17 April 2017 Zewn

Dear family and friends,

     So, there have been some changes.

     Last monday we had a pretty chill pday. We did the normal chores and then we headed basically to pass the pday with members. We had a lunch and then went to another family's home to just play games and laugh. It was fun. We then headed home and Elder Kampff packed up his stuff for the journey on tuesday.

     The next morning we met up with Elder Jan and Elder Fogg to get a ride to Lisbon in their car. We stuffed the little car full of luggage and we drove for 3 hours to a train station where all the transferred missionairies go. There I found Elder Welch and also got to see some familiar faces, such as Elder Francis (for the first time in 7-8 months). However, nobody had time to chat, Elder Welch and I got the keys and we hopped in the car and drove 3 more hours back down to Algarve with another missionary that we left in his area.

     Elder Welch and I got home at about 8pm, but we still dropped everything and headed out to the street to contact people with the time remaining in the day. We found some interesting folks.

     The next day we only had until 7pm to work because we had to go back to lisbon again for the Conselho da Missão. With the time we had, we called Igor, a friend for a long time now. Allow me to explain.

     Igor, 25, and Bruno, 29, are brothers from Brasil. They moved here to Tiago's house (our Branch Pres.). There, they are renting out a room. They arranged all this over facebook, they didn't previously know each other. Bruno and Igor got here about 2 months ago, right when Elder Kampff and I got here. We noticed that they have a lot of potential, so we went over there several times to get to know them. They have since then come to church 4 times, and a few activities too. They are awfully cool guys, and I have had a good time getting to know them. However, due to "distractions" such as television and Elder Kampff's favorite videogame, we never got around to officially teaching them for weeks. 

     But now I´m here with Elder Welch. On Wednesday, we went strait there, sat everybody down, and we taught the Restoration and invited Igor and Bruno to investigate the church more and be baptized. They accepted. We still need to teach a lot more, but we have plans to baptize them both in about 2 weeks. Bruno afterwards got really sick, so since them we haven't had a good chance to follow up. We'll definitely keep on top of them.

     Cool story, Bruno and Igor actually got to Portugal because of FamilySearch. They needed to prove they had Portuguese ancestry to get into the country. They have a portuguese grandfather, but they needed to prove it with documents. They searched and searched but found nothing. One day they found FamilySearch and it had everything, even a photo. They were super grateful, In fact, their family in brasil got together to see the info. Their mother hadn´t seen a photo of her father for more than 20 years. They were touched. Here, Igor and Bruno, as they chatted with Tiago discovered that FamilySearch is part of the church. They were very impressed. Elder Welch and I are planning on teaching the Plan of Salvation with a link into family history and its purposes.

     Thursday we had Conselho da Missão, a big meeting with all the Zone Leaders, Sister Trainers, and the Assistents with President Tavares. It was a cool meeting. Elder Welch and I will be doing quite a bit of travelling here in the Algarve to pass on all the new training to all the missionaries. I had to leave the meeting a bet early, I went with a senior missionary couple to get my eyes checked to get my liscence here in Portugal. It was fast. We came back and ate lunch, but then I went with the couple again to another place to get a tax number or something, and we had to wait almost 4 hours in line. Bureaucracy.... We got all our marbles together, and Elder Welch and I notice that we were in lisbon, at 8pm, with nothing to do, and a car. So, with the little time we had, we took a drive to Póvoa, my first area, and said hey to the Elders there (Elder Jan) and a member. Time however vanished. We had plans to stay the night there, but it didn't work out. Elder Welch and I slept the night in the mission office. The next day we headed back to the Algarve and got back to work. So, much of our Friday was lost travelling. (While I was there in Lisbon, I actually couldn't complete the liscence process, so Im still not driving, but we will return to Lisbon probably next week or the week after to finish it up)

     On Saturday we finally had a normal day of just us and Faro. So, we got right to it. Knocking, walking, talking, teaching. It started off pretty good, but we were lacking investigators. We headed to an area to look for somebody we had contacted a few days earlier, but we couldnt find the address. We decided to knock a building next to us. We just started walking up the stairs and before knocking any door, we talked to a guy who was going down. His name is Dinis (Dee-NEESH), he's about 30, a built guy, lives alone, computer technician, portuguese, catholic at birth. He did't have much time, but we taught him in 20 minutes the Restoration, we invited him to investigate more (read and pray, etc.) to come to church, and to be baptized in three weeks. He accepted all of it. If everything goes well, he should be baptized.

     On sunday, Bruno was sick, so didn't make it to church, Igor as well didn't. They're close brothers, and don't go anywhere one without the other haha. However, Dinis came, and seemed to have enjoyed it. We're excited to work with him. He's a busy guy, but we've got another appt. with him this wednesday.

     Sunday afternoon, we taught a daughter of a member. Her name is Carina, and she's a mother with a 2 year old and another on the way. She's pretty nice, we taught her a lesson about the Plan of Salvation very focused on the family. It went well. We invited her to be baptized as well, and she too accepted. There is still a lot more to be taught and explored, as is with all our other investigators in this moment, but they all have great potential. I'm pretty excited to work with all of them in the near future, and find more like them.

     This week we also visited an inactive woman who hasn't been visited for years. When we showed up she was surprised and happy. She let us in, we shared a little message, and she came to church for the first time in years with her daughter who was visiting from lisbon. This woman, Cristina, has another daughter with 12 years who still hasnt been baptized. We will certainly be looking into strengthening and reactivating this family! Cristina had a great time at church, and said hello to all of her friends that she had that are still active. Many years ago, Cristina lost her parents, and went inactive, and eventually the branch just forgot about her... until we showed up at her door.

     So yeah, that's the update. This week, due to travels, we only got about 2-3 days of good work in in our own area, but with such time we were able to do more than what was done in the last 6 weeks. Funny.

     To finally say a bit about my new companion, in short, he's a phenomenal guy. Elder Welch is from Gilbert Arizona. He is a very experienced missionary, and he loves to work. He has a good sense of humor, and enjoys being a missionary a lot. We get along quite well, and we work a lot.

That's all folks,

Elder Ward

 Our french friends took us yet again to a very expensive place to eat.

Elder Welch is a cookie

10 April 2017 Karting

Dear family and friends,

     This week was really a curveball. To be honest it was quite challenging, but things ironed themselves out quite a bit. I will explain more as we go.

     Last monday, after writing my email we caught a train to Olhão. There we ate kebab and then went to the basement of a huge shopping center. We were 16 missionaries, including a senior couple missionary that was with us. Missionaries from Loulé, including Elder Jan, and missionaries from Olhão and Faro, in short a big group of mishies.

     In this basement there is an Indoor Go-Kart Track, the largest in Portugal. They had (if my memory serves me right) 270cc engines and a track basically the size of a full soccer field very well weaved with lots of turns and corners, and a few straightaways. It was very very fun haha. As a missionary sometimes you just don´t do things that are straight up "fun" for some time, so most of the missionaries, 5 at a time, had a good laugh and a shout screeching around the track. (If you want to see how it is, probably very easy to find go pro footage on youtube or something, search Olhão indoor karting or something like that)

    It was a pretty fancy course. The waiting area had and observing booth thingy and they also kept track of the times. I payed to do a 20min run with Elder Jan, Higginbotham, Souza, and Kampff. I came in 2nd, with a 48 second lap time, Elder Jan (of course, the swiss former military won) had a lap time of 46. The all time record was 42 I think. They were fast karts. After 20 minutes we all hopped out of our karts with sore wrists and hands and jelly legs. It was actually quite a arm and shoulder work out with so many tight turns going so fast.

     On Tuesday, for the third time, I had a division with Elder Fogg. It was pretty cool, nothing super special happened. The next day I had another division with Elder Ferreira (Feh-HEY-rah). He´s one of the best missionaries I´ve ever met, to be honest. He´s from Viana do Castelo, in other words, the tippy tippy top of Portugal. He met the missionaries when he was attending college in Lisbon when he was 18. He investigated the church for 4 years and finally was baptized and decided to serve a mission. He´s a phenomenal guy and super devoted, a great example. He recently turned 26 and will be returning home in 6 weeks. He´s the only member in his family.

     Then Elder Kampff and I had one day together and then the next day I had yet another division with Elder Tester, in a little town called Almancil. It was a bit dry, but it was cool to pass some time with him. He´s a younger fella in the mission, I got to help him out a bit.

     Then on Saturday, our zone baptized 4 people, and all of the baptisms were held in our chapel. An Angolan woman, Yolanda, was baptized Saturday morning, then a very nice portuguese woman from the Sisters in our area, Maria, was baptized at 5, and then Esmeralda and Salva, two investigators that Elder Jan and I found last transfer were baptized by him and Elder Fogg at 7pm. The font had a bunch of sins in it at the end!

      The man who maintains the chapel, António, also our branch mission leader uses the water from the font with a pump to water the grass and plants outside the chapel. Now all the grass is covered in sins.

     Between all those baptisms, we had a lunch appointment. We have an older French couple in our branch. They don´t speak any other language unfortunately, but love the gospel and come every week, and even brought a friend 2 times now. They scheduled with us to take us to lunch. (I dont know their names....) He picked us up in his mercedes and took us to the most touristy beach and the most touristy restaurant in all of Faro. There, we ate the most expensive touristy food you can imagine, in a little restaurant right on the beach... it was a bit strange haha, I think my order ended up being 30€, but they insisted. I tried to evade the seafood, but they got me to order the "seafood sword", seen below. It had what I think were crawfish, and another time of fish inbetween. It wasn´t horrible, my body just isnt used to it haha. I had to ask for a demonstration on how to eat the mini lobster things, the frenchman was happy to show me.

     Then on Sunday we had a good church meeting. It was fast and testimony, and a british tourist family showed up. I ended up translating for them. They had 5 kids, all of them blonde, reminded me quite a bit of my family. I gave them two thumbs up for conquering travelling with so many duffers with them. The age ranges were probably 16 down to 6.

     And finally, to top off the week, we received transfers last night. Elder Kampff will leave Faro, and will serve in Sacavém, an area in Lisbon, in fact, the area in which the temple is being constructed. Elder Jan, funny enough, will serve in Póvoa, the area in which I served 4.5 months and started my mission. I will continue here in Faro with Elder Welch.

     I maybe mentioned Elder Welch a few times in old emails. It´s kinda funny because I actually have already done 2 or 3 divisions with him. He´s an excellent missionary from what I know. He served as the president´s assistant when I arrived in the mission, in fact, he was one of the very first missionaries I met in the field. He only has one transfer left now, so I will be "killing" him. However, I´m very excited. Should be a great learning opportunity. However I´m starting to hear little rumors about him, but who knows, I will just have to see what happens.

     You guys are probably wondering about investigators, and to be honest, I don´t have any news. In short, it has been a challenge to work at my 100% here with Elder Kampff. I have hope that Elder Welch will help me reach 120%.

     I think that that´s it for the news this week. Thanks for all the emails yall send me.

Take care everybody,

Elder Ward

 The "Seafood Sword"

 The French.

 The karts (the track went clear to the back of this room and to both sides, it was really legit, much bigger than what you see here.)

3 April 2017 Polvo

Dear family and friends,

     This week was pretty cool! It had a handful of ups and downs, but it was full of good learning experiences.

     This last Tuesday we had our Zone Conference. It was pretty cool, Elder Kampff and I were given a half hour to present a training to the Zone (26 missionaries) with the Sister Training Leaders(I dunno what theyre called in English). Then everybody got together to listen to the big bulk of the meeting with President Tavares. It was a cool meeting, we learned some new things. Afterwards the senior couple in our zone went to the mall to pick up the 48 sandwiches that we ordered for lunch. It was pretty funny, and also satisfying to see our plans work out. Afterwards we had a few practice sessions thingies to train our teaching methods, and from there, we all split off to our areas.

     The next day, President Tavares hung around to use his time to interview all the missionaries in the Zone. Luckily I got to chat with him for a good time in my interview and I was able to resolve a lot of the problems that have been stressing me out lately. I left the interview feeling a lot better.

     Immediately afterwards, Sister Tavares (president´s wife) came to me and asked "Elder, is Elder Jan still here with the car? I left my phone in the hotel, I need to go get it". I replied, saying that Elder Jan was in the interview at the moment. Sister Tavares, being a bit unpatient said, "alright, come with me Elder". I obeyed, and followed her outside. She handed me the keys to president´s car and said "Do you know your area well? Do you know where hotel Faro is? Take me there. I need my phone." 

     Alright. We hopped in the car, and to my sweet surprise, it was stickshift. She recognized a reaction and said "oh no Elder, I hope you can drive this type!" I said with pride, "stick isnt a problem".

     And I came to the conclusion that that´s why I lived in Italy for 3 years, just to learn stick to help out president´s wife.

     Haha but it was funny, my first time driving since entering the mission! We just crossed the town quickly and stopped in the hotel in which she left her phone, and then we came back. 

     

     In other news, being a zone leader this transfer has actually been a bit more annoying than cool. We had a couple of companionships who had misunderstandings with other companionships and it got so bad that we needed to hold a seperate "round table" meeting just with them to solve the problem... just highschool pt. 2 sometimes.

     We went to eat lunch with the District President, Presidente Silva. He recently moved with his family to a neighborhood that´s about 30m by foot outside the city. In a division a few month ago, I actually knocked on the door of his house before he had moved there! When we showed up for lunch, I told them that I had already knocked on their door.. It was pretty strange and funny. 

     He´s a really cool guy, he had two sons there, with 15 and 17 years of age, and one more on a mission. Presidente Silva actually lived in Utah for 8 years of so with his family due to a church calling. As such, his sons grew up a great part of their lives in a foreign country. It was fun to chat with them about their experiences. I got to relate to the a lot, I did something quite similar. They said everybody just assumed they were mexicans and that they miss In´n´out a lot.

     Just before sitting down to eat, President Silva headed upstairs and came back down in shirt and tie. He said, "Elders, after lunch, we´re gonna visit some folks I´ve met here in the neighborhood". And that´s just what we did. We headed out with him to find some of his new frends in the area. We found one, but he wasn´t very interested. But no worries! President Silva is doing an amazing contribution to missionary work, because he´s inviting!

     Probably curoius about how General Conference went here... I was pretty nice, Here in Faro we´re basically the hub of the Algarve, so members from various neighboring branches came to town to watch in our chapel. It was broadcasted in Portuguese with a projector in the sacrament room. It was pretty sweet, I enjoyed it. There was a separate room with a TV in english, and a bunch of missionaries went there, and some members, many with the intent to learn english and watch in the native tongue, but I decided to watch in Port., just to get good practice in. The sessions started at 5pm and 9pm. The Sunday session at 5pm had about 80 people that showed up, quite a crowd.

     Funny enough, I´ve already met the man who translated to portuguese. He´s from a neighboring branch here in the Algarve, and his father actually attends here in Faro. So, this elderly man in our branch got to hear conference translated to his tongue by his own son... how cool is that?

     Well, I think that´s it. Things are going better now. I will be hearing about transfers this next week. President Tavares already has told me that I will be receiving a new companion here in Faro, so the new news will just be who it is! But yeah, I´m doing well now, healthy, learning.

Take care everybody,

Elder Ward

Ps, I ate octopus with a member this week, it was okay... tasted like boiled egg whites.

And we were playing a game with members this week. The person who lost had to do the cinnamin challenge... nobody pulled it off. I also didn´t lose, so I didnt have to. I got fed up with the wimpyness of everybody choking on cinnamin, so I did it voluntarily and swallowed, showing them all how its done!

 A common sunrise that we get to see every morning here in Faro.

​A photo with a bunch of people!

Myself, Ernesto and Yolanda (Ecuadorean members from Loulé who came to watch conference)

Esmeralda and Barbosa (Barbosa is a found lost sheep and Elder Jan and I got to know in Vilamoura, he´ll marry soon with his partner, and Esmeralda will be baptized soon.)

The woman in the front with the big smile is Blanca, another Ecuadoran from Loulé. She cooks good.

Then Elder Jan and Elder Fogg, who are still in Loulé. Then some other Elders. The woman in front of them is a Chinese woman who recently arrived in Algarve.

Last is Jorge, who plays the flute in a big square in Albufeira to work, husband to Blanca.