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)
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