hearts of mankind. I was just sharing a scripture and my thoughts and encouragement, but I know that it was the Spirit that made him have the feelings that he did, enought to say that he misses church.

So yeah that was cool.

Thursday we had a divisão with the AP´s. It was pretty fun, I served the day with Elder Cabreira, a brazilian. He´s a cool guy, and we enjoyed the day, talked with a lot of people.  We talked with a romanian man, well we tried, and he just suddenly fled. We shrugged, and continured walking, but then he came back to us with his friend, who was holding a bible. He seemed excited to talk with us, seeing that we were had "Jesus Cristo" smack on our chests. We talked in very rough communication, but they led us to a little neighborhood with a bunch of romanian families. We talked with a those two men for a bit, tried to teach, but it didnt work very well, we just couldnt communicate. A few spoke spanish, so through the portuguese to spanish to romanian to spanish to portuguese we communicated a little. To sum it up, we plan to come back with a bunch of books of mormon in Romanian.

The people I mentioned in previous emails unfortunately have been hard to get a hold of or they havent been keeping up with the invites we give them, so not a ton of progress there. But this week we ran into new people who we have taught, so lets see how they progress. Elder Cottrell, during that divisão found a young man who accepted to be baptized. We still need to meet with him again and teach more, but lets hope he has potential and that we can help him progress.

This week I also really got to defend the name of Christ. We had a couple of encounters with people... let´s say, against religion. For example, one evening, we ended up discussing such topic with 5 college students on their doorstep. They made a lot of arguments, some towards atheism, others towards fraud in the BoM and Joseph Smith, all that good jazz. We kinda talked in circles, I explained a lot of things, trying to help them understand why God is God and just all sorts of stuff. I explained the BoM, how they can read it and ask God if its true. I explained how they can ask God if he flat out exists, etc. I admittedly got a little hooked (it wasnt an argument, they were quite respectful), I just really wanted them to open up a little bit and just listen and act so they can know for themselves. They still proved a bit reluctant. However, in the end, we testified boldly that Christ lives, and that his church was restored to the earth once more by the Prophet Joseph Smith. 

We walked away with the address of one of them. She asked us to stop by later this month. I also felt a bit frustrated afterwards, I tried so hard to explain to them that all those things were true, but they just didnt swallow it... With this hint of frustration I then realized that I actually cared for each one of them personally. I was standing there talking to them because I wanted all of them to experience the joy that the restored gospel brings, and I walked away a bit frustrated, sad, and disappointed because, welp, they turned down good news. But I learned that I do actually care about the people here, I desire their spiritual well-being.

This was just one example, similar situations happened twice more this week haha.

We also got to do a bunch more travelling this week. We drove after the divisão south to Faro (faro is 3 hours by bus, 1.5 by car) for a Zone Conference. It was pretty darn good, like always. We then returned to Beja after a 3 hour bus ride and stayed here one day, then we went back once more to Faro bright and early sunday morning for a District Conference. A recent convert, Nuno (baptized about 3 months ago), gave us a ride. He is an mechanic in a mine an hour outside of Beja, and he had just gotten off a night shift when he gave us a ride at 7am to Faro. So, we asked, and he had been awake for almost 2 days already because of work, but he still wanted to go to the District Conference. He stayed awake the whole meeting, and then drove us home too, and then he went home to finally rest. What a guy.

This week I also learned a lot from Elder Cottrell. Neither of us are very seasoned missionaries, but with him I have learned a ton. At times when I may be frustrated or a bit down, somehow, he is always very calm, positive, and relaxed. He is a very dedicated missionary, and loves the work. He´s setting a very good example for me.

But yeah, I think that about sums it up. I had a bit of time extra today to write, hence the large letter. I hope you all enjoy! I would assume there are more people than just my family reading this, so any of you lonely back-seat spectators can feel free to send me anything — questions, candy, comments, food, I enjoy such things!

 "Never think that you already did everything."

 A mouse ran up to me and started scurrying around my shoes...

 They´re everywhere

 Some dude just standing there in the castle.

7 November 2016 Chuva

Dear friends and family,

Another week has fwooshed by. Quite a bit happened. Let´s get to it.

Like I mentioned before, Beja is an area that sits a bit far from the rest of the mission. So, on wednesday we had a zone meeting, so we actually had to leave about 6pm the night beforehand to catch a 3 hour bus to Faro, a city on the southern edge of portugal. We stayed the night there with a missionary couple, Elder and Sister Roberts from Idaho. They were super super nice. We got there, they made us feel at home, gave us chicken pot pie, and then we crashed. The next morning they drove us to the Zone meeting, and it was a good time. I met a lot of new missionaries and learned some new things. 

We then went to another city, Tavira, to do an exchange with the Elders there. It was a good time. I spent the day with Elder Mitton, our district leader. After only a few minutes with him I suddenly realized he was a spitting image of Zane,  they look exactly alike, and he plays guitar too. It was pretty weird, I felt like I was walking around with Zane. Its pretty funny when we run into doppelgangers haha. So, we stayed the next night in there place, and then finally left to return to our area after being away for almost 3 days (we had to, travel options didnt allow for a shorter stay down south unfortunately).

So yeah, we got back to work here in Beja. Things ran decently. We found some new people to teach and taught a couple people we´ve already taught, and got to explore our area a bit more, going more towards the outskirts of the city to look for people.

We knocked on a door in a more poor area, and a young girl opened up. We were invited in, and long story short, we ended up teaching a massive 3 generational family with like 8 people there. Some werent paying attention (one was smoking, for example) but a handful of them actually listened. We didnt have a lot of time, so we returned the next day and taught the whole restoration. Maria and her grandaughter Elizabete seem to have potential. We will see what happens in the near future!

That other couple we met near the hospital unfortunately live a bit far from here. We planned to see them this week, but it didnt work out. We called them saturday night, and they said they would still come to church, but unfortunately they, as well as other people we confirmed with didnt show up... we´ll get them there next time.

A couple days ago we were given a little challenge to preach like Abinádi, (i forget how in english) not to burn, but to share the gospel even if it looks like no one is listening, in front of a group of people, because it couple make a difference, as it surely did with Alma. 

When we were walking back form a lesson with that big family, we passed by a café. I said, meh, and walked into the café. There were probably 20 people there, mostly men, many of them smoking and drinking. I walked in, got everyone´s attention, and said basically "we´re missionaries, and we´re here to invite you all to follow Christ by way of baptism. Who here accepts or would like to learn more?" A bit more, but thats the gist of it. It was pretty funny. As you can imagine, not much happened, they just kinda said "nah we´ve got our religion" stuff like that. I asked once more, and welp, no one wanted anything, so I bid them good day and left, no hard feelings hahaha. 

So it was a cool little experience, it was really funny too. But I actually learned something... Have you already seen the painting of Abinádi when he was talking to King Noah? His posture is quite notable. His chest forward and out, and his chin high. When I walked into this little café I couldnt help but do the same thing, chest out, chin up. I felt confident, and when I walked out, without any obvoius difference made, I really felt like I had done something good. I felt the spirit for that moment, and it was just a cool experience. I´d like to do it again sometime.

But the take home lesson is this: dont be ashamed, share the gospel! In little ways or big ways, and you will feel like you did something right. its that simlple. And you probably wont be burned by fire, so really youve got nothing to worry about.

Oh, winter finally showed up. Suddenly here it rained, and now its nice and frisky outside, with some sunshine! So, I actually had to use a jacket this week!

So today I actually brought my glasses to a little glasses store thingy in the center of town. (they broke a while back in the MTC I think) I walked in and said "ey can you fix these" and well, in a few minutes, they fixed em´. It was super nice of them, and they did it free of charge. While they were doing it, I chatted with the man who owns the place. He was born across the street (he pointed to the house) and said he had been running his little eye place business for 50 years now. We then chatted about the history of Beja a bit. He said originally it was started by the Arabs, then romans, and now portuguese. So, even way over here, there are roman ruins in the city. Man, those romans got everywhere haha. Then the portuguese hunkered down there, and made a big castle with a wall and turrets surrounding the city (much of which still stands). Its a pretty cool little town for sure.

And now I have glasses! Not a necessity, but a convenience for sure.

But yeah, it was a good week. Elder Cottrell and I are getting along well, still learning a lot about how each works and stuff like that. Let´s see what this week brings!

Chicka Chicka Ciao-wow,

Elder Ward

Photoos!

 The church sits right in the center of town, and from the front door you see the castle!

 ​In just a few minutes it went from light overcast to pouring, and here was our shelter haha

 The man in the shop said that its the tallest castle tower in Europe... I dunno, but perhaps.

 One of the stairwells leading to the top

Beja from the top of the tower.

31 October 2016 Beja é Sião

Dear friends and family,

Well its been a crazy week. I recieved the transfer info last Sunday night, packed my bags on Monday, and then on Tuesday Elder Fletcher and I headed to the train station to switch companions and stuff, until after 4 hours of travel by bus and train, I arrived in my new area, Beja, with my new companion (we travelled most of the way together) Elder Cottrell. The journey was pretty cool, quite scenic. 

So, I guess I'll start of a bit chatting about Elder Cottrell. He's from Atlanta, Georgia, my age, and an interesting fella. Not in a mean way at all, but a good word to describe him is a bit of a dork haha (dont freak out I mean that in a good way). For example, he had a pet pig back at home named Petunia, he sleeps without a pillow, he saw a nun for the first time in his life this week, and his mouth is always open kinda like Napoleon. Despite all that, hes a really great guy and a great missionary for sure. I dont degrade him with any of these descriptions, I just chuckle sometimes, he's an interesting character for sure. Hes been in the mission now for 8 months or so, meaning the both of us are still learning a lot.

Interestingly enough he doesnt have a lot of experience with the language... hold your horses... he does very well, but he doesnt use all the grammar he should... and me, being a bit OCD I have received his permission to correct him haha. Nah, its all chill, he enjoys the help and tips I give him with the language. Hes already improved a lot, but it will be a process. 

With this Im not saying Im perfect, but Ive got a decent grasp on the grammar, at least enough to help him out. Elder Marques was a huge help, being a native speaker, and Elder Fletcher was a master of grammar, so they have helped me learn enough now to help others.

But holy cow the work ethic of Elder Cottrell is phenomenal. He always contacts people before I get the chance, he wakes up before 7am, which I find suicidal, (in our mission its 7am to get up, but return home is 9:30) and he is very insistent that we jog every morning for exercise, despite my sheer hatred of running. He is a lot different than my other companions for sure, but he wants to work and serve, and thats what really counts. (not implying that the others didnt work)

Honestly we've been working so consistently that we havent really gotten a chance to just stop and converse about normal stuff and life and family, normally we're just discussing who to visit next, where to go, how to teach x person, etc. What Ive written about him is actually pretty much all I know about him after this week haha. And a fun little fact, Ive managed to keep my first name hidden from him... hehe... And I dont know his haha

Anyways this whole whitewash thing has been quite the one-two punch. We arrived at our house, luckily everything was clean, and dropped our bags. I looked at one of the desks to find a massive discombobulation of papers, lists, names, sticky notes, directions, and maps about our area... I suddenly felt very intimidated. We spent this week a few hours just filtering the mass of information we can use that the previous Elders left behind. 

Then I suddenly realized I had left my personal journal, which contained my patriarchal blessing as well on the bus in which we arrived... that didnt help with the burden I was starting to feel. So, we decided to head out to the bus station to see what was possible. On our way there, we talked with people in the street, when suddenly a young guy in his twenties asked us "wait you guys are the mormons arent you?" "yeah, we're missionaries etc etc" "ah yeah you guys can have like 6 wives and stuff right?" —great, not this conversation. Then I snapped out of it and I called him out. Turns out his name is Moroni, and hes the Branch president here in Beja. Quite the funny first impression! He's really cool. He's brazilian, an RM, and living here attending school (theres a big university here in Beja, so its kinda like a little college/tourist town) and he's the branch president too. He welcomed us, and we chatted for a bit. 

We then got to the bus station and miraculously the bus with my journal and stuff was still there, so thank freaking goodness, I got my stuff back.

So yeah, that was my first day in Beja.

But since then, the work here has been really really cool. The people here are much different. There are a lot more plain old portuguese, and a lot less africans than my last area. However, all the people here are very nice and open. As a result, we had a lot of success, we managed to teach about 15 people (some didnt accept more) but a handful of them have decent potential. It was pretty cool. This week flew by because we just taught and taught. It was quite satisfying work, and as a result, that feeling of the whitewash pressure really wore off. The people here are just more open, so when they finally end up listening, usually they enjoy the message of the gospel that we bring.

We actually have been so busy that we havent even seen all of the city yet, we kinda dive in, trying to get to the other side, but only cross half of it because we end up teaching people along the way and filling our day. Its a really cool city, probably the size of San Giovanni La Punta (perhaps a bit bigger). Its got a lot more European flavor than my last area, so now I actually feel like Im truly serving a mission in Portugal haha. For example, there's a big castle right smack in the center of the city, and we pass by it usually a couple of times every day. It's pretty classy here, very very old too, Dad would enjoy seeing it.

Oh, my last area was Povoa, which is one of the northernmost areas on our mission. In my last weeks there, winter was starting to finally show up. I almost used a jacket, once. But, this area is in the lower southern half of our mission, so summer is still hanging around here. Its not too bad, just a bit toasty during the day. Our house actually has AC, something really rare in this mission, but we dont use it much. But, rumor has it that when winter eventually arrives here, it hits hard, so Im waiting for that eventual season change, if it ever comes.

Beja is actually an area quite isolated from the rest of the mission, so I wont being seeing other missionaries a lot here... only Zone meetings every month or so, we will do our weekly district meetings by skype. But Im excited, for a zone meeting this week we will actually get to travel to a city down south and stay the night there with other missionaries. I enjoy travelling in the mission.

Saturday night, we got a call from the branch president, asking us both to speak in sacrament meeting... great. We wrote our talks that night, and everything went pretty smooth. The branch here has an average attendance of 25-30 people, and they're all super nice and cool.

We were walking by the hospital and saw a couple probably in there 20's walk out. We talked to them, and ended up teaching them the Plan of Salvation there on a bench. They were super cool, Antonio and Hilda. They have both lost many loved ones in their lives, and by such they found each other and help each other in the challenges they face. They were visiting a sick relative that day. We applied that sense of support they give to one another to the Atonement of Christ, and taught a very good lesson, centralized on what they were going through. The Spirit was present quite strongly. We invited them to be baptized too, they said if all goes well, they will. They committed to come to church next Sunday too. We ran out of time and didnt get a chance to really make plans, but we will take a bus to the little town they live in and teach them again this week. This is just one example, but we had a handful of other good lessons with other people too. 

There's a college here, so actually a lot of the people weve taught are students. Kids my age, its really strange, but theyre all very open and kind.

But yeah, things are certainly going well here. Im really working in a higher gear, enjoying the new frontier and challenge.

Ciao,

Elder Ward

Photos! 

 So here's Clara and Joelson, our investigators back from the last area. They just need to marry, and theyll be baptized fosho

 One last photo with our group there in my last area

 On our way to Beja

 One of the handful of castles we passed

 The sunset from our window when we arrived.

 Elder Cottrell posin'

And the castle that sits in the center of town.

​

Oh, and I think Im going to be a missionary for halloween tonight. (bah dum tiss)