24 July 2017 Camaleão

Dear family and friends,

     Things have picked up the pace a bit this week. Elder Harker and I have had a good time.

     I failed to mention Diego in last week´s email. DIego is actually doing really well. He had some trouble with family, so he moved out. Because of this, he has been doing well in resisting his temptations with the word of wisdom.

     He´s renting a room in a little village outside of Faro now. It´s an hour by foot and about 20m by bike. His bike recently broke, so this week to meet up with us, after a long day´s work, he walked an hour to the chapel for us to have a little lesson with him at about 930 a few nights this week. Diego made it a week without smoking weed the week before this one. He had a fall on sunday and didn´t make it to church (lots of drama and stuff at home, he had to move too). However, this sunday he came. Diego works on a farm a ways out. There he found a chameleon and kept it the night and brought it to church (he walked to church, mind you, an hour)... he left it in the garden here, it was pretty cool! Apparently chameleons are a normal animal to find around here. The whole branch basically saw it, they were pretty impressed.

     Diego was tired, but gave his best to pay attention. In gospel principles, we talked about fasting. After the class he said to us that he wanted to fast to help in resist temptation to be baptized this saturday. We gladly obliged. We finished our fast today.

     We will meet with Diego a few more times this week and then on Saturday, if all goes well, he´ll be baptized.

     César, our busy businessman made it to church and brought his 8-year old son, Tiago too. Every investigator is really quiet on the first day, so it was hard to tell but I think that César enjoyed it. He already left for Lisbon once again, so we will have to wait until next weekend to try to meet up with him. Hopefully we´ll be able to get him to church again.

     This last monday we had a family home evening with a member, Mamá. I´ve mentioned her once before, basically everyone´s favorite african loving grandma. We brought an investigator of ours, Susana, to the night. It ran well, we gave a nice message and Mamá put out some good food. We found Susana in the street a couple weeks back. She is a middle aged african woman who recently moved to faro. She was taught by the missionaries in Olhão, a neighboring city. She has already learned basically everything, and wants to go to church and be baptized, but she has a lot of work, unfortunately on Sundays too. We will talk with her more to see what we can work out.

     This week we did some traveling and training with the assistants to the President. We visited Portimão and gave a big training meeting there, it was a good time and a great learning opportunity for me as well as the other missionaries. We also visited with another district from Loulé. It´s been really great working with the zone. I enjoy it a lot. Funny enough, in our zone is a very "young" zone. We have 26 missionaries and not one has more time than me in the mission. It´s awfully strange. I feel like I just got here.

     After that meeting in Loulé, I passed a division with Elder Leal, a brazilian missionary who is relatively new. He is working in the area where Elder Jan and I used to work last winter. Things are going well there. It was a good time, I got to know Elder Leal a bit and we also got to talk a lot about the situation of the area, what he could do to continue the work most effectively. We payed a visit to Emanuela. You may remember her from a while back, she is doing very well and it was good to see her again. She has a 14 year old daughter, Melissa who is actually a very competitive swimmer (she´s going to nationals this next week, very competitive). Melissa never got to know the church, and has only seen the missionaries a few times. To save time, I will say that it´s a very complicated situation right now. Emanuela is still passing through some health recuperation, and she will also travel soon. Her ex-husband doesn´t give any ground when it comes to religion, so to help melissa be baptized will be a process.

     We had a really cool lesson. We read the start of Enos. We chatted a bit about the blessings that the gospel brings and we started to talk about the Holy Ghost. I asked Melissa if she believed that which we were saying and representing was true second to what she has felt when the missionaries visited and she said "oh, I know it´s true"

     It was a surprising response, I thought she was gonna say "well I guess so" or something more wishy washy. But see continued right after by saying "when I visit church with my dad I feel nothing, I don´t feel anything close to what I´m feeling now."

     The church is true, you just gotta pay attention.

     Over the next few days in Faro, Elder Harker and I had some good success. We taught a few new folks and had a good time. I would say more if I had time about each one, but for now I will have to wrap it up.

Take care everybody,

Elder Ward

Sorry, only a single photo this week... no, this isn´t the chameleon, but another little guy I found behind the doorhinge before church started.
​

Ah, Basílio is actually doing really well! He came out to a branch activity this week, washed his shirt and all that good stuff. Ivanilson is still super busy, but luckily made it to sacrament meeting at least this week.

17 July 2017 Caesar

Dear family and friends,

     So I´ve been in Faro now for a bit less than 5 months. It´s great. We always passed our pdays outside of the city, but for the first time this last pday we did some normal sight-seeing in our own area. It was pretty cool, we went to eat at a restaurant, saw a castle, etc.

     Monday night we got working and went to a family home evening with Mamá. I don´t think I´ve mentioned Mamá in the past, but she is an old Angolan lady who is a member for a few decades. She loves the missionaries and loves the gospel. When we eat at her house, she doesn´t let us speak. She says "stop talking, your food is getting cold" or "you don´t like the food? You´re talking more than you´re eating" stuff like that. We left a message with her and her daughter, VIrginia (who is already a grandmother). VIrginia is from an evangelical church, and is passing through some health problems. She has already been pounced on by many missionaries in the past, and she bluntly told us that she wont change. But in the end, she asked for a priesthood blessing for her health...

     We´re heading there again tonight, this time we have plans to bring a potential investigator that we met in the street a little while back.

     We have 3 districts in our zone. This transfer 2 of our 3 district leaders are new, and are quite young in the mission. Elder Harker and I made plans to travel a bit, attend their district meetings, and then do divisions with them to train and to learn. It ran really well.

     On tuesday we went to a district meeting in Olhão and then I worked the rest of the day with one of our district leaders here in Faro. The next day we took a train to Lagos, attended a meeting there, and then I went in a trio with two Elders from Portimão, It was actually really cool. This companionship is training at this time, so I got to work a day with a brand new missionary, Elder Kirklow. Elder Kirklow has been in the country for basically two weeks but it was really cool helping him out. We started doing lots of street contacts, and he quickly caught on. Convert from 5 years back, 23 years old, and a great guy. It´s really cool to see the quick learning and also the changes that happen with missionaries.

     On tuesday we were walking to Diego´s apt building and we were about to go up to his floor when we realized that he was outside already sitting on a bench. We sat down and started talking with him.

     Turns out that there was a contention in the family of some sort, and Diego decided to move out. He started renting out a room in the city center. He was there waiting for others to get home so he could get his stuff.

     We had a serious conversation with him. I wanted to really know that he was willing to fight to progress so he could be baptized. He said yes.

     Fortunately, at that point, this move-out was a good thing. The rest of his family has lots of problems with the word of wisdom, so Diego escaped from a lot of temptation fortunately. We met up with Diego at the chapel the next night and had a great lesson with him. He has been doing much better, basically is a week strong without smoking anything. We made plans for his baptism, and taught the plan of salvation.

     To our dismay, Diego couldn´t meet up with us on saturday. Turns out that that first place he moved to didn´t work out, so now he´s living a few minutes by car outside of Faro. He cancelled our appointment saturday night because he wanted to rest so that way he could have time and energy to bike to church the next morning. In spite of all of that good news, Diego didn´t make it to church, which worries us. He had shown much more progress. We tried calling him, but unfortunately it looks like his phone is having problems. We will hunt him down this week. If he is stilll doing well, it is possible that he´ll be baptized this saturday.

     On friday we got a phone call. A brazilian woman on the phone said that she was passing through some tought times and wanted to pray with us... we marked an appointment the next day. (phone calls like this are super super rare, I think the first in my mission).

     Her name is Eliane, and she is an Adventist. She has around 40 years of age, and is very respectful and kind, smart too. She explained to us that she has been basically passing in and out of depression the last few years, and doesn´t know why. She got one of our cards a couple months back (In fact it was when Elder Welch and I knocked on her door, but I hardly remembered her). She called because she new we were pastors of some sort so wanted us to pray for her. With a little butter, we chatted with her, offered a prayer, and taught the restoration, We applied it to her, saying that the book of mormon, containing the plentitude of the gospel, can help her learn to follow Christ more fully in her life. In all, it ran well, she understood for the mostpart, and will read and pray about the book of mormon.

     Eliane works a ton. Wont be available until next saturday, but we will see what happens.

     Sunday went well. Unfortunately nobody made it to church, but the afternoon of work was well used. We were walking between two appointments, talking to everyone in our path. There was a fella on a bench smoking, and I chatted with him. He finished his cigarette, and responded. I started the contact with the Book of Mormon, he thought it was interesting, and told us about his studies that he has done independently of the Bible. His name is Ígor, brazilian, probably 40 years old. Smart guy. 

     We used about 20 minutes there on the bench to teach the restoration. He found it very intriguing. He gladly accepted the Book of Mormon and the invite to read and pray about it. We explained to him the restoration of all things, including the priesthood for the completion of essential ordinances, and like so we invited him to be baptized when he discovers that the book of mormon is true. He said "certainly". 

     Ígor works a ton. We wont be able to meet up with him until next Saturday, but it will be interesting.

     Then we got a phonecall from an old friend, César. I´ve already mentioned him once before, but recapping, a month or so ago, Elder Thompson and I were walking in a rush when this guy suddenly stopped us and basically asked for a copy of the Book of Mormon. He even opened up his wallet. We said that we would gladly give it to him freely another day if he heard our message that accompanies the book. He obliged and we kept his number.

     César is a computer systems technician/engineer in Lisbon. He travels every week up to Lisbon and comes home for the weekend. We tried marking with him for that weekend but it didn´t work out. In the weeks that passed later, he also had difficulty in arranging a time to chat with us. But as I said, yesterday he called us and we met up in the chapel at 9pm. He came in his car because he lives a bit outside of Faro.

     We learned a lot about César. He´s portuguese, probably about 50 years old, and a very smart man. He lived and studied in South Africa, learned English and everything. There he found the Church of Scientology, and became a part of it. He quickly (for lack of a better term) "ranked up" in that church. In a short time he became a private investigator, like a detective for the church. He would basically secretly investigate groups that would attack the church to get information about them. He also was some sort of communications manager. He encrypted messages that passed from Denmark to the USA for the church.

     One day during some sort of conference meeting, there was an organized attack from an armed man in an attempt to kill one of the church´s leaders, It turns out that that man wasn´t killed, but in fact César took 4 bullets instead. (I find people with crazy backstories on my mission, jeez). This incident brought about the separation of him from that church. He also explained that he always felt empty there, there was a complete absence of the concept of Christ. Since then he has investigated a number of other churches, but said that still not one has satisfied him.

     A few months before this incident, César´s mother had started to hear the missionaries in her home. César, when there, ignored them, but told us that there was a "warmth" that they always brought with them.

     We were short on time, but with all this info we taught the restoration to César. We told him to pay attention to that "warmth" which we explained to be the Spirit. In only a few minutes, we taught and testified about the restoration, the spirit was very strong. He gladly accepted the BoM, will read, will come to church next sunday, and accepted the 5th of August as a baptismal date.

     I have high hopes for him.

     In church on Sunday we had a visit from a seventy out of nowhere, Elder José Teixeira. He gave a really good talk about he book of mormon, its a shame we didn´t have investigators there...

     Ivanilson is doing well. He didn´t make it to church this sunday, he had to travel. Basílio is doing good, he´s a trooper!

     But yeah, that was the week. Hope you guys enjoy. The mission is great, lots of cool experiences and lots of opportunities to learn and grow.

Abraço,

Elder Ward

 I think we bent the F.​

The sunrise this morning

10 July 2017 Harker

Dear family and friends,

     So I´m still here in Faro, but now with my 4th companion in the same area. Elder Harker is a great guy. He´s been out for a little less than a year. He was trained by Elder Welch. He´s from Idaho, a really chill guy, he´s got a lot in common with Elder Fletcher. We get along really well, I´m excited to serve with him this transfer. We lost a couple days of work in our area due to travels, transfers, and mission council.
     I mentioned that last week was a bit different than the rest, and this week was a continuation of that. These last two weeks we have found very little success, to be frank. We haven´t changed anything, we are still working just as diligently as ever, if not more, but the Lord is the one who decides when we have success.
     We managed to only teach a couple lessons this week, and they were basically all with Diego. Diego is a bit wishy washy now. We´ve been helping and teaching him for a little over a month. He has made progress in a lot of ways, but still hasn´t made any progress with the Word of Wisdom. However, he finally stopped buying weed, so maybe he´ll get a better grip on things. Unfortunately in spite of giving his word and everything, he didn´t make it to church.

     Maria and Paulo are still doing well, they´ve still got a lot of potential. They went travelling this week so we didn´t have a lot of contact with them. But this week we will make plans with them for sure. We have a handful of other options and people who are drifting in and out of our teaching pool, but for now, sufficeth to say that we are still in the search of new people who can be taught and progress.

     Despite the challenge, these last two weeks have been a great learning experience. I´ve learned just how much we all as missionaries depend on the Lord´s help. I hope to see some cool miracles in the near future.
     Basílio is still doing well. He´s a funny guy, it´s good to have him at church. Still hasn´t missed a sunday!
     Ivanilson is doing well too. His work is really demanding, but he still made it to church this sunday and to an soccer activity the night before.

     But I think that´s basically it! We are going about doing the normal thing, we´re talking with everyone we see, offering the gospel to everyone, and trying our best to teach as well.

Até a próxima,
Elder Ward

I have less words these last two weeks, but at least I have photos still!

 Basílio! All tidied up

a good sight to see on their bookshelf

 In Lisbon I had the chance to visit Clara and Joelson. I visited without telling them, they were awfully surprised when they opened the door. They are doing very well. It was very satisfying to see the difference the gospel has made in their lives.

Elder Thompson is no loger Elder Thompson

3 July 2017 Morte

Dear family and friends,

     This week ran quite a bit differently than the last few weeks. With Elder Thompson, as you probably noticed we found a lot of new people recently. A few showed quite a bit of potential. However this week we learned an interesting lesson.
     Elder Thompson is a really great missionary. I know, everyone will say that about almost any missionary, but truly, Elder Thompson is a really dedicated guy. He has served a really good mission. From what I´ve heard and from what he´s told me, he has found lots of success on his mission as well, and is very humble. These last few weeks we found around seven or eight new investigators each week, we taught a few lessons every day. This last week however we had a rough one. We went almost a week straight without teaching anyone. But we kept going and we didn´t slow down.
     Through all this, Elder Thompson was always saying "man, this is great, everybody rejected us today" or "aw raw work like this is just the best". He then told me that he really found this to be a lesson. He had success all his mission and now the Lord is just showing him now that he´s not in control of when success comes. Elder Thompson and I didn´t change anything about our efforts nor our techniques, but the success just dropped. Elder Thompson and I both recognized a bit more just how much the Lord is in control of when, where, and how his people hear his gospel.
(I´m in the mission office right now and theres a lot of noise so I hope what I write makes sense)

     So, I don´t have a huge update, unfortunately the people we found this transfer are falling through the cracks a bit. It´s really easy to lose contact with people unfortunately.

     Last week I forgot to give an update about the people we have worked with. Diego, our brazilian friend has been doing okay. He´s had a lot of trouble in keeping the word of wisdom, but he´s reading the book of mormon and has come to church alone 3 times now. He has accepted everything we have taught him so far, awfully humble.
     Basílio is doing well. We are visiting him still quite a bit to help him retain what he has learned. He has put in a great effort. He´s actually read a couple chapters in the book of mormon, he´s doing well.
     This week we got a call from Danilson. Danilson is a member for 4 or 5 years now and is working with Ivanilson in a delivery company. They deliver tv´s fridges, everything to tall apartment buildings. They called us the other day asking for help, they had to deliver a 107kg fridge up 4 flights of stairs, so they took advantage of our help. It was good to visit with them.
     We hauled the fridge to the top in a few minutes, it was kinda funny. Elder Thompson and I took advantage of the moment and we talked to the family that was receiving the fridge. The mother was a Cuban who left her country and married a portuguese man. In the end they didn´t want to accept a visit, but gladly kept our card. Danilson and Ivanilson called us with this missionary opportunity as a previously debated idea haha, they had a bit of pride in the opportunity they gave us.
     Ivanilson was interveiwed and qualified for the melkezidek priesthood, but unfortunatley didn´t make it to church after a long week of work. I´m not to worried, Tiago and Gary and Ivanilson already all talked to him haha.

     Other than that, I think that this is basically an update. It was a good week, really. I learned a lot and had a good time working these last days of Elder Thompson.
     Yup! Elder Thompson flies home tomorrow morning. I´m in Lisbon now, I will pick up my new companion, Elder Harker from Idaho, tomorrow and then we will return to Faro and I will contine working there for the fourth transfer, I´m excited to continue there!

Take care everyone,
Elder Ward

Some photos from the Castle of Silves

 Elder Fletcher is going home too! I really enjoyed serving with him​. Remember how Elder Fletcher and I found that brazilian couple, Joelson and Clara? Clara was baptized a few months ago, but this weekend Joelson returned to portugal and showed up to church asking to be baptized, and Elder Fletcher went there to do it... a bit miracle!

​Traffic arriving to Lisbon

26 June 2017 Muitas pessoas e molte persone

Dear family and friends,

    So last monday we headed out to Fonte de Benémola out in the countryside. I tried going there once before with Elder Welch, but we didn´t find it... but this time we found it! It was kinda neat, a little creek place that runs through a little valley. We then headed to a nearby mountain and climbed it. Elder Thompson and I got to the top. We brought 2 brazilian Elders with us, they didn´t make it haha.

    You may remember a couple months back a story I told about Cícira and Nuno, a couple with 4 young children. Elder Welch and I taught them only a few times, it was a bit difficult to plan lessons with them. We would call and plan a visit in the chapel, but when the hour came they wouldn´t show up. This happened a number of times, and they also hung up on us a few times... they were a bit strange. They showed a lot of potential when we were teaching them, but due to their "slipperiness" we never got around to teaching them a lot. We decided to give them a break.

     About a week and a half ago Cícira called. She said "hey, you guys gave up on us! its been to long!" I quickly explained saying that we thought they were to busy, etc, and the truth is that we called them many times. I quickly planned an appointment in the chapel for us to meet up. Like always, she didn´t show up.

     So on monday night we´re walking down the street and whadya know, Cícira, Nuno, and their four kids are walking down the street. We immediately talked to them, and we all walked to the church (which was closeby) and we taught a very good lesson. We spoke a bit more seriously too, saying that they need to fulfill their part. They accepted baptism.

     The next day I called them to verify that we would be able to meet up again, and Nuno silmpy responded "we don´t want to continue. We believe a different philosophy" Funny, just the day before they wanted to be baptized haha. Fidgety.

     But no worries, things like this happen a lot haha.

     We also ran into a fella that I met a couple months ago, André. André is a portuguese student here, a little older than me, but grew up a part of his life in Switzerland. We asked if he had time to come and chat in the chapel with us — he did. We taught the first lesson, it ran really well. He found it very interesting and intriguing. He grew up catholic, but left it as he got older, and now is having lots of doubts about God. André posed an interesting question "So, you guys conclude that you are the only true church... what happens to all those people out there who never hear about this church?" From there, Elder Thompson actually had to get up and leave to help out a member. I then basically had to surgically explain the plan of salvation to him, focusing in the spirit world. He was surprised, and found that too very interesting. He then started making other questions, such as "why does God, the all-powerful, let children die?" and lots of questions like that. After a half hour q+a we called a time out, so to speak, and marked for another day because André had to get to class. Very smart guy.

     We met up with him once more, and we had a lesson plan. He started to ask a lot about our beliefs on baptism. He asked "why do you guys baptize by immersion?" We replied with numerous examples from the bible. He then asked "ok, so someone should be immerged... but shouldn´t he also be baptized in a river? Give me a biblical account of someone being baptized in a pool."

     It was there that we both realized that André was being a bit aggressive with his questions, he was asking questions more to confuse than to learn. We brought a pause to it by saying "look, these confusions about doctrine come from the bible. The bible stands alone, when we look at the bible in so many ways it is easy to draw different conclusions, thats why there are so many churches... André, you can only know if our 'interpretation' is the right one if you pray about the book of mormon, the proof of the prophet that corrected all of the modern day biblical speculations"

     André left the lesson knowing that he had to read with honesty the book of mormon. Elder Thompson and I obviously hope that he gets a positive response, however, in our lesson, he showed a lack of real intent. It is very interesting how much I learn in the process of teaching people. I learned a lot with him.

     We contacted a young brazilian lady in the street the other day. Her name is Hillary, and she´s pretty chill. She´s been here for 4 months and is from birth a catholic. She already met the Elders in brazil, but according to what we´ve noticed, it´s been a while since she was taught.

     We taught her the restoration, and she understood it well. She just has a bit of fear in leaving the catholic church, in which all of her family stands. We had another lesson with her in the chapel, and we brought Milena, a recent convert of Hillary´s nationality and age. They just started chatting and made a friendship, and from there we taught a lesson about the Sabbath. Unfortunately Hillary didn´t make it to church, we still have to find out why, but we will be working with her.

     Elder Thompson contacted a young lady from Cabo Verde the other day, Gilda. She lives in Estói, a little town just outside of Faro. We managed to schedule two appointments with her and we headed there to teach her. It´s running well. She smart and humble, and is understanding quite well our message. She works a lot of hours in a restaurant there, but she has plans to come to church not this next sunday, but he next. She will reserve leave with her boss. She showed a lot of potential. She grew up catholic and everything, but after hearing about he restoration, she now understands that there is more. She just has to come and see it!

     A while back I contacted this guy who was walking his dog, named Ivo. He´s about 30 or so, has a young baby. One day, without an appointment, we knocked on his door just to see if we could find him at home. He let us in and said that we could share our message.

     Turns out he´s a doctor. He´s a really smart guy, and he explained to us his beliefs before the lesson. He explained that he grew up catholic, but doesn´t follow any religion now because he´s a bit disgusted by the great apostasy.

     So obviously we taught the restoration. He found it impressive. He´s a busy busy man, and we wont be able to meet up with him for probably a couple weeks, but he understood well and will begin reading the book of Mormon.

     A while back we taught this young african fella named Déni. We passed by his house to try and talk to him, but only is cousin was home. We took advantage of the opportunity and tried to teach him, but he wasn´t interested. We asked him if he new anyone that we caoud visit. He said "my mom i guess". So, he gave his moms address and we went there the other day and taught Maria (his mom) and her husband Paulo. It was a really quick lesson, but Maria actually came to church, which is a really good sign! We´ll be meeting up with her again tonight.

     We found a handful of other people this week that were pretty cool, but are already starting to fall through the cracks if that makes sense. I will talk more about them in the future if they progress more!

     Way back when I was serving in Loulé, Elder Jan and I found this guy named Barbosa. Barbosa and his family started to be taught with us, but then I was transferred. A month or so later, Esmeralda (Barbosa´s wife) and Salva (esmeralda´s aunt) were baptized. This last saturday, Barbosa and his son Raul, were baptized, which was really cool. The baptism happened here in faro, so I got to stop by and say hey!

     This week I contacted 2 italians! One was actually ukranian, but lived in Italy for a long time. The other was an older fella who is from Puglia, close to that little troll town that we visited! He was a bit interested in the book of mormon, so we´ll try to bring him a copy this week.

    Anyways, I think that that´s the update for now.

Take care,

Elder Ward

 Raul, Barbosa, and Esmeralda. Rafael is the little duffer below.