30 January 2017 Sol na Praia

Dear family and friends,

Hey! The 2nd week in a row with photos! Wow!... At last the computer in the chapel has started working, so I should be able to send a handful of photos every week. I tried to upload more but hit the MB limit really fast.

Anyways... let´s get started. We had a handful of really cool experiences.. I´ll get right to them.

A week or two back we were knocking doors in the corner of town... and the usual, it was running a bit slow. Lots of people just didn´t want to hear us, until some didn´t even open the door haha (portuguese do it all the time). We usually knock once, touch the bell, and wait 20 seconds or so... the buildings are really quiet too, so it´s easy to judge when someone´s coming or not.

We knocked a door, and Elder Jan and I started conversing about something, a minute or so passed, when suddenly a man opened the door. He was in his pajamas and and seemed pretty tired and pretty ticked too. 

"Sorry sir! We hope we didn´t wake you!" I said.

"yeah yeah whaddya want" he grunted.

"We´re missionaries etc etc" 

"oh... I met some of you guys in germany a while back... listen, I was resting, I´ve got a cold—"

"Could we just have your number and try another time?"

He gave us his number, and we told him we would come back the following week. In the conversation, Elder Jan tried to ease him too by speaking german to him, which he liked.

So we come back the next week and knock on his door again, he opens it, grins, and says "Come in!" and gestures towards the living room. I looked at Elder Jan, surprised.

He was doing much better, had gotten over his cold, and was no longer annoyed with us haha, had gotten back to be his normal self. We started conversing with him and he told us a bit of his story. He´s brazilian, went to germany and stayed there for three years to work. One day he was sitting in a subway and saw two kids in white shirts and ties on a bench across the hall. They were reading a book. He was suddenly curious. He got up, approached them, and asked them about the book. From there, and through some rough communication, he was taught by the missionaries for six months, and was baptized and confirmed a member of the church. He said he loved the experience, that it was an amazing time in his life, and he has a great respect for missionaries. He said he didn´t remember much in the doorway with us the first time, but now everything´s great. However, a week after being baptized, he went to Portugal. He left with some info of church locations in Lisbon, but ended up moving to Algarve (where we are now). It has now been 10 years without contact with the church. Since then, he married another brazilian woman here and has a daughter with 7 years. He has been going to a local Evangelical church with his wife and kids, but after our conversation he said he would come to church with us asap (he had work this last sunday, but next sunday fosho). He had to go pick up his wife at the bus station, and we had another appointment, so we split up that night, but we agreed to come back to his house later that night to chat more.

We got back there and he prepared a little snack for us. We sat chatting even more. We started talking about the gospel with him. We shared 1 Nephi 8 (Lehi´s dream) and he loved it, as he read about the fog and then the iron bar, he said "ah I see why there´s a bar!" He understood everything very well and put in really good input. He said that he has already read the book of Mormon all the way through once, but lost it recently (we downloaded LDS tools on his phone before we left).  He told us the story of the Restoration and the Plan of Salvation. From there, he also told us about some things he remembered from D+C and the Pearl of Great Price. We even talked about the priesthood (he never got it) and we told him that as he comes back he can get the priesthood and baptize his wife and daughter. He liked that idea.

In fact, he´s already a missionary, on Christmas, he told us, he knocked all of the doors in his apartment building and gave all his neighbors some chocolate with his daughter. He also invited all of them to remember the true meaning of Christmas at the same time.

Ok pause. Cool story, right? Now tell me, coincidence? nah. So many things were so coordinated, and now the time is right for him and his family. It´s quite funny, had Elder Jan not spoken to him in German in the moment that he found out he lived in Germany, he would have slammed the door.

We work in a district here in the Algarve, we are hoping to create a stake, it has been a huge project lately. All that is needed is a few more priesthood holders, and we found one who will fill one of those spots faithfully.

So yeah, a cool story.

We also taught Alice again this week. This time, it was just Elder Jan and I. We had a really good visit. She has had a hard life. Her son (already a grown man) went missing and actually died, and she never found out about the death for 2 years, stuff like that. She is now dealing with a lot of stress and pressure, but she herself has said that with our visits and the gospel, she is feeling much much better. We taught the Plan of Salvation to her. It ran so well that we ended up teaching her about baptisms for the dead, in relation to her son, because welp, she really wanted to know! She asked all of the perfect questions... She soaked it all up. It was really great. Unfortunately she was a bit sick and had to run a big inventory thing in her shop, so she didnt get to go to church.. grr... but she already said she´ll surely come this next Sunday.

A bit of misc info... (applies to recent RM´s haha). We had a world wide missionary broadcast, and they changed a bit more of our everyday work. Instead of tons of key indicators (lessons with member present, references contacted, other lessons, etc) we now only have 4. Baptisms/confirmations, investigators with a baptismal date, inv´s in church, and new inv´s. It changes things quite a bit... But I thought Chase maybe would find it interesting. Weekly planning takes a lot less time iwth only 4 key ind´s!

This week, miraculously, we actually had 5 meals given to us. We ate once with Maria and Nina, and other times with members, mainly Ecuadorans. It was great, good food. One was a huge family night thingy, and they invited a ton of non-member friends, and all of them were Ecuadorans too! Lots of ponytails and 2 whiteboys. We hope to be able to teach some of them in the new future.

We went to the beach these 2 last pdays. It was pretty cool, but man I wanna get in the water haha.

I think that´s all. Not much more time, sorry. But these for sure were the highlights of the week. 

Until next week,

Elder Ward

 Yes mom and dad, I threw lots of rocks.

 Always fun to find a guitar every once in a while. Elder Tapia was my capo. 

23 January 2017 Finally

Dear family and friends,

Well good news! I finally got to attach some photos, so, enjoy those!

Anyways, time is short as always, I´ll get right to it. I wont cover all the happenings of the week, but I jotted down some funny ones to share.

We have an investigator, Alice, who is awfully great. She works in a little pharmacy and was actually a reference from some members, the Sousa family. She is about 60 years old, and a very nice lady, Portuguese. We´ve taught her a couple times now, with our branch president, President Rui. But this week we got to teach her with the Sousa´s, Joaquim and Amélia. It ran really well, the help that Rui and the Sousa´s have given is invaluable. We showed up for the visit, and Elder Jan and I almost didnt have to do anything, they were already talking about the gospel and just making a friendship that will surely help Alice become a strong member. Alice herself has already said that she would like to go to church 2 or 3 times, and then commit to baptism to "help us fulfill our mission" haha. She´s awfully willing and really accepting to the gospel right now. She called us today while we were in the grocery store (to cancel our appointment, we re-planned for tomorrow, no worries) and told us that she was reading about Alma, the missionary in that very moment and really enjoying it. It´s fun to work with her. We actually teach her in her little pharmacy during her lunchbreak, usually. 

In our lesson this week she was chatting with Amelia, like old women chat, y´know? Just a lot of subjects very quickly and excessive nodding. Anyways Amelia in the conversation discovered that Alice is originally from the Alentejo, (a "district" of Portugal, kinda like a state). She was suddenly very elated and they started going on and on about their parents who are both from the same little town/village there. They covered many subjects, and discovered a lot of funny little links between them, for example, Alice´s uncle was Amélia´s mom´s milkman or something like that, it was really funny. Small world (especially in Portugal 50 years ago haha).

Church this Sunday was rather interesting. I was actually assigned to give a talk, but when I showed up, Rui came up to me and said "Elder Ward, you´ll talk next week, I need you to translate the meeting for these folks here". We had some visitors from Wales (our area is very touristy, lots of British visit), and I sat the whole sacrament meeting translating. I understand everything easily now, but in the moment that I would speak it to them, I couldnt hear the speaker over my own voice, and like so, it was a challenge but a brain workout for sure.

Our branch also has 4 or so Ecuadorean families, the men with dark ponytails and everything, its legit. One is the 1st counselor in the Branch Presidency, so he directs the meeting in spanish haha. Anyways, they´re all really cool and awfully nice. In Sunday school we were sat there talking about a story in the Book of Mormon and the teacher said something along the lines of "and all of Lehi´s seed was nearly destroyed, well, not all of them, we have still some lamanites here with us" and its just always a crackup (dont worry, they dont take offense to it, they like it). Its true though, and they´re fulfilling prophecy at the same time.

We got a phonecall this week. The our mission president wants the entire mission to read the BoM before the 16th of February. So, basically 21 pages everyday... Its actually quite a challenge, because I like to take my time, but as youve already heard from me, time as a missionary is hard to come by. Every night I stay up a little longer reading. Its a very enjoyable experience. Ive certainly learned a lot about the gospel in a whole since the last time a sat down to read the whole book. Because of such, I grasp a lot more this time around. Its pretty great, would recommend.

We had a little FHE with a member this week, João, from Guiné Bisau (africa), and he brought is friend Celeste and Maiza (also africans), some investigators who had been out of the country for a little while, so I never got to know them. The lesson ran well, theyre some good people and have good potential. Afterwards, João threw 5 spoons on the table, and then a big pan with rice, various vegetables, and 2 hand-sized cooked fish on top (entire fish, head and all haha). No plates needed, we all just used our spoons and started eating, it was pretty good. I wish I would have brought my camera. Just imagine the following photo for me: 3 very dark africans and 2 whiteboys at a little wooden table in a little bitty house, with a pan of food in the middle haha. It was a good time.

Alright gotta wrap it up. It was a good week. We´ve got a few good investigators who are progressing well. Sorry for not writing more, we got our haircut today with one of our investigators, Nina. She did a good job but it took a bit longer than we anticipated.

Agh! Ive got more to share, but just no time!

Until next time folks!

Ciao,

Elder Ward

A photo I´ve been meaning to send for a while. This is back from Beja. Lots of little small houses.

 Albufeira, a part of it. 

A sunrise view from our apartment window, zoomed at 18x. A catholic church on the hill.

A couple pdays back, we made a temple with our LZs, it was pretty fun. No, I didn´t go swimming :(

A typical view during our days here. Its not cold enough...

A lovely family in our branch and the view they get to enjoy. They fed us well.

16 January 2017 Breve

Dear family and friends,

Another happy Monday to yall. I´m a bit tired, Imma try to make this email short and sweet.

Transfers came. Nothing changed haha. I will stay here in Loulé, Quarteira, and Albufeira for another at least 6 weeks. And, I will be continuing with Elder Jan. So, everythings pretty chill there. In fact, there wasnt a single change in my district haha.

This last Saturday, one of our investigators, Maria, was baptized. Elder Jan performed the ordinance, everything ran pretty well. She is a very special woman, and it was a pleasure to teach her for the short time I did. In fact, in her conversion, I did virtually nothing. Elder Jan and his previous companion found her and taught her everything. 

The baptism ran well, but unfortunately no one showed up... only our branch president and his wife, Nina (an investigator), and Luisa, Maria´s cousin, and a couple other missionaries.

Even so, it was a special experience for her. She was confirmed in church yesterday.

Just before the baptism, I got to hold a baptismal interview with an older fella, and investigator from the sister missionaries. The interview ran well, it was cool to get to know him and his life a little bit, and help another soul be baptized.

This week we did an especially large amount of teaching. We have a decent handful of really cool investigators who should start to progress soon. Weve been awfully busy and fortunately with this new transfer nothing changed to we can just keep steaming ahead!

Sorry folks, it´s actually been a very good week, its just that so much has happened that it is quite a headache to write it all down. However, know that Im fine and happy and enjoying the work.

Ciao,

Elder Ward

10 January 2017 Woah

Dear friends and family,

This week has been interesting to say the least. First off, you´re probably wondering why this letter came late... I´ll get to that. There´s a lot to say, I probably won´t cover it all, but let´s try to attack this week day by day.

Last pday was pretty normal. After the pday, we drove to Quarteira to meet up with one of our investigators in the home of our branch president, President Rui, who is just a boss hands down (I´ll talk more about him later). We had a little family home evening there and we taught and watched the Restoration with our investigator, Nina, a brazilian woman, 45ish years old. She is actually the boss of another one of our investigators, Maria, who is planned to be baptized this Saturday. Maria started investigating the church and she started yaking about it with all of her friends (they work together in a hair salon, duh, a lot of talking), and now Nina is an investigator who is progressing very well and actually already accepted to be baptized, but wants time to prepare. The lesson with her went very well, Rui and his wife Cândida helped a ton. Rui, for example, was baptized about a year ago, already went to the temple, and is now a great branch president. No yeah, Nina is really cool. She showed up to church (the day before) with Maria and they both really enjoyed it.

In that division with Elder Kaelberer last week we contacted a brazilian man named Ednilson. We jotted down a time to pass by, so we did this last Tuesday. His wife, Rose, answered the door, Ednilson was in the shower. The moment she heard "we´re here to share a message about Jesus Christ, we talked with Ednilson last week and he told us to pass by" she let us in.

We chatted with her a bit, and Ednilson came out. We taught the Restoration, and it went pretty well. They both listened quite attently. Ednilson is not very religious, and on the other hand Rose is a strong evangelical/pentecostal (something like that, brazilians are always complicated haha). They liked it, although Rose seemed hesitant at the end to change. Ednilson, however, enjoyed the message and accepted an invite to read and pray about the BoM. We invited him to pray to close our visit, and he did. At the end, Rose was a bit teary. She said she basically couldnt remember the last time her husband prayed but we got him to do it. It was pretty cool.

We had to travel to Lisbon once again (the third time this transfer). Elder Jan had to complete his residency in Portugal.​ Everything ran smoothly, we travelled the night beforehand and spent the night there, and returned afterwards. It was a bit annoying though, that trip makes 3 days in total lost in our transfer together in just travelling. We went with the missionaries of the mission office to a Chinese Buffet, it was pretty decent, cant complain.

We then had a division with our Zone Leaders in a neighboring city, Faro. They have had some difficulty in their area recently and felt the need to expand their frontiers and ideas a bit. So, for the division they took Elder Jan and I on a long walk to a far away area that was very wealthy, and there we knocked on doors for the entire day. It was kinda lame to be honest. Everybody there already has what they "need" in life like cars and big houses, so virtually nobody even stopped to listen to us. 

Even though the division was a bit lame, I learned a lot. Elder Thomas, the kid with whom I passed the day, maintained a very positive attitude the entire time, even when people ended up yelling at us haha. Quite a smiley guy.

Another day, President Rui called us up to meet up with us. We walked with him to a friend of a member, Alice, who works in a little pharmacy and has been stressing a lot in her life lately. She talked with a member friend about priesthood blessings, and because of such, we were eventually invited to visit with her. There, we taught her a bit, and ended up giving her a blessing. It was a powerful experience, she is an awfully nice lady and can certainly progress.

That same night we continued walking about our scheduled stuff and taught two more lessons with President Rui´s help. I told you, he´s a boss. He just loves working with us. He´s got a job, and a 5 month baby boy, but he still makes time, up to hours a day, to try to work with us missionaries, its great.

Like I said, we had a good day at church, Maria and Nina both came. Afterwards we headed to our area to start teachin´and preachin´. We walked up to this little buildint complex, and the first door we knocked a man with about 40 years of age opened up and let us in. His name was Joaquim, and he was an atheist. He had a guitar and I played it a bit before starting, just to be cool. We had an interesting conversation with him, and ended up teaching a bit of the Plan of Salvation. It ran well, but as we kept going we discovered that he didnt have much real intent. He wanted to know if God was real or not, but he said if he knew, it would make no difference in his life. Afterwards, before we left he said "ey play one more song before you go" and I obliged and did so haha, first time in a long while, steel string too.

Later that night we knocked doors in a huge apartment tower. About half way through, we had been rejected a lot. Finally, as we knocked a door, a nice brazilian woman opened the door, surprised. We introduced ourselves to her and the large family behind her, Filipe and Rafaela, a young married couple, and Glayson and Mariana, an older married couple, like early 40´s, and a few children. There were also 3 children present, I didnt catch the mapping of the family haha. They were actually on their way out to go to church, they all had bibles in hand. We offered our message, and they turned around and led us in to the kitchen table, where we taught the Restoration. It ran well, but at the end they brought up a lot of questions about authority, until it almost escalated to a "bible bash". It wasnt heated at all, they were super nice, but they are very smart and well educated in the bible. They actually dont claim to be a religion, but rather call themselves "followers of Christ" and meet up with people in town, a group of about 30 people, Glayson being their leader. They kinda have their own little gig of a religion going, its pretty interesting.

Anyways we started talking about our teaching versus theirs, etc, but I stopped the conversation and said "look, we are all christians and believe in the bible, yet we can be divided by the same book on little things like these" from there Elder Jan and I introduced the Book of Mormon, scripture to clarify and restore. It went well after that, and they accepted it well. They committed to read and pray. At the end, Filipe had already read through the introduction.

So that was Sunday.

However some really interesting stuff happened during our pday, and this morning too. However, my time is up, the story with have to wait for next week.

Take care,

Elder Ward

So I managed to get some photos in here, finally. However, I cannot guarantee next week, its a really complicated process in this area, and they are in the drive format, I dunno, some of you may not be able to view them.. Oh, speaking of which, I will be receiving new transfers this next sunday, so even more news to come!

2 January 2017 Coisas Novas

Dear friends and family,

A happy new year to everyone! I hope yall had a good time. For the first time in a long time probably all of my concious life, I slept right through the new year... we had an exhausting day beforehand, and we were fasting, so we just hit the hay. It was great.

once again im on an annoying little keyboard with a different layout than normal, so i wont be capitalizing, my apologies to those ocd folks out there. but in return, i finally got to upload some photos... enjoy! i think they are in a different format than the norm, im not even sure if it will work, but yall should still be able to see them.

alrighty then, lets get to the meat and beans.

we started off our week with a division... now lets see if yall have been paying attention to the emails. pop quiz! with who did i have my first division? think real hard! Elder Kaelberer, from utah! i honestly wouldnt even expect my own mother to remember such a detail, so no worries if you didnt remember haha.

anyways elder kaelberer since that first division was called to be the mission presidents assistant, so his and his companion called us and visited our area for a division. we worked in a tripla, elder kaelberer, elder jan, and myself. it was a good time, elder kaelberer is a great guy. elder jan transalted elder kaelberers name to him from german, and funnily enough, it is the name of someone who helps cows give birth, so i imagine something like "cow bearer" but yeah what a name. elder kaelberer thought it was funny.

in such division, we managed to find and teach two indian fellas, sumar and banny. there was a bit of a language barrier, but it was a good visit. it was an interesting, and slightly disorganized discussion, we actually taught on their balcony (actually visible in one of the photos below) during a really cool sunset. their accents reminded me a lot of elder karthigeyan. were going to try to get back to them with books of mormon in hindi.

we aslo met up with a brazilian lady, geani, we met a few days beforehand and taught her a bit. she also enjoyed it. she seems to have potential, we will be working with her in the near future. shes very evangelical though, just like a lot of the brazilians we teach, so its always an interesting discussion. it was a good division, we got a lot of work in.

later in the week, we found a man from nepal, suraj, and taught him as well. he let us right in. he is originally hindu in religious beleifs, but he said that after the ban of the bible was lifted in his country he gave it a read and enjoyed it, and by such reason also enjoyed our message of the restoration. he doesnt speak english super well, so we kept it simple, and invited him to pray and ask god if the church of jesus christ had been presented to him. we knelt, and he closed his eyes and folded his arms just like a child, but didnt speak his prayer, but we let it happen. he finished, and we asked him about it and he said "i feel something different" and with such feelings he came to the conlusion that we had something truly special -- and thats exactly what we want to happen. it was a cool visit. were looking to come back with a book of mormon in nepali.

yesterday, we had a big mission conference online. we used a program that basically supported a ginormous conference called zoom, and the whole mission was there, really cool. president tavares organized it so that he could make some big announcements.

and oh boy, there have been some changes. our missionary schedule has changed completely! i now get 12 hours of designated sleep time. its great. nah, that would never happen haha.

what ive been doing for the last little while (it has small changes between trainers and normal missionaries, but this is what ive been doing recently)

7am, wake up, pray, excersizes until 730

730-830 breakfast, shower, get dressed, etc

830-930 personal study

930-1130 compainionship study / training and practices

1130-1pm outside talking to people, knocking doors, teaching people, etc etc

1pm-2pm lunch

2-3 language study

3-930pm outside talking, teaching, knocking, etc

930-1015ish daily planning (aka plan the next day)

1015ish-11pm other misc tasks, mainly phonecalls to follow up with missionaries in my district

1120ish hay, finally.

rinse and repeat!

but now its changed to:

(probably boring to some folks out there, but this is my life everyday, and rms will get it too)

7-830 same as before

830-900 daily planning

9-10am personal study

10am-1pm preachin and teachin

1-2 lunch

2-330 a mixture of language, compainionship study, and training

330-930pm preachin and teachin

930 IM FREE. well, not completely, there are still other miscellaneous tasks to do at night, but the big deal is that i can now get to bed as early as 10 if everything goes well! its a christmas miracle!

"b-but elder ward, w-wheres dinner?" - there is none. i cant tell you how many people ive taught because i didnt stop to eat dinner.

i know it was a bunch of numbers, but its a big deal for us missionaries, it literally will change our lives haha. tomorrow will be our first day really putting it in practice.

oh! i nearly forgot an interesting story!

one day this week we were working in quarteira when at about 5pm we had nothing to do. all of our appointments cancelled, so we just started walking. we stopped to talk to these people who were getting into their car, they didnt want anything to do with us, so we were about to head off, continue walking, when we heard a quiet "elders" from behind us. 

we turned around to see a small portuguese woman, probably approaching 50 years of age. we immediately responded and started talking to her and she explained her situation.

her name is paulina, and she is a member of the church for a few decades now. she came to the algarve (the south edge of the country) from the north looking for her son, paulo, who is 18 years old. she was actually sitting in her car when she heard us talk to those people. she explained to us how her son had run away last summer, and how she had been trying to find him since then. she ended up in this situation, and explained to us that she saw her son walking in this area the night before. she gave us his contact, and showed us to where she saw him last, and told us that he lives in one of the buildings in the little area. we gladly obliged to help her out, and to try to find her son. she actually said "hey follow me, i think i saw him enter in one of these houses". we walked with here to a door, and without warning she just hit the doorbell, and scurried to the side out of veiw, to let us do the talking haha. it was pretty funny. she was an awfully sweet lady, and i felt really bad for her. elder jan and i tried calling paulo, but to no avail unfortunately. weve kept in touch with paulina a bit, but not much has happened. well keep and eye out for sure.

i share this because, well, it was a really interesting experience. it was also really cool how we "accidentally" just wandered into the path of paulina. "coincedences" huh

anyways, i think that sums up my week. it was a good one for sure, like always. not much contact with toni for those who are wondering, but we are heading there tonight. things are going really well in general.

Take care everybody!

Elder Ward