I´ll cut to the chase.
´Twas a good week, like always. After a long battle, a lot of late night lessons, and postponing, Diego was baptized on saturday. I had the priveledge of doing the ordinance which was really cool. We had the baptism at about 830 at night because Diego, like always, had to work a bunch.
Diego was awfully nervous, but he had a good experience. The spirit was strong.
To our dismay, Diego unfortunately didn´t make it to church the next day, after all we had done to help him. We were a bit worried, but turns out that he slept in, he forgot to set his alarm... When someone isn´t confirmed it´s one of a missionary´s worst nightmares. We work so much to baptize, and we´re really happy when it happens, but when someone isn´t confirmed it´s as if the baptism didn´t even happen, so this weekend was great but it had a flop for sure.
But no worries, there is always next week. Diego felt really bad, but we will help him out and encourage him so that way this next sunday he will be confirmed smoothly.
Earlier this week we had a zone conference, and Elder Harker and I had to put together a presentation for our zone. Here in the Algarve we have a district. The district is on the edge of qualifying to be a stake, so it´s a big deal, and clearly we missionaries are trying our best to help out. After meeting up with the District President for a bit we actually got a bunch of info about the progress and we made a presentation about the battle to get a stake. It ran well. The Algarve will probably become a stake in a few months (but I, sadly after nearly a year in the Algarve, probably wont be here to see it...) All that is lacking currently is a few more qualified melk. preisthood holders in every branch, so the missionary work lately here has been focused on reactivation and men. Good stuff.
Afterwards we learned a lot of good stuff from President Tavares. I really like him, he is an excellent leader and teacher.
This week we found a lovely family from Guiné Bissau. We haven´t taught them all yet, but until now we´ve taught Elizabete and Ludmila. Elizabete arrived in portugal quite recently, has 29 years, and is a member of the (i dunno the name in english, but translating it should be) "Worldly Church" (Igreja Mundial). However, she obliged to hear our message, she enjoyed it, read moroni 10 and came to church with us this last sunday. Ludmila is her cousin, she has 14 years and is catholic. She came with us to church too! We were happy to have them there. After sacrament meeting every african member we have just went to their corner and they all started chatting and stuff, often switching to creolo aka their dialect. They seemed to have enjoyed church quite a bit.
César, our busy busy friend is actually doing really well. We didn´t get to communicate with him for the entire week, but on saturday he passed us in his car honked and stopped to chat with us. He came to church once again, and enjoyed it. I took some time to chat with him after sacrament meeting and we talked about how he´s been feeling, particularly about baptism. He said he would like to be baptized, but want´s to prepare himself more (we want to prepare him more too! We´ve only taught him once these last too weeks!) We chatted about how we will keep in contact more.
The district put on a Self-Sufficiency class Sunday afternoon. They announced it in church and César was really interested, so he went. He really enjoyed it and went without us, which shows a lot of courage haha. He was able to meet a lot of great members there and has plans to start attending the classes, so now he´s getting integrated well! It´s just tough for Elder Harker and I to plan lessons, but in our next lesson we will certainly plan a baptismal date.
But yeah, that´s basically an update of everything. We´ve been working really hard, it´s awfully hot, but I´ve learned to like it. We´re really searching to find the Lord´s sheep that will hear his voice!
Ciao!
Elder Ward
It's so good to see an young man thrive as a missionary.
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