Well I lied. A couple things have changed.
Last pday, Elder Cottrell and I packed our bags, and did our errands, and worked a bit more in Beja just to finish the day. The next morning we dragged (or drug?, i dunno, english is long gone now) our bags to the bus station, and hopped on a 4 hour ride to Lisbon. It was quite a scenic trip, I enjoyed it, although it was quite long.
So lemme explain transfers real quick. Every 6 weeks missionaries recieve a phone call telling them if they will remain in and area, or go to another... so its kinda like a little christmas for missionaries, the switchup is always a fun time.
With such phonecall, we receive our travel plans. In short, all of the missionaries who are transfered (varies, between 20-40) meet up at a train station in Lisbon. This location is the meet up spot because its a conveniente hub for all travels in our mission. So, one floor of this train station, once every six weeks, is flooded with missionaries, its a party haha.
Tuesday, as I was explaining, I headed there to meet up with my new companion Elder Tester. A bunch of missionaries were there, I saw some old faces, for example Elder Fletcher, a couple buds from the MTC, and so on. After a little bit, I made a phone call to the Elders who were still in Loulé to ask a question about technicalities of the transfer. They actually explained to me that I wouldnt be serving with Elder Tester, but that there had been a change in the transfer.
I have been reassigned to work with Elder Jan (pronounced like "yawn"). He is freaking cool. He´s from Switzerland (we´ve already conversed a bit about Kandersteg), 23 three years old, already served in the Swiss Air Force, and a stud. He´s been in Portugal for 7 weeks now. He speaks portuguese quite well for a missionary with only 7 weeks, (with a heavy german accent too haha) and is learning fast too. He was born in the church, and his mom converted at 20 years of age. His father was 3 years old when his parents (Elder Jan´s grandparents) were baptized. German (Swiss dialect) is his native tongue, he´s not fluent, but knows quite a bit of french, and speaks english pretty well too. However, between us, only portuguese is used.
Elder Jan started his mission in an area that contains two cities, Albufeira and Quarteira (Elder Cottrell served already in these cities, so I´m following his tracks haha), with his original trainer, Elder Tapia. I will be continuing the training of Elder Jan, in this same area. Elder Tester actually went to serve with Elder Tapia in Loulé, the area I was going to go to. However, the four of us all live in Loulé together. Elder Jan and I are blessed to have one of the few mission cars, and Elder Jan is the assigned driver (darn, I really want to drive).
We live in a little apartment that suits the necessities, but thats about it. Funny enough, im a lot further south in the mission now, so from our house we can actually see a sliver of the ocean.
Anyways, quite the crazy tranfer. Im very excited to serve here with Elder Jan. He is a powerful missionary, and although I may be "training" him work and language wise, I learn a fair share from him too. He´s a humble guy, but recognizes that he has a great potential. With such, he has determination I have not yet seen... very determined to be the best missionary he can be. I will try my best to help him reach what he hopes to achieve, and as soon as possible. In he wants to learn the language very quickly, so I actually prepare little portuguese lessons for him each language study that are personalized to what I see he is needing to improve.
Funny enough, him and I met last transfer, when he originally arrived, at a Zone Conference. We saw a couple times after, and I thought he was a pretty cool guy, and whaddyaknow, he´s my companion now!
He´s rather excited to serve with me too, he has told me that he didnt click super well with his last companion, nobody´s fault, it happens, and is now excited to work hard with me. We´ve been together only a bit less than a week now, but we are already good friends.
In fact, we´ve technically already worked nearly a week together. I arrived in our area and met up with him to get everything started Tuesday night. The next day we started a normal work routine. The cities we work in are a bit quiet, so we have to resort to knocking a lot of doors. However, its proven quite effective, here the people are quite open and receptive, and weve already taught quite a few. Elder Jan, fortunately, knows the area quite well, as well as a few investigators he and his previous companion had been working with. I got to know a few of them, for example, a young couple from Brazil, and another named Maria, from Cabo Verde. Maria is quite close to baptism, in fact she was supposed to be baptized yesterday, but is having some difficulties (its complicated, really) and will wait a few weeks. The brazilian couple, Jonatas and Fernanda are progressing very well. They want to be baptized, but they live a little ways away from the church, which brings a bit of difficulty into the equation. Certainly they will progress this week, and be baptized soon. Other than that, were still getting started, I´ll share more next week for sure, when more is established.
I also forgot to mention in the last email that I was assigned to be the new district leader here. I have a district with 8 missionaries, including myself and Elder Jan. Last week I had to throw together a meeting and stuff, its been interesting. Its quite a task, a bit intimidating too but I enjoy it. I like the challenges that have come up recently. Its not exactly the most comfortable change. lots of things are happening really fast, but its a good thing because more growth happens when we arent in our comfort zone. I actually have not received any training for such a job, in fact Ive kinda been "winging it", just doing what Elder Marques and Elder Fletcher used to do. I will go to a training meeting about all this leadership jazz tomorrow luckily haha.
Anyways, its been a good week. Looking forward for these next weeks to come. Unfortunately we have to use the public library here, so I cant upload photos... I will have to go the chapel and try there. I dont know if I will have time to do so, but lets hope.
Fiquem bem,
Elder Ward
I love. To here the missionary stories. Keeep up the good work.
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