19 June 2017 Basílio

Dear family and friends,

     Last monday after emails we took a trip to a Sand Sculpture city. It was actually really expensive, 10€ to enter, but it was still cool to see. Photos below.

     Monday night we taught this 50yo portuguese guy named Rui. We contacted Rui in the street a few weeks back. Turns out he´s online dating a brazilian woman named Jo who was baptized about 6 years back and is firm in the church. Jo and Rui are engaged, and let´s just say that Jo has been doing some work with Rui. Rui is a typical 50yo portuguese man, he works, and doesn´t really care about anything else, certainly not religion. But he has been so impressed with his fiance that he accepted gladly to meet up with us.

     In our lesson with Rui, Jo actually skyped in on his phone. It ran well. Rui has some bad habits, he smokes for example, but is completely willing to change his life to live a more Christ-centered one. He´s a really busy guy, so we only got to meet up with him once this week, but that visit was quite promising. He didn´t make it to church due to work, but he has a lot of potential. He says that he wants to change his life for the better with a fresh start. Jo will arrive in Portugal in a few months and he says he has plans to go to church with her every sunday from then on, we´re just accelerating the process haha.

     On Tuesday we had a Zone Conference. President Tavares came to town, and we had a big training meeting. It ran really well, I enjoyed it a lot. We have a great mission president, a phenomenally wise man. Afterwards, I took another missionary along with the companionship from Beja and we all went there to have a big division... So I got to return to Beja and serve a day there! It was really cool, but also really strange returning to an area in which I have already served. I passed the day with Elder Lemmon, who was in the MTC with me, so it was cool to catch up with him. We taught 3 people that day in our short division, it was pretty sweet.

     On Thursday we taught this 25ish-yo guy from Cape Verde who was really chill, Élvio. He´s a really chill guy, and was really intrigued from the message of the restoration. He didn´t make it to church due to a trip to Lisbon, but we have plans to meet up with him more in the near future. He accepted the Book of Mormon quite well, and even baptism, on the condition of a response from God. It ran well.

     A few days back we contacted this young brazilian woman in the street named Jessica. She was really nice and accepted a visit from us. We did pass by and we taught the restoration. Turns out she used to be Presbyterian (kinda) back in brazil, and has been in portugal for 2 months but still hasn´t gotten around to finding a church. Well, we found her. She accepted, like Élvio, baptism on condition of response, as well as the Book of Mormon. We tried making plans to get her out to church, but she had to work. Her job is awfully shifty so it´s hard for her to make plans. We will be working with her more.

     Diego is doing well. He has already basically stopped smoking, but it turns out that he has some problems with other substances... we´re still helping him out. We met his mom the other day, and she seemed a bit interested. We invited the whole family, Andreia (the mother), Santiago, and Diego to church, they all said they would come. However, only our trooper Diego came, and came alone! He was once again really nervous during church... We will talk to him about repentance, baptism and a fresh start to help him feel more comfortable.

     Yesterday we passed by to try and talk with him more, but he was sleeping. Instead, we taught his aunt and his cousin! We found a hive!

And the big news!

     Basílio was baptized this last Saturday! We have visited him nearly every day for the last couple weeks trying to help him progress. As I´ve already explained, he´s really old (78) and has trouble understanding the intricacies of the gospel. We´ve kept it very simple with him. Sometimes he just didn´t understand stuff, but he always showed a desire to come to church and be baptized, which really is the perfect formula. We just had to help him get a grip on the Word of Wisdom. Elder Thompson baptized him and I confirmed him on Sunday. It was a cool experience. He had his challenges, and it´s possible that he will continue to have them, but we will help him out, and the spirit will too.

     Also, Ivanilson is doing great! He came to church yesterday and gave his first talk! He was really nervous, but got up there and said basically "Today I was asked to talk about the priesthood, but I have felt tempted to share a scripture and a few thoughts with you". He shared Alma 32:28 that talks about a seed of faith. He then shared his story of conversion, basically, and bore his testimony. It was a sweet experience to here his words. I felt very happy to hear his testimony.

     Because he has been working with Tiago (branch pres.), Gary, and another member, Danilson, he has made some great friendships. When we originally taught Ivanilson he was awfully shy sometimes, but now in church he´s really open and jokes around a bit. He´s doing great. I´m not 100% certain, but I believe he was confirmed to the aaronic priesthood yesterday too.

      Experiences like this make the mission really really worth it.

Explosion,

Elder Ward

 (I left the filter on... no I´m not that sunburnt)

22 May 2017 Rapidinho

Dear family and friends,

     So this week was quite a landmark! 

     Monday we had a really cool pday. We drove up to Albufeira and visited a really cool rocky/cliffy beach there. It was pretty hot so the water was a temptation haha. Lots of photos, see below. We found in a little cavern a dead sea turtle, like full size sea turtle, probably dead only a few days... it was cool but also kinda gross.

     That night we taught yet another brazilian couple. Juliano and Kéli. They have two young boys, about 5y/o and one who will turn 8 very soon. They left brazil coming here looking for a calmer life. Juliano is a vegetarian, and for some reason couldnt contain such fact, so often times he went off on a tangent during the lesson, stuff like that. But they were really great. Kéli was born a catholic but isn´t really attached to it anymore, nothing more than tradition. When we explained the Restoration you could tell on her face that she was sitting there pondering for quite a bit, really giving it a good thought. 

     We taught them two times now, theyre really nice people, brazilians are just so welcoming. Unfortunately they couldnt make it to church due to travels, but they have already committed to come as soon as possible. They have quite a bit of potential.

     The second time we taught they had welcomed into their home a friend from brazil who also recently arrived. We taught her too, and theyre all great people, we hope they can progress.

     This week Elder Welch, because he´s finishing his mission, had to travel to Lisbon for a special meeting to help him prepare to go home. He left with another missionary who needed to attend, while I stayed with Elder Vigne, a brazilian fella who is awfully funny and does a good job working. We had a good time and taught a few lessons together. 

     On Thursday we had to take a trip to Portimão to hold a few baptismal interviews for our district leader there. They ran well. 3 very nice women were baptized there this last weekend.

     On Saturday a member who was in the chapel called us and said "hey Elders, there´s this guy from Bangladesh in the chapel who wants to meet with you." So, we changed our plans and headed straight there. His name is Sálim, a good fella, 25-30, a muslim too. It was actually a really interesting experience teaching him. We taught in english, which was a bit of a tongue twister. He basically told us that he just wanted to learn more about the christian church and also learn the "procedure" to enter and be baptized. He also asked what it costs to marry in the church.... So with these questions we basically concluded that he wants to marry a christian haha, he was kinda obvious. But, we taught him anyway and it was really cool. We generally are used to teaching people who already have strong christian backrounds, but with Sálim we had to teach everything with a sturdy foundation, explaining little little details like the godhead, the concept of being a child of god, stuff like that. I enjoyed it. He´s a busy guy, but we should be able to teach him in the near future more.

     Throughout the week we visited a lot with Basílio. He´s an old guy, so the gospel just doesn´t stick around in his head after our visits. However, we helped him and re-taught lots of stuff until eventually he had a good basis of what it is, and actually was finally getting a grip on prayer.

     We had plans to baptize him after church yesterday, but we changed them because we felt like it might be a bit soon. We also had an interview with him and it didnt go to well. Basílio didnt like to see the new face, he had to be interviewed by a missionary that he never met and because of such was nervous and didnt get along with him. Let´s just say that Basílio can be a bit unsteady sometimes.

     However, Basílio walked yet again to church. This time, he took a shower, and actually came in a suit! It was pretty nice to have him there again. We went to his house later on sunday night, but unfortunately he was drunk... a bit annoying, he´s so old that he is a bit childish if that makes sense. We will be reviewing all of the teachings again.

     But, our troubles have been few, because something really cool happened this week. Remember Ivanilson? 

     In that division with Elder Vigne we taught Ivanilson. It was a bit of a make-it-or-break-it lesson. Ivanilson has been always very skeptical in our lessons. He´s awfully smart, and understands very well, it´s just that he would always say stuff like "Well yeah it could all be true, but he could have just written that just to agree with him..." or "maybe im just feeling the excitement of new things instead of the spirit like you guys say"

     Eventually in a lesson, we planned to walk him through on the progress he´s shown and let him see for himself that he´s been changed by the gospel... we did so. He suddenly recognized "yeah... i have shown faith, I have repented... so... i should be baptized... yeah, I will be baptized this weekend!"~

     The moment he said that the spirit was there very strongly to confirm his decision. The previous times it was always a "maybe" but this time he meant it. I pointed it out to him, I said "Ivanilson, do you feel that? The spirit has confirmed to you that youve made the right decision. Take it and run with it."

    And so we did. We finished up teaching him all the lessons, and I had the privelege to baptize Ivanilson this last saturday. It was a great experience. He came to church and was confirmed. He already has a few friends in church. Things are going great with him. It was a miracle really. He was contacted 3 weeks ago in front of the chapel by an elder who was taking out the trash.

     Im short on time this week, but I think that´s an update. Enjoy. 

The Lord has not ceased to work miracles among the children of men!

Ciao!

Elder Ward

I almost forgot transfers!!!

I will stay in Faro (woo!) and will recieve Elder Thompson. I already know him a little bit, he´s another incredible missionary, he was Elder Welch´s comp for 6 months, so its all a big family now! Elder Thompson will also finish his mission with me, just like Welch.

12 June 2017 Thump

Dear family and friends,

     Let´s be quick! Rewinding to last monday, after emails Elder Thompson and I took a drive to a mountain that is the tallest in the algarve (but still not tall by my standards). It was a nice drive, we stopped at the top and we soaked up the view and took some sweet photos.

     Monday night we were contacting and we found this 18yo fella named Diogo. We did the normal introduction, and he was interested. We walked to the chapel with him and we taught him the third lesson. He really enjoyed it, he said that he had been looking for ways to be happier in life and include God more. We marked a follow up visit, he committed to church and to baptism in a few weeks. He was really cool. However, during the week we got a message from him saying "hey guys Im just too busy to meet up with you. It was nice knowing you." and that was that haha. I think we scared him.

     I share this because it´s kind of amusing how often people clearly show a need and desire towards the gospel and then the next day completely forget. It´s not uncommon here.

     On Tuesday we went to a district meeting in Olhão and we split up with some missionaries who are currently serving in Tavira. We had a good division, I passed the day with Elder Lopes, a brazilian who has been in the mission for 3 weeks haha. We had a good day, we taught a few new faces and did a lot of finding. It was a good opportunity to open his vision a little bit about the mission.

     A couple weeks back, Elder Welch and I were leaving the chapel when a brazilian woman, Dâmaris (DAH-mah-reesh), stopped us and asked a bit about the church. We happily responded and she went on to say that it was her greatest desire to learn english one day. We jotted down her number, and this last thursday Elder Thompson and I taught her the restoration, followed by a 10 minute english lesson. Turns out that she is a super devoted evangelical, her husband plays in the church band and she is a teacher there. In spite of all that, she was rather intruigued by the message of the restoration. Gets them every time.

     In our lesson, we invited her to be baptized, and she accepted on the condition that she receives a response from God. We will have to see what happens, much depends on her own willingness to change. Unfortunately, although she said she would, she didn´t make it to church...

     We had another experience quite similar just the next day. We taught a man named José, a student who is finishing up with school, a smart guy. He isnt active, but is — according to his own words — a "spiritualistic christian". In short he was a bit wishy washy with what he actually believes, but was very skeptical in thinking in any other way than his own.

     He opened up the door, and let us share the message of the restoration. He gave us only a few minutes, but just like Dâmaris, he made that classic "I had no idea/this makes so much sense" face. Time was our enemy though, he said he would try to make it to church but didn´t...

     Walking down the street on Saturday, I contacted two guys, André and Lucas, two brazilians. They had a moment, but just a few minutes. We sat down on some soccer stadium steps with them and we taught the restoration. They too are pretty dedicated evangelicals, but without fail, the story of the restoration got them thinking. In the end they were quite surprised, and André said "well if what you told me is all true I´m gonna have to make some changes in my life". 

     However, even though they said they would, they didn´t make it to church... 

     Santiago and Diego are doing well. We taught them once more this last week. We talked about baptism once again, and they expressed their desires to do so, and to be prepared. We asked them "what do you guys want to change in your lives to be more ready for baptism?" They listed immediately smoking and drinking. We made plans with them, and invited them to start decreasing so that they can quit soon. They were accepting it all very well. We made plans to walk with them to church. When we got there Sunday morning, only Diego was ready, Santiago was still out cold, so we walked with Diego to church. He enjoyed it, although he was a bit nervous. He wanted to take a Gospel Principles book home to read, and we gladly let him. He´s a good kid, turns out he´s 19 years old, even though he looks 25. We will be right by his side to help him progress.

     Ivanilson got a job, and is now working with 3 other great members (including the branch pres) from our branch. Awesome. Now Ivanilson has no time to meet up with us, but no worries, he´s with those members every day now, so it´ll be good for him. Ivanilson came to church yesterday, was interviewed for the Aaronic priesthood and also asked to give a talk next sunday! I´m very happy for him.

     Basílio is a bit of a pattern. Basically the same thing that happened last week happened this week. He drank once again, but this time it wasn´t because of boredom, but rather because his friend had passed away. Ok. We are now visiting Basílio a few minutes every day to review things with him, especially the Word of Wisdom. He´s doing well. He prays very well now, and is growing a desire to stop drinking. He came to church yesterday, making 4 times now. He´s a good fella. If everything goes well, he´ll be baptized soon.

     Welp, I think that´s an update. Elder Thompson and I are having a great time, the work is good, and I´m loving serving in this area.

Take care, 

Elder Ward

 Our view

 Faro

How much ywanna bet i cant throw a pigskin oer them moun´ns

it my head on the car door. We stopped in the chapel to clean up, but I was actually tempted to start contacting people like this.

5 June 2017 Cãozinho

Dear family and friends,

     I´m doing well. Things here in Faro are running well. We´ve been filtering through a lot of people lately, lots of teaching and finding.

     Recently we´ve found quite a handful of new investigators, I could go into details with each one and tell the stories, but I don´t think it´s really worth it, a lot of folks that we taught have already slipped through the cracks. Many have trouble believing that God inspired prophets on the american continent and that they wrote his word. People sometimes are downright scared of the Book of Mormon, only because it´s got a different cover than the Bible. But so be it, those who are prepared will accept it.

     We passed the first half of our week doing travels and divisions with the district and missionaries in our zone. We did so with the assistants, it all ran pretty well. We had a lot of 1 on 1 time in some training meetings to help out some missionaries gain experience and learn new things, but most importantly practice. I did a division with two missionaries in Portimão, one is Angolan and the other Mexican, it was a fun combo. The mexican, Elder Angulo, would just do contacts in spanish, but no worries, the portuguese understand haha! It was really fun to meet them and do some work there. They are having a lot of success.

     This week we also worked a bunch with Basílio. As you remember from last week, he was finally getting a grip on stuff and was actually doing well to be baptized, but on thursday he drank a cup of wine, breaking the word of wisdom once again. The lesson we had was a bit disapointing, after teaching him so many times and reinforcing the same teachings he still managed to fall through. But, he screwed his head on straight the next day and actually now is doing much better. He came to church again this Sunday and is now progressing well to hopefully be baptized here in the near future! 

     We have a member here named Elísio who was baptized a couple years back and has 19 years. He´s from Guiné Bissau (Africa) and is a great guy. Fortunately with all my time here in Faro I´ve been able to make a good relationship with him, and this week we got to teach his 12 year old sister, Anci, who recently got here from Guiné. Anci is quite a character. She is smart and funny, and actually went to a church activity too. She likes it when we visit, but it has been a bit hard to teach her because she speaks Creole from Guiné which is rooted in Portuguese but still very different, I don´t understand it at all. She is learning portuguese now, and can get by, but we had to use Elísio to translate a lot of it. Anci was doing well, but her mother (Elísio´s stepmom) is a bit of a grump to be frank, and wont let her come to church or be baptized, so its a bit of a lost battle there. A bit of a shame, her mother wants her to grow up in her church, but doesnt even go to her church... oh well.

     This week in a quick street contact I stopped and talked with a brazilian guy, Diego with 23 or so years who was on a bike. I quickly said who we are and what we do, and we made an appointment for the next day. We showed up and we taught him and his brother, Santiago. They enjoyed our message, we talked about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We explained to them the importance of Faith in Christ which leads to repentance and then baptism. They said "shoot, I´ve never been baptized" and we responded "well we can help with that". 

      In that short lesson we marked them both for baptism, but unfortunately they didn´t make it to church. They work on a farm, lots of manual labor. When we taught them they had recently gotten home from work and were still covered in mud. They were visibly tired during the lesson as well. We came back after church and asked them what happened, they had slept until noon haha. I´m not too worried, they showed a lot of potential the first visit, certainly with another attempt and a bit more preparation they´ll get up and get going well.

     Ivanilson is doing well. He´s a bit of a misterious guy. Last week he didn´t make it to church because he had an unexpected travel to do. No worries. We sat down to talk with him in a short lesson, and he just asked questions and we responded. He´s awfully smart and a great guy, he truly wants to know things and know them well. He came to church yesterday, but for some reason left early... I dont know why, he still hasnt picked up the phone, but Im not worried, I guess it´s just what he does!

    Yesterday we were walking in a hurry so we stopped contacting people. Suddenly we passed this man (César was his name) on our right who stopped us and said "Hey wait, you guys are the mormons?"

     "Yeah, that´s us!"

     "Do you guys know where I can get one of those Books of Mormon?" he asked.

     I opened my bag and pulled out a book of mormon and said "Well from us, you´re talking to the right people!"

     "Oh good." He then pulled out his wallet and opened it up and said "how much is it? I´ll pay right now!"

     From there we explained that it was free, but that we prefered to hand it over in person with a short visit to explain what it is and how it can be of benefit to him. He explained that he was curious because he had met in the past many mormons. He accepted a return appointment the next week. It was a cool little "coincedence" that really shows that there are people out there interested in receiving the restored gospel!

    Anyways I think that´s basically it. We are always looking and searching thoroughly for those prepared by the Lord. We hope to find some new success in the near future. This week we found some interesting folks who we should teach this next week. Hope all goes well!

That´s it!

Elder Ward

 This guy on a bike stopped us and said "hey you guys recognize this dog" "No" "oh okay good luck" and just rode off.

Elder Thompson taught me how to be a hipster

29 May 2017 Thompson

Dear family and friends,

     This week got started very quickly. We basically didn´t have a pday last week because I had to drop off Elder Welch at the mission home for him to end his mission, and I also had to pick up Elder Thompson the same day. We spent a lot of time just running silly little trips to get things arranged and we burnt some time in the mission office just waiting around... but finally monday night we arrived in Faro and Tuesdday morning we got right to work.

     Elder Thompson is a great guy. He is originally from Indiana, but lived in Utah long enough to just be a normal Utahn. He´s a hilarious guy, and has a lot of personality. He is a bit calmer than Elder Welch, he doesn´t sing 24/7 like Elder Welch for example. As I said Elder Thompson is a well-experienced missionary, already served with Elder Welch and also in Póvoa, my first area. We get along great, and we work a lot together. I know Faro very well now, I have most of the streets memorized, so I show Elder Thompson around all the time. He is my ninth companion technically (including the MTC) and is my first companion taller than I am.

     So many of the investigators that we have found in the past have been a bit slippery... Unfortunately most of our teaching pool is full of Brazilian students. Now that exams are coming to an end here, 4 of our investigators have already flown back to Brazil haha. However, we have plans for them to get in contact with missionaries there and to resume contact when they arrive again. A few other investigators have been ridiculously busy lately, so we havent been able to keep in touch with a few of them... It´s kinda annoying, people work a lot here in Portugal. For example, our branch president works mon-sat 6am to 9pm. It´s ridiculous, some people don´t even have days off... In my eyes it looks like prison!

    So, we taught a couple new folks this week. We taught a nice catholic lady who has had doubts in her life. She enjoyed the message of the restoration, but she now doesn´t want to meet up with us again because of her husband who is against it.

     We also taught a nice older couple the restoration, it ran well, and they enjoyed it, but they went to their pastor and of course he told them that we´re of the devil.... It actually happens a lot here haha.

     We met up with Ivanilson once more this week. We re-taught him the plan of salvation including temple work and priesthood. It was cool, we invited him to prepare for the aaronic priesthood. He enjoyed it and asked great questions. But, turns out he read a bit of a "summary" of the LDS church and we had to clarify a lot of doubts with him. He said that this website said "that all mormons think that they will be God someday". It´s just frustrating how skewed things can be.

     To add to a bit of complications, Ivanilson didn´t come to church for some reason... We gave him a call too but didn´t pick up. Im sure he didn´t abandon ship of something like that, something probably just came up.

     Carina, as you may remember, actually came to church today for the second time! However, it was easy to recognize that her parents had forced her a bit to come, and because of such just had a bad experience... The family ties there are super weak, and I have finally realized that it´s nearly impossible to bring someone into a gospel family when there are still grudges and a complete lack of respect... Its a shame really, Carina has shown repentance, but just can´t have a good time at church.

     We taught Basílio numerous times this week. Elder Thompson gets a kick out of him. As I explained earlier, Basílio is an innocent poor old man. He has trouble remembering everything we teach him, even on a very simple level. However, he´s finally gotten a grip on prayer and the word of wisdom. If everything goes well, and if he continues to progress (according to his capacity) he can be baptized this weekend. We shall see.

     We also had mission council this week. It was great as always. We talked a lot about goals, diligence, and desire. It ran well, and I got to see some familiar faces. 

     So yeah, not a huge update, but we had to put rubber to the road again and kinda restart this week. This upcoming week we hope to teach a few people with a lot of potential that we have found recently.

     I think that´s it! 

Ciao

Elder Ward

 A castle on a hilltop that we frequently pass. Just behind us is a brand new Ikea. Contrast.

 A photo I didn´t send last week...

PS- This is my third transfer in Faro... Ive been here for about 3 months and because I will be here until the end of Elder Thompson´s mission too, it is very likely that I will stay for another transfer... so, It will be in total six months here in Faro! I don´t mind, it´s pretty great here, the members and the area are great.