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!