25 September 2017 A Fistful of Surprises

Dear family and friends,

This week was a lot different from any other week in my mission. It was pretty crazy. I don´t think I´m going to focus in chronological order, so let´s go!

I mentioned Linda in last week´s email. We continued to teach Linda, everything ran really well, she didn´t have any problems with any of the commandments. So, we continued forward, and she progressed so well, she was so ready, that we taught everything to her in 3 visits, and afterwards we brought the District Leader, Elder Slater to do the interview.

Everything ran smoothly. We planned a baptism, invited folks, and Linda was baptized by Elder Gunnarsson (his first baptism!) Saturday morning. She came to church the next day I had the privilege to confirm her. It was really cool. Adding it up, she knew Elder Gunnarsson for only 6.5 days, and in 7.5 days she was already a member. (President authorized)

I´ve never taught someone who was so ready to just become a member. She was super happy and simply wanted to move on, and it´s not our calling to stop her!

This experience was really a huge blessing. The first 5 weeks of this transfer Elder Gunnarsson and I worked like crazy. So many things went wrong, I was honestly doubting that we would baptize this transfer, but literally Heavenly Father just gave us a Hail Mary that worked out really well. After church yesterday I turned to Elder Gunnarsson and said "I hope you learned just one thing with me. Work, and work, and when that fails, work some more, because it´s the only way that God will see it fit to give you success."

And to add to all this, I got really sick this week and I had to travel to 2 other areas to do baptismal interviews... so we lost a lot of time, and the sickness was annoying, but hey it all worked out in the end.

Sunday afternoon, I got a call from President Tavares. He thanked me for my service as a Zone Leader, and said that I would be transferred to Setúbal 1C, an area that I will have to describe another time, because I´ve never been there! He said that I will train a new missionary, Elder Hawkins there. I will do yet another whitewash (my 5th of now 6 areas). I will be a District Leader there.

After hanging up, I was absolutely floored, I thought that I was guaranteed to stay in Odivelas for at least 2 transfers. It was a complete curveball!

Now some other things

One of my goals in the training with Elder Gunnarsson was to help him learn to do street contacts alone. When I served with my other companions, we always walked on opposite sides of the street talking to everybody that passed by. It ran well, we found a lot of cool people with this tactic.

However, a new missionary like Elder Gunnarsson often doesn´t have the courage nor the language skills to do so, but it was my goal to help him do this in this last week. So, one day, we were walking towards another part of town and I said, "okay Elder Gunnarsson, you walk on the other side. I´ll stay on this side, talk with everyone you see" "uh, oh, uhm, but" "go, stay in my sight"

So we split up. We started walking and talking with people. After each contact I always glanced to make sure that Elder Gunnarsson was close by. After about five or ten minutes I looked to find him and he wasn´t there. I crossed to his side, and I was a bit worried, I thought that maybe he got scared and ran away or something.

After giving a lap around the street, I found him on a neighboring street talking with two people who were also proselyting for another church... I rolled my eyes and cut the conversation because Elder Gunnarsson had basically entered in a little "bible bash". I leave him for a few minutes and he´s already wound up in a little mess. I thought it was pretty funny.

I interviewed an old Angolan man who was taught in Sacavém named José. He´s a typical catholic fella who doesn´t go to church much. He has a son who lives in Germany and is a member of the church and a bishop there. José wasn´t really interested in the gospel back when his son was baptized. His son simply asked José to greet the missionaries the next time he saw them in the street and ask them for a blessing for his wife who has cancer. A month or so ago, José saw the missionaries in the street, he called out to them, they talked to him, gave a blessing to his wife, and he progressed in the gospel and was baptized on saturday. It was a privilege to do his interview. His son was super happy to hear the news. I thought it was a cool story to share.

But yeah, I think that´s basically an update for this week. It was a good week for sure. I´m doing better now, I only have a slight headache and a cough. I will travel to the mission office tomorrow and I will receive my new companion and we´ll get to work in Setúbal!

That´s it!

Ciao!

Elder Ward