It´s been a good week. In case you´re wondering, no, I didn´t do anything special for thanksgiving... actually I almost forgot. But that´s that.
It was a week of many languages. We contacted a guy from Switzerland, a a couple Spaniards (I can basically understand spanish it´s really cool) and a Frenchman.
We taught an investigator from a couple weeks ago, Vitor, who is from Romania. Romanian is a language quite a bit different, but every once in a while a word overlaps with one in Italian that I already know... We have to communicate in very very basic english, because he knows more of that than portuguese. His friend, a Romanian as well, spoke spanish, so we used him a bit to help out too with translation... but not much got across the line. We basically left the Book of Mormon with him in Romanian. In a few days we only had time to stop and say hello, but he had read all the way until 1 Nephi 11, so yeah he likes it. Unfortunately he couldnt make it to church because of work, but we will see what happens in the near future with him.
We also found and taught a Polish man, Artur, a couple times now. He´s been enjoying our visits (only 2 so far, he´s a busy guy). He´s been in Portugal for 8 years now, so he speaks portuguese decently, but actually said he prefers that we talk in english with him, because he learned it better in school. We couldnt get him a BoM in Polish yet, so for now we have printed things in polish for him. He´s awfully curious... in fact he´s already read up on polygamy and the word of wisdom haha, so our visits with him have always been interesting. We´ve invited him to read and pray, obviously, but havent gotten the chance to see results.
And, to top off all the language-ness, Sunday morning when we were walking to church, some other missionaries called us and said "HEY Elder Ward you speak Italian right?!" "well.. yeah kinda its been a whil—" "OKay great can you tell our investigator blah blah blah..." it was pretty funny. It was a bit tought too, I had to really dig to find my italian again and had to block the portuguese from coming out. I heard later that the investigator really enjoyed church that day and is progressing well haha.
We visited a lot of Less Active members this week... and a couple that we visited during the week, even if it was just at the door, came to church this sunday! It was pretty cool, they saw all the old faces they hadnt seen for a while.
This week we also found a man named Pedro. He´s about 45 ish, lives alone, has a son living with his ex wife elsewhere. He´s already been taught many times by the missionaries, but we had a really powerful visit with him, and he came to church with us this sunday. He enjoyed it (like the other times) but his challenges are his extremely Catholic family whom he fears, and a pretty heavy smoking habit... but weve challenge him to stop smoking, we plan on making plans with him in the next visit.
We also taught a woman named Ana, basically in the same situation as Pedro, but living with her mother, who is a less active who we managed to bring back this sunday. Ana, like Pedro, smokes a lot, but knows the truth, and by this, still hasnt been baptized... So yeah, the same dealio there.
Elder Cottrell turned 20 this week, and I didnt even know. Turns out a couple weeks back he lied to me about his birthday... I only found out when a senior missionary couple called us and delivered him a cake. He kept it a secret because he actually didnt want to celebrate it, but to work and focus... pretty solid guy. But when he saw the cake, we took a break, bought some icecream to go with it, ate a bit, and got right back to work. What a sly dog haha.
But yeah, a pretty good week, quite eventful. In other news, its finally getting nice and cool here, although my companion has been freezing for weeks now.
Até próximo,
Elder Ward
Sorry, not a ton of content in the image department today...next time.
(idk if I already sent this one... hope not)
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