18 September 2017 Baseball

Dear family and friends,

     So last week I mentioned Hilda. We came back on that Tuesday and we visited her. We basically discovered that she is a bit... distracted. We tried to teach her, but she wasn´t all there, if that makes sense... she talked during the prayer and everything, wouldn´t stop talking about her husband who left her, stuff like that. She asked us to say a prayer to bust open a door in her house that has been locked ever since her husband left and took the key... We were a bit confused, Elder Gunnarsson´s face was pretty funny. 

     In situations like this, we usually just invite the person to come to church and then we politely leave (it was a really awkward situation) but we didn´t because there was this african fella of about 50 years there named Sebastião.

     Turns out that Sebastião, 27 years ago, in the Algarve, met the missionaries and learned with them a little bit. He says that he liked it, but doesn´t remember much. Since then he´s studied with other religions, the only thing that he remembers from the Elders is "head, shoulders, knees, and toes". We gave a laugh when he showed us. It´s really interesting that he remembered that, and in English too... It quickly proved that he has already had contact with us, but we will have to revive the contact haha.

     Sebastião is pretty normal, a calm guy. So when Hilda was acting strange, he just kept his cool. We found that he had some potential because he accepted to come to church with us. Unfortunately he has an injury, so he can´t walk well, so we tried to get him a ride, but when we called him on saturday to work things out, he said that he was out and about looking for a new place to live, he said he was sick of living there with Hilda and will get a new room because he "wants to study with us". So yeah, we´ll se what happens this week with him. He had back pains on Sunday, so didn´t make it to church.

     We found another nice lady from our area book named Nadini. Her name was written in the area book with only "was marked for baptism once" from like a year back. We showed up, she let us in, we chatted with her, and she was super nice. She is about 30, african, and unfortunately very stressed and worried. She has some sort of sickness that is causing her to lose her sight. However she said that she had been praying a lot for help, and her vision was staying, even improving, and she said that we were an answer to her prayers. We talked about the book of mormon and it´s teachings about happiness through Christ, and with the short time we had we simply shared a scripture about he resurection, and she was pleased with what she heard. She swore she would come to church, but ended up going to the hospital on saturday, and since then we lost contact with her. We will try to find her this week.

     In the hunt for an Ex-investigator we found we found a lady who was pretty cool. Her name is Linda. Her daughter investigated the church, and actually a year ago in a division I taught her with Elder Kaelberer, but I don´t remember anything, I just recognized the house when I got there. Linda answered the door, and let us in. Apparently, when her daughter was being taught she always heard the lessons but never came to church. We showed up late at night, we taught only about the Sabbath Day, and she agreed to come to church with us the next day. We then talked about how obedience to the commandments prepares us to become true followers of Christ, so we invited her to be baptized. She said, "ok, I was never baptized."

     We marked a date for her, and we actually walked with her to church the next day, she was awake and ready, which was a good surprise. She liked it a lot, but didn´t stay for all the meetings, just sacrament meeting. She had to go to visit family afterwards. We´re going back tonight to se what happens. She showed a lot of potential, people who come to church are automatically much much more capable of being baptized, church on sunday is generally the barrier.

     That brazilian family from last week, Leonardo and Lediane "read" the book of mormon. When we went there to visit we started to follow up with them and we asked them what they concluded from the Book of Mormon. Leonardo pulled out a little notebook and said "yeah, I made some notes here, your book doesn´t agree with the Bible at all." He said "here in Doctrine and Covenants is says that yada yada"

     I said, "oh, okay. Where did you find that scripture again?" He picked up the Book of Mormon that we gave him and started to search the titles for DnC and I spared him the shame and said "you guys talked with you pastor, didn´t you?"

     "Yeah, we wanted to know what he thought of it. He gave us this list of scripture that show contradictions."

     I realized that they weren´t really searching with real intent. They asked their pastor instead of God, and because of that, they weren´t open to try again. I told them that if they wanted, we could come back with explanations for each thing with biblical roots, but in the end we would always invite them to just read the BoM. Above all they were super nice and super respectful, but just didn´t show the potential and the honesty in searching.

     We taught a few other random folks this week, but they were lessons super fast, each person just had ten minutes or so, and Elder Gunnarsson is still adapting his teaching skills, so the lessons had to be cut short instead of simplified. We are practicing every day and we´re getting better.

     Things are going well. We hope to find some more good work this week. I think that´s it for this week.

Take care,

Elder Ward

Sorry, no photos... we haven´t done any traveling and I haven´t carried around my camera so yeah....

11 September 2017 Waht

Dear family and friends,

     This was an interesting week for sure. Elder Rodrigues and I traveled Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to District meetings to give a big training thingy. It ran well, we were able to help the major parte of the zone to better some specific teaching skills. However, we lost a lot of time with the traveling and these meetings. Each day I got back to Odivelas and Elder Gunnarsson and I got right to work.

     In spite of some of our best efforts, we had very poor results this week. I think it was a test of our patience and diligence. It has to happen every once in a while, I think it´s the way that the Lord make´s sure that we know that we´re not in charge. Sometimes when you have a lot of success it´s easy to think that your own skills and experience are making it, when really it´s the Lord blessing us.

     Basically the whole week was just rejection, liars (people who said that we could pass by but gave a false address and number), and lot´s of appointments that fell through. 

     On Saturday we finally had our first lesson of the week. It was with a young man named Dény from Angola, 18yo. He is from another church... After explaining the restoration we invited him to read the Book of Mormon and to ask God if our message is true. He replied simply "no". 

     Surprised, we talked with him more, and he showed a lot of doubts. He said "there can´t exist another book, only the bible" "if you guys believe that baptism is essential for salvation, what about those people who were never baptized by the right authority?" He was a really smart kid, and we responded to all of his questions, but each one that we responded to brought more questions... and after a little bit we realized that he was being politefully aggressive. We stopped the lesson and said "look, you believe what you have heard now for years in your church, but we´re just trying to tell you that there´s more. This "more" may appear different, but you just have to open your heart and ask god with real intent... will you read the book of mormon?"

     "No, your religion doesn´t make any sense. You all believe in crazy doctrines created by false prophets."

     I replied, "yes, it may appear different. Imagine an Israelite, accustomed to making animal sacrifices... what would he think if he saw the future to find out that future followers of God would eat bread and drink water instead of animal sacrifices... he wouldn´t make much sense of it, would he?"

     "That´s different. There was a continuation, a line of progress. Your religion is completely off track from the bible."

     "no, we already explained to you our beliefs and their biblical roots. Maybe it looks like we have different interpretations, we just want you to humbly ask god if by chance we have the everlasting and restored gospel of the last dispensation"

     Yet again, he denied. He asked us to show him, to prove to him that it was true. We bore testimony, and after Elder Gunnarsson bore his testimony, Dény said that he felt the sincerity of his words, and finally accepted the invite to read. He will ask god too, but I dunno how far his real intent will get him. We await a call from him. I don´t have a lot of desire to chase him down to follow up.

     I told him that I too would pray about the BoM to verify once again. I told him that on pday we wanted to go to a nearby mountain, and I told him that I would read, kneel, and pray there to ask again, just to be fair.

     It was an exhausting lesson. Probably wasn´t worth it in the end, but we gave it our best shot.

!!!!

    And literally just now (no, as I´m sat here on the computer) Déry showed up at the church. He rang the doorbell and I was super surprised to see him. He said that he was ready to go to the mountain with us. He had his bible and a notebook with him. He said he had nothing better to do. I was surprised. We actually changed our plans for the Pday today, I was hoping to go with some other missionaries, but nobody wanted to go with me. So it didn´t work out. 

     Déry said that he took my comment on saturday as an invite. He was convinced that we were going to go to the mountain to pray together to see who´s right. Man, I´m a bit floored. I thought I´d never see him again. I asked him if he wanted to go with us, and he said yes. So, I told him "welp, if you want, I´ll give you a call when we go." And that was that. Headache. I dunno if we´ll go now. I will ponder. I just don´t know if it´s worth talking with him any more, he really was lacking humility in our lesson.

     So we got working afterwards and had a lot of disappointments. But then late that night we knocked on a door of this brazilian lady we met in the street a few weeks back. She was taken by surprise but let us in and gladly let us share our message. She is named Lediane, and her husband Leonardo live there. They have been in portugal for about a year now, and have 3 children, 12, 7, 2. They are baptists, but were awfully open and heard the restoration well. They said "wow, I never heard about his book. We´ll give it a read for sure."

     Leonardo plays in the band at his church, and works a very busy schedule. It will be really difficult to meet up with them in the future, but they accepted to read and pray, they will think about baptism.

     A week or so ago Elder Gunnarsson and I were walking in a rush, when suddenly this african lady from a café stood up and stopped us. I think she was a bit drunk to be honest, but she gave us our address and asked us to stop by. She said she likes the church a lot.

     So we went, and after a few tries, we found her at home. Her name is Hilda. She seemed to be normal, so we chatted with her. Turns out she was an investigator a few years back, but lost contact with the missionaries. She already has gone to church many times and read the book of mormon quite a bit. She has a lot of problems in her life right now, she wants to resolve family problems and stop drinking for example, and we hope to help her out. We started talk about Alma 36, but she said "guys, now I´m not feeling to well. Come back tuesday." So, we took her word for it, and we ended our visit leaving her the BoM with that chapter to read. She is an interesting situation, but we´ll see what happens.

     Earlier this week we talked with this old lady from Cape Verde in the street. She was super nice and is a bit famous in town, that typical "grandma" that everybody knows. Her name was Júlia and after chatting with her for a bit we invited her to church. She started by saying "no no no I go to another church," she then continued in a little monologue that ended with "okay okay, I give you boys my word, I´ll be there on Sunday." We didn´t even insist that much. She just changed her mind.

     And waddyaknow, she showed up. It was a pleasant surprise. However, she is still that old stubborn lady so didn´t want to mark an appointment with us, but we´ll stop by anyways and surprise her.

     But yeah, that is basically everything that happened this week. Im doing good. Elder Gunnarsson is growing and adapting more and more to the mission. He stopped complaining about the walking finally haha. He´s growing more courage to talk with people now.

Ci vediamo,

Elder Ward

Sorry, no photos... I stopped carrying my camera with me every day so many less opportunities to take photos... Forgive me!

4 September 2017 Zoo

Dear family and friends,

     Well folks I´ve got little time.

     A few weeks back we contacted this guy named Graciano, a portuguese man of about 40/45 years in the street with his wife and mother in law. Just this last wednesday, we marked a time with Graciano to stop by. Graciano is a good guy, very polite, educated and honest. A financial manager.

     That night we taught a big portuguese family, which doesn´t happen too often here. We taught the restoration to Graciano, his wife, Adelina, and their two children and Adelina´s mother. It ran well, but in the end of the lesson we noticed that they had a lot of questions about the plan of salvation, and we didn´t have time to respond to much. They asked things like "why does God let bad things happen to good people" stuff like that.

     We came back just last night and we taught the plan of salvation. It ran really well. In the end they said that they would like to keep what they have learned now, and they preferred that we waited for them to come to church one day. They were really great, I liked teaching them a lot. They were very receptive and I think Graciano will look into the Book of Mormon a bit more for sure. They gave us a snack and a ride home after each lesson.

     We taught Josefa again. She is actually doing surprisingly well. She was much more open this second time. We reviewed a bit of the Restoration and we read moroni 10 with her to help her understand the importance of getting a confirmation from god as well had her own real intent. She understood well, downloaded the Gospel library so that way she can listen to the BoM during her treatment sessions (some sort of blood cleaning, 4 hours hooked up to a machine). She also has a "calling" lets say, with her church each sunday, so she cant just come to one of our meetings on short notice. She said that she needs to give her pastor a heads up of her absence. Unfortunately she tried this week to let her pastor know that she would miss a week but it wont work out for another week because they will have a special meeting.

     Well, the time will only permit this small update. Elder Gunnarsson and I are working really hard. We hope to see some cool things in the near future.

Ciao,

Elder Ward

Ps- Welch, we taught Turé! He´s doing good! He wants to come to church and he said he tinha muitas suadades de vossas visitas! He should progress well.

we went to the zoo

28 August 2017 Realizações

Dear family and friends,

     Last week after writing to you guys we headed to Parque das Nações, basically a shopping center/port/touristy place. It was alright, we went in a little cable car and saw some stuff. It was alright. I guess I´m having a bit of a flat, the pdays in the Algarve were really cool... now it´s a bit tougher to do stuff. But I´ll keep an eye out haha.

     This week was another bull-by-the-horns week. We worked really hard and I was probably thinking about some aspect of the work every conscious second. So many things buzzing in my head, who I would call, what we would say in the next lesson, what I would say to the next person walking towards us in the street, what I would say to Elder Gunnarsson to help him out, what I would do to plan divisions in the zone, how we would get to Sacavém to go to the district meeting there, when we would visit that one lady who was curious about the book of mormon, what path we´ll take to walk to Ramada that has lots of people to contact, just lots of stuff, endless.

     Each night when I laid down I just sat staring at the ceiling sifting through mental tasks and decisions about the next day... it was a tiring week but I really felt the spirit. Hot day, walking up a steep hill, being rejected by everyone in the street, just looking towards the sky I just can´t help smiling.

     On Tuesday we taught an Angolan woman of about 50 years, Josefa. We contacted her a while back and accepted our visit, in the start she was a bit reluctant. She is from the Igreja Maná (idk what it is in english, but its a christian church, if i understood right, they have apostles). She was baptized just last week in that church. We taught the restoration to her and two of her daughters on her doorstep. After the lesson, she accepted to read the BoM, and said "well, god will tell me if I need to be baptized by the right authority." She accepted to be baptized on the condition of a response. It´s not every day that someone considers to be baptized a third time to get it right.

     Her two daughters were there to visit her from angola but will soon return there, so we´re more focused in Josefa.

     I had a division with Elder Slater, a missionary who has been out for a bit longer than I have. It was a good time. I learned a lot from him about how I can do better in the training of Elder Gunnarsson. 

     We taught Daniel from last week again. It was an interesting experience. He was super nice and payed a lot of attention to us. We asked him how his reading went and he said that he read the chapter and the intro that we left with him. He said he tried to hide all bias and read openly, but he said that he felt nothing when he read it.

     I wasn´t super worried. We quickly explained Moroni 10:4 and how he needs to show his real intent. He said that he was lacking there, he said he was still feeling a bit wishy washy about baptism. He was willing to investigate, but not to commit.

     We ended up having a good lesson with him. We left 3 Nephi 11 with him and he accepted the challenge to read and ask God again. We came back on Saturday night and he was on his porch with the book and pamphlets in hand. We sat and chatted with him. He said he started to have some problems with his wife... she doesnt like us. He doesn´t want to cause problems in his family so he wanted to give us the book back.

     We asked him how the reading went, and he said that it was much better. He said that he really started to feel something special. We said he could keep the BoM and the pamphlets. He was actually really pleased to hear that. We testified and told him that he will surely meet up with the missionaries in the future. He said that he would continue to read gladly, he really enjoyed the book. He said that he still feels strange about a commitment like baptism, but he said that he hopes that he can change. It was a good experience, that spirit was very strong there. We said farewell and he was a bit teary if you ask me.

     Also in the division with Elder Slater we found this Angolan guy, 25ish named Joel. He´s been in the country for a few months now. He wasn´t up to anything at the time, so he let us go up to his apartment with him. He grew up catholic, and goes to a catholic church each sunday with his girlfriend. However, we explained the Restoration and in the end he gladly accepted the BoM, to come to church, and to be baptized when he knows its all true. He got sick and didnt make it to church unfortunately, but we will soon resume with him.

     Elder Slater and I, after that lesson, realized that we didnt have another book of mormon with us, so we directed ourselves towards home to grab another. On the way, Elder Slater stopped a portuguese man, Pedro, 30ish, who had a shirt with what appeared to be a little aztec design or something like that. Elder Slater complimented his shirt and said "hey, we´ve got an ancient book about the ancient people of the americas, we´d like to share it with you. We´re in a rush right now, but can we jot down you info and we´ll pass by tomorrow". And so it was. 

     The next day, we showed up at Pedro´s apartment and he was waiting for us. We entered, and learned more about him. Turns out that Pedro is a lawyer and also studied anglican history and american history and culture. He already knew a bit about the pioneers. Pedro grew up catholic, but lately has been more or less protestant.

     We taught the restoration and he enjoyed it a lot. I didn´t even finish my sentence when I invited him to be baptized and he had already said yes. We invited him to read, pray, visit church, and be baptized in two weeks, should he be prepared. He accepted everything smoothly, he was a bit anxious at the end of the lesson because I soon recognized that he just really wanted to read the BoM.

     Unfortunately, we lost contact with Pedro a few days before church, and he didn´t make it. He sent a message sunday morning saying that he wasnt coming because he was still reading... but we´ll meet up with him more and work things out.

     A funny experience. We were contacting when we stopped a brazilian lady. She wasn´t interested due to the fact of her already being comfortable in her own church, she was also getting home from work and really tired... common responses. We tried to leave a card with her, but she said "no no, give it to someone else, im good!"

     I replied, "you sure? we have a ton!" She continued to say that she didn´t want one. I then continued, "aw that´s alright, you can give it to someone else!" She paused and thought for a moment. I then said "hey, here comes a lady from around the corner over there, you can give it to her!"

     And whaddyaknow, this lady took the card, walked up to this lady, and with a smile said "hey I would like to give you this card about Christ, from a church." The woman accepted and continued. 

     The brazilian woman returned to us and said "there, are you happy?" 

     "oh look, here come two men from over there, wanna give them cards too?" I said as I handed her two more. She looked at me with the typical ´dang, you guys are annoying, clever, and funny at the same time´ face. She took the two cards, and gave them to the two guys. 

     You should have seen my face, I was just ear to ear grinning. We got a lady who rejected us to do street contacts for us. Elder Gunnarsson thought it was really funny too.

     This was a serious achievement of my mission.

     Anyways, I think that sums it up. Lots of other little thingies happened this week, but those were the highlights. Im having a great time here. Its a bit stressful and we have a ton of work to o but I feel the spirit every day and things will get even better real soon.

Take care,

Elder Ward

 a photo from a few weeks back... chameleons roam wild here!

 a view from the cable car thingy

a selfie during emails because I realize that I dont have that many photos for you guys