Dear friends and family,
We had a pretty solid week... well, our last week here in Beja. We got the transfer phonecall really late last night... I´m being transfered to an area called Loulé, a town that is basically on the southernmost edge of Portugal, just a bit inland. Elder Cottrell served there for 3 transfers (4.5 months) and he said he really enjoyed it, although he had a car and actually worked in some neighboring towns. Also, Elder Francis actually served in Loulé as his first area for 3 transfers, aka he was "born" there. Pretty interesting, all the mission history that we get mixed up in... I will be serving with Elder Tester, who has been in the mission in Portugal for 2 transfers (3 months), or that is, he just finished being trained officially — that´s all the info I got, so it should be fun to discover all the new people and places these next weeks. It all starts tomorrow, I have to bus about 4 hours north to Lisbon, meet up with Elder Tester, and then travel back south, probably another 4 hours or so. So, lots of travelling, all done just tomorrow.
Im pretty stoked. Although I really enjoyed serving here in Beja, change can always be a good thing. I will miss Beja, its a beautiful area, and it has a lot of people with potential, but it seems that I´m needed elsewhere. I was also really enjoying the cold weather, rumor has it Beja is one of the coldest areas we have.
Elder Cottrell has been also transfered. He will serve in Torres Vedras, an area way up north, above Lisbon. He will be serving with a New Zealander (yo chase) Elder Lowry. Funny enough, my previous comp, Elder Fletcher also served there... so yeah, quite a spaghetti bowl of who´s been where.
So that´s that! Let´s talk about the week.
We tried to meet up with Ana this week, after a couple appointments that fell through, we managed to meet up with her, but unfortunately we ran short on time. We only had time to share a scripture and split, so unfortunately we didnt get the chance to make a plan with her to help her quit smoking.
We met up with Pedro once more. In our visit, we tried to clarify to him the importance of making a decision to be baptized. As I explained, he already knows the truth, he has been taught for a while, so we didnt want to beat around the bush, but to help him do what matters. Unfortunately, he didnt budge. Maybe we were too pushy, our pushed a button, but he seemed quite hesitant suddenly. He said he cant leave the catholic faith because he was born and raised in it, and he is also thoroughly convinced that quitting smoking will do him more harm than continuing.
"But wait Elder Ward did you try telling him x or y?!" Well, yes, we tried addressing his concerns, explaining how he had felt the spirit already telling him the truth etc. I´m no doctor, but I tried to explain to him how continuing wouldnt help, etc.... we talked in circles a bit, and realized he wants just to stay were he is. So, we though it would be wise to give him a cool down.
I also went on a division one day with Elder Knowlton, from Portland, Oregon. It was a good time, got to know him a bit, and see some new ways to work.
So about 2 weeks ago we met a guy named Viorel. He is Romanian, but speaks spanish too. We were looking for an old investigator´s address when we knocked at his door. He is here with a bunch more romanians who are kinda in an immigrant situation. He too, works in the olive fields. He´s about 50 years old. When we talked with him at the door, he said (basically) "yall believe in God?" "yup, in fac—" "oh good. God saved my live, i believe in him." and just like that it was quite easy to link with him.
So, later we stopped by his place, no invitation, and he let us in. There are about 10 or so people living in that house. They were all very nice, and in fact they gave us food, comparable to a scone, a fried pastry with sugar. 5 or so of them sat down, but some got up and left, or entered, so we focused on Viorel and his friend. They spoke spanish to us, and we spoke portuguese to them, and it all worked out pretty well. We taught them the restoration. They enjoyed it, and accepted El Libro de Mormón (in spanish) very well. In fact, they said things like "wow, i didnt think there was more scripture... i remember in the bible they said there were more books, etc" (John 21:25). We invited them to read, pray, and be baptized. In short, Viorel accepted to be baptized on Christmas day. Its a shame Im getting transfered though... but all in the Lord´s hands and time.
We lost contact with our Polish friend, Artur, for a bit last week. When we got in contact again, we discovered why he didnt make it to church last Sunday. He was injured at work, hit by another worker who was using a quad bike. He had a gash pretty bad on his leg, and stitches on his forehead. He walked with a bad limp, pretty roughed, up, but he´s a tough guy. We managed to meet up with him at his place, with was a large house for people in a similar situation as Viorel, working in the fields, not enough money to get your own place. There were a handful of people there, and many were actually Indians, most of them Muslims. One of them, named Jawad, sat down with us to hear our lesson with Artur. He was quite curious. We reviewed the restoration with artur, and re invited him to act, it went pretty well. He committed to read and pray.
The next day, Artur limped with us to church (what a guy, really folks, give him a hand. There are members who dont come because it rains haha). On the way Vitor, our romanian friend from a couple weeks back who read a bunch of the Book of Mormon, called us to meet up and come to church too. On the way, we also got a call from Jawad, he too, joined up with us at the chapel.
And to top it all off, a guy we met on the street, named Carlos, came to church too after we had only called him.
Woah, right? 4 guys all came to church with us, it was great.
They all enjoyed it. It was a good time, also a bit hectic trying to help them all get to where they needed to go, especially when 2 dont know portuguese, and one doesnt know any other language haha. Jawad, admittedly, felt a bit strange, coming from a muslim background, visiting a christian church. Artur thought it was good. Carlos really liked it, in fact he asked to take home a Gospel Principles book "because it just talks about so much good stuff, i want to read it" he said. We sent him home with a Book of Mormon too haha. Vitor, not knowing portuguese or english, enjoyed it anyways. I sat next to him in the last hour, and just shared some of my favorite scriptures with him, and he read them in a BoM in Romanian. He enjoyed it. He would often continue reading afterwards, into the next chapter, etc. I let him continue. He even took out a pen and made some notes. What a guy. Vitor will return to Romania for Christmas, so we will pass his info to the missionaries there, and hopefully he can continue learning, most importantly in his native tongue.
Yeah, as you can see, a solid week. Im out of time.
Ciao,
Elder Ward
Sorry folks, the computer was really slow today, and I couldnt get the photos to upload...I fought and tried... next week.
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