16 April 2018 Acabou-se (It´s over!)

Dear family and friends,

     Surprisingly, my mission is ending, basically right now. I already had an interview with President Tavares and I will leave for the airport 2am this next morning. The bags are already ready but I´m not. It´s awfully strange.

     You´re probably curious, but Maria was inteed baptized this last saturday. It ran well. She was working a lot this week so we had to get creative. We jogged to her house early in the morning in the rain to fill out the baptismal form and then we came back that night we came back with the District Leader to hold the interview before she went to bed. We had to intercept her at the right times, but it all worked out. She was baptized saturday night and confirmed Sunday morning. She´s already learning a lot and has some friends. She´s a nice lady. João Lima came to church too, he´s doing great, he´s already half way through Alma.

     We worked with a number of other investigators, we ran around working a bunch, I won´t go into details. A large part of our time was used with Maria, tying up loose ends and I also used a few hours copying information to the Area book for future missionaries, info from investigators to bus hours.

     But yeah, that´s it. I´m not going to make an elaborate email, I don´t have much time anyways. I´ll miss Costa da Caparica, I met a lot of great people here. I had a good time with Elder Nichols too. I will miss Portugal and the mission greatly.

     I cannot begin to explain the experience that the mission has been for me, surely those who already served can relate. But it sufficeth me to say that it was incredible and I´m sad that it´s ending. But time, being merciless, ever ticking and tocking, stopping for nothing, has sealed shut yet another chapter of my life. My head is a swirl right now, but I´m happy.

Thanks,

Elder Ward

 Another abandoned base​

 Maria

 Casa Lima

Chimarrão (not drugs)

9 April 2018 Tick Tock

Dear family and friends,

     Things are going well! Good stuff is happening, we have our friend Maria who is preparing to be baptized on saturday. I´m enjoying the work, and I don´t feel like the mission is going to end. I don´t have the mental resources to imagine what my life will be like after the mission (I don´t know what college is like, nor what my home is like), so for now its only rendering mission life haha.

     I got the phone to work, so I have a recording instead of a long email. I still haven´t heard a complaint, so I continued to do the recordings. 

     I don´t have a clue as to how next week will work out, but hopefully I´ll have a moment to write and read.

    That´s basically it. 

Take care everybody,

Elder Ward

26 March 2018 Gravação 2

Dear family and friends,

     Once again, I decided to just do a voice recording. Once again, it was really long. oh well.

(At least I´m still sending something, right?)

​

 Voice007.wav

​

 Fonte da Telha

19 March 2018 Nichols

Dear family and friends,

     Today is different. We´re short on time so I´m attaching a voice recording with an update for the week. I talk a lot, I didn´t anticipate it all well, but it ended up being like 27 minutes... yeah, a bit long... Don´t worry, I won´t be offended if you don´t listen to it all. I imagine a lot of you guys already gave up on reading the whole email haha. But yeah, enjoy.

Voice003.wav

So, I guess the file was too big. I hope you guys can still access it t through google drive. if not, enjoy just these photos haha

12 March 18 Tá indo

Dear family and friends,

     This week ran smoothly, we had some pretty cool experiences.

     On Monday we met up Walker with at night. We walked with him for a bit and he stopped to talk with one of his friends there in the street, and we took advantage of the situation to meet him too, his friend´s name is Manulito, an african fella. We ended up going the next day to Manulito for a bit and we managed to teach him a decent lesson. He´s a bit of a spaz, so we kept things simple and brief for him. He already investigated the church a while back, so he new the basics. We simply talked with him about action, about really doing something to progress in his life towards God. He accepted to come with us to church and to prepare to be baptized.

     We returned another day to teach some more and follow up with him. There was another guy there named Ston, also african, about 20 years old. I sat and chatted with him as Elder Vigne sat with Manulito. We each taught each one individually because they were in different stages. Ston was a pretty cool guy, he said that because of his family traditions it would be difficult to decide to be baptized, even though he learned that day that he needed to be baptized like Christ was, by immersion.

     We planned to come back Saturday night to chat with the two of them to arrange everything for them to travel to church the next day.

     We showed up and found out that it was game night. Soccer. Dangit. There were already like 5 other friends that had arrived and Manulito had left to buy things (the beer...). We got a phone call from a member that was going to give a ride to an investigator called and I had to pick it up. I was in the kitchen chatting as Elder Vigne was on the couch in the other room, he actually managed to teach one of the guys there, smooth.

     Then Manulito showed up with more buddies and we quickly realized that it wouldn´t work out so smoothly haha. Ston stopped by not to stay but to just grab a few things, he didn´t make it to church due to short notice complications, but him and Manulito both promised to come this next Sunday... we´ll see haha.

     We visited Bruno this week with his (almost-)wife Ana at home. We played our cards well and we managed to sit and chat with the two of them together. We had a really really good lesson, one of the best of my mission. We shared a bunch about the Plan of Salvation and how the Law of Chastity applies in it. Ana was a bit stubborn, but everything was talked over with a lot of laughter, really smooth, and Ana and Bruno have a goal to get married in late April. Phew. Bruno was on our side the whole time and even taught some things to her too. Bruno was going to come to church, we arranged a ride for him and everything, but unfortunately family came to visit them Sunday morning so he couldn´t make it. No worries, we´ll keep a grip on him.

     A few weeks have passed since we last talked with Carla. She progressed super well, but her mother, whom we still haven´t met, wont let her do anything... She took the BoM from her and her phone... cmon. But we managed to find Carla and to our relief she still has interest, she´s just a bit discouraged because of her restrictive mother... We´ll see what we can do.

     Remember that Lucas from last week? We met up with him this last weekend and we had a good lesson. We talked about the Plan of Salvation and we basically asked him if he wanted to participate in God´s plan by progressing and preparing to be baptized. He accepted, and he came to church too! He´s showing some good progress, but still needs to progress some more. After church we went to eat lunch with a nice brazilian family, Família Lima, and we asked if we could bring Lucas. They gladly had him over. We had a good time there, he got along really well with everyone there. We´ll be working with him for sure.

     We had a very spiritual experience yesterday. There is a woman named Teresa who recently moved to our ward and was baptized about a year ago. She approached me after sacrament meeting to ask us to come to her home and give a blessing to her granddaughter.

     We got there last night and met the family. Carla is a young mother with two little girls, her mother is Teresa. The two little girls are Íris and Bianca. Bianca is a nice little baby, and Íris is a toddler with some health problems. I didn´t understand the medical terms used there, but I basically understood that she has a type of cancer that heavily effects her brain and her figure, and will stay with her until she will probably pass away as a young teenager.

     Little Íris was wiggling around on the couch, so Teresa held her in her arms as we gave her a blessing. The spirit was very strong.

     We had a moment of silence afterwards. I said the only thing that I could manage to formulate. I told them about Marie, an I simply said "God loves you guys and your familiy. He´ll carry you through this. He has a plan for you all and little Íris. Trust him."

     After we conversed for a bit longer, we headed out with heavy thoughts. I felt such a mixture of things for that family. They pass through so much. I felt pity, love, sorrow, gratitude... but in all I felt grateful for being able to give a blessing there and help, but above all a peace.

     This Sunday an older man in our ward, António approached us and asked us if we could accompany him today (during our pday) to a hospital in Lisbon to give a blessing to his granddaughter as well. We accepted, we´ll be going with him in just an hour or so there. Because of the experience last night, I can confidently say that I´m grateful and excited to help someone else today.

     The two members who asked for these blessings are the only members in their families...

     And to finish up, transfers. Elder Vigne will leave to a neighboring area, Miratejo, and I will stay in Costa da Caparica, and I will train a new missionary. I really really liked serving with Elder Vigne and I learned a lot. I´m excited to train this transfer.

     I think that´s it.

On to the next one,

Elder Ward

 A subway stop

A member gave us some aunt jemimas maple syrup and I made some pancakes to accompany it. Vigne didn´t like it...​

5 March 2018 Pelo Espírito

Dear family and friends,

     A pretty chill week, to give a summary. We got some stuff done. I´ll get started.

     I thought I was back up and healthy, in a general sense, I was. But, I kept a cough with me all week. I´d wake up at like 3am just to cough and cough. I´d go to the other room to spare my companion from my hacking. I´d sit there for a half hour coughing and then it´d pass and I´d go back to bed... an annoyance, but it basically only got in the way of sleep. It´s practically gone now.

     João Lima was confirmed by a member yesterday, everything ran smooth, he´s doing well. Not a single problem. Truly a blessing being able to work with him.

     I had a division this week after a district meeting with our district leader, Elder Fortes. He´s a cool guy, his parents are from Cabo Verde but he grew up in the US. He´s a good missionary, we got a lot of stuff done. We actually were able to teach a handful of people but unfortunately none of them progressed later in the week.

     Even so, we had some good experiences. Elder Fortes chatted with a couple on the bus ride home who had already investigated the church, were nearly baptized a few years ago, but werent because they went to France. They live in the other mission of portugal but we jotted down the info and we already sent it to the other mission.

    Do you guys remember Bruno from a few weeks back? Well, summarizing the backstory, we found Bruno, a 28yo from cabo verde in his apt building and we chatted with him and we taught him for a bit. He came to church and really enjoyed it. A couple weeks back while we were teaching him, he told us a bit about why he liked having us over saying "I took a hard test a while back (He´s studying electrical engineering) and i was really nervous. Before taking the test I prayed and told God that if he helped me on the test I´d finally go out and look for a church to join. I passed and shortly after, you guys showed up." He accepts the things that we teach very well. Unfortunately, he has a "wife", but they aren´t legally married. We had a really good lesson with Bruno this last week about real intent and we helped him work up a courage to get things moving faster.

     We used the BoM to help him understand. We read in Alma 34.32 that this time is a time for men to prepare to meet god and execute their labors. In 33 we continue to read that we shouldn´t procrastinate our repentance and that this time "is given us to prepare for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed." We gave the typical and obvious explanation... "Bruno, you never know when our time here on earth runs out. We need to repent (aka keep the commandments, aka get married in your situation) asap so that way we´re ready should that unfortunate day come sooner than we´d like." Bruno nodded, "well, yeah, but cmon guys let´s at least hope that I won´t die tomorrow". 

     ...But I don´t like that explanation that much. It´s like we show up giving death threats to people like "hey, you might die tomorrow, so dude you gotta git stuff done now". I mean, it´s true, but there´s gotta be better.

     In the english BoM we read that we should "improve our time" during our lives, otherwise darkness that impedes labors will come... ok. Wait, improve our time? Huh? But in portuguese we read "se não fizermos melhor uso de nosso tempo..." translating to "if we don´t make better use of our time". I don´t know if my explanation makes sense, I don´t know if what I translated gives a different ring to the sentence (let´s say that I´m tone deaf to english after being isolated from it for so long), but to me it does. It´s understood here that our time here on earth is to be used to prepare ourselves to meet god and eternity (repent and such), and that we should make good use of our time, aka, we should use our time wisely too, otherwise we´ll be backed in to a corner later.

     We explained this to Bruno and he understood not only by that "death threat" but he also more importantly understood that he needed to get going with marraige plans, because God doesn´t just want to see if we choose the right eventually, he wants to see that we choose the right and that we don´t sit on the fence all worried about it.

     Funny thing is, I never understood Alma 32.34 in that way. I had never thought of that part like that, but in the exact moment that we read the verses with him those thoughts came straight into my head very clearly.

     I forgot to tell a really cool experience from last week.

     Rewinding a bit, a year and a half ago I was serving with Elder Marques in Póvoa. We were at the train station and we met this guy named Walker. He pretended to be a non member who wanted to be baptized, but we called him out and we got to know him during our train ride home. He served a mission one or two years earlier in Portugal. His dad is american, and his mother from Cabo Verde. He lived in the states for a while and in Portugal, so he´s the two at the same time. Elder Marques and Walker spent the whole ride chatting about their missions and the old mission presidents. I just listened. Walker confessed that he´s inactive, that he doesn´t like going to church anymore due to the gossip and such... ok. Well, I thought he was a decent guy, we even thought about visiting him (we kept his number) but we just never got around to it. 

     Last week, as we were leaving a lesson, I saw this guy jogging (not sport jogging, rush jogging) in the other direction. I looked at him and thought "nahw, that can´t be walker... here?" He passed and said "hey Elders!" but kept jogging... I was even more confused because I really doubted the chances of us meeting a second time in a different part of the country... But I couldn´t resist. I called out as he was about to round the corner to leave our sight "hey Walker!" and he stopped and came up to us. "Remember me?" He looked at me and said, "hey wait, yeah!"

     From there we chatted and we found out that he now lives in our area. He´s still inactive but he´s super open to us. We already ate dinner at his house this last week and when he gets a day off on monday it´s likely that we´ll spend a pday with him too. He´s not sketchy, don´t worry, he´s just got to swallow a bit of his pride and get back to church. We hope to be his first friends there, and don´t worry, we´ll still be stern with him when necessary. We met his girlfriend and we see potential in her. He asked us to give her a blessing.

     But what are the odds? I wasn´t even "supposed" to serve in this area, but I had an emergency transfer" here... hmm. No other missionary in this whole mission (from what I know) would have recognized him, not one ever met him.

     On saturday we were doing some "telemarketing" as Elder Vigne calls it with our area book. We called a brazilian guy named Lucas and we managed to meet up with him. He was really chill. He was baptized in another church, but he didn´t like it because he was basically "pushed" to be baptized. However, we gave him a brief explanation about the apostasy and restoration. We explained that we prepare people to be baptized and that we don´t puch, in fact, we have interviews before each baptism to make sure that the person really wants to and is ready. He raised his eyebrows a bit. He was down to come to church but we don´t know what happened still, unfortunately he didn´t make it. We´ll hunt him down this week.

     But yeah, that´s the week. It rained a ton. I coughed a ton. We had some good experiences.

Take care everybody,

Elder Ward

Sorry, no photos... but I hope that you enjoyed the news anyways.

26 February 2018 João Lima

Dear family and friends,

     Elder Vigne made the following comment about the luck that I have. He said "Tu tá tão azarado que se comprar um anão cresce." (You´re so lucky that if you bought a dwarf he´d grow.) Why? Well, I came down with a cold this week, really annoying, poor luck, truly. Fever, all sorts of annoyances in my throat and nose, loss of sleep due to all that, it wasn´t too fun. We lost some work time this week to recuperate a bit, but we still got out a bunch to get stuff done.

     I´ll start with the best part. We taught João Lima nearly every day of the last week and we got him well prepared for his baptism. He progressed really well, he read the BoM, everything was going well. We brought members to teach him and everything. He accepted everything, he was truly prepared by the Lord. He said that he was baptized years ago in another church, but felt nothing. He was excited to be baptized.

     He came to church dressed all fancy with a suitcoat and real shiny shoes, but most importantly with a towel. We held the baptism after the meetings at about 1pm. Fortunately, and surprisingly, quite a few members stuck around for the baptism, about 20 or so, making it my largest baptism. João was baptized by his long-time friend Geraldo, our ward mission leader. Everything ran well.

     Just before his baptism, I was sitting by his side in the front of the room. I asked "You nervous, João?" He quickly responded "No. I´m moving forward with all naturality."

     João will be confirmed next Sunday.

     We had a zone conference this week in Setúbal. It was a good time, learned a lot. Everyone was joking with me, calling me a dinosaur. (I was the "oldest" missionary there). We talked about a number of things, but a notable one was how to use the BoM in conversion. It was a good review. Truly, if someone with an open heart reads the book of mormon, he can resolve all of his doubts, because it is the BoM that allows us to trust the men who lead this church as prophets of God, and if they are such, their word is law.

     We stopped a brazilian with her 10yo son in the street this week and we came back the next day to teach. Her name was Sandra, a school teacher. She said that she was open to hear us not only because of curiosity, but mainly because she put herself in "our mothers´ shoes" aka she thought about how much we were giving up and how our moms let us leave home for two years just to talk about religion with people. 

     We had a really good lesson with her about the restoration. She was truly intrigued after hearing the news of a modern prophet to finish with apostasy. She gladly accepted the challenge to read and pray about the book of mormon, but she couldn´t make it to church so we didn´t talk much about baptism with her... yet.

     We were walking down the street when these guys in a bar called out for us... ugh... the more we try to just keep walking the louder they keep yelling "Elders! Elders! Com´ere!" So, we reluctantly went up to them and we actually had a decent conversation with 3 guys there. One was drunk, the other high, but the third was paying attention and asking legitamate questions. We chatted there for a little bit and ended up with their addresses. The one who was drunk in the middle of the conversation yelled "I NeED to PEE" and just left to relieve himself around the corner.

     Productive? No. Funny? Yeah, not every day that that happens.

     Then we round the corner after finishing with those three and then another four call out to us. At this point we thought, eh why not. These were a bit more evolved, only 2 of the 4 were high. Some legitamate questions, but no cigar in the end. 

     One of the high guys took our card crumpled it up and threw it straight at the ground as we walked away. Then his three buds gave him a look like "dude" and one socked him and said "why´d you accept it then?" Still not productive, but still funny.

     I think that´s the update. I was a bit under the weather yet again, so not a lot of action. I´m once again back to full health, all is well. Things are going good!

Até,

Elder Ward

Ps if someone mentioned last week isn´t in this email, it means that I don´t have any news about them... they stopped progressing or we lost contact with them. We havent forgotten about them though.

 Geraldo and João!

19 February 2018 Bomb Week

Dear family and friends,

     I said it´d be a bomb week, and it was. I wasn´t sick this week which obviously helped a lot. We got right to work. We made a list of all the people that we needed to visit that we were going to visit that last week.

     We put the week off to a good start with our interviews with president Tavares Tuesday morning. It ran well, it´s always nice to sit down and chat with president for a bit. He congratulated our hard work in Costa da Caparica, we´ve practically resurrected the area. I also chatted with Sister Tavares for a bit, she told me that when she and her husband first saw me arriving in the airport with my MTC group she commented to president "That big readhead is going to be a lot of work or he´s going to be great." I thought that was funny.

      It was a bit of travelling though, we had catch a bus and a train and another bus to get there.

Let´s talk about the people that we worked with this week.

     A couple weeks back in Costa we chatted with a 25ish yo woman from Cabo Verde. Her name was a mouthful: Adalgiza (Ah-dal-JEE-zuh). She was a bit sassy, said stuff like "oh, I already know who you guys are, nah, I already know about your message" (90% of the time people actually don´t know). So we kept her address and her number and we called her back later (this last week). We marked for that afternoon, and funny enough, we got on the bus to her town and she was already on the bus! So, we followed her to her house and we met her better and her sister, Indira. We taught the restoration, and Indira payed a lot of attention and understood well. However, each time Adalgiza threw out a distracting comment or a doubt, Indira jumped on board. Even so, we managed to give a good lesson, Indira accepted to read and pray, and to come to church and prepare to be baptized.

     Unfortunately, we didn´t manage to meet up with either of them for the rest of the week... it happens a lot. Lots of work, unexpected stuff, and yeah. I find it funny, people tell us in the lessons, "wow, this makes sense. Yeah, I want to visit your church, that´d mean a lot if all this were true!" and then they just manage to forget about it all in the unnecessary business and distractions of life.

     Nearly the same thing happened with three other ladies that we taught the same night. They understood what we taught and everything but then life just gets everything mixed up. Lot´s of people value our message but not more that other day to day things.

     It was also really funny, one of the ladies that we taught asked Elder Vigne to marry her and take her to brazil afterwards.... I don´t think she payed a lot of attention during the lesson haha. I bugged Elder Vigne all week about it.

     We were walking in the street and we saw this african man, about 50, walking down the street with light up shoes... like light up shoes for adults... We just had to talk to him.

     Elder Vigne stopped him and commented about his shoes, and we started to chat. His name is Joãoa really calm guy, lives alone, from angola. We told him that we had a message about Christ to share with him, and the next day we headed over to his house, we were running a little late. We buzzed his door, but he wasn´t home. A bit bummed, we looked around with that typical "what now" face on. A little ways off we saw a figure with glowing feet. We went running behind him and it was João! We explained to him our tardiness and he had no problem in walking back home for a moment to hear our message.

     We didn´t have much time, but we talked about the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a simple and short lesson. We invited him to continue meeting with us to prepare to be baptized as Christ was one day. He accepted.

     We came back and taught the restoration. He understood well, and enjoyed it, he had already seen the effects of the Apostasy in his life. We invited him to be baptized this next weekend and to come to church. He accepted. Good.

     We worked out a ride for him and he came to church! Turns out that João is a popular guy! We went around the chapel stopping the members one by one and pointing saying, "hey, that fella over there is João, he´s visiting today. Would you mind going and saying hi to him? Thanks" "oh, João? Heyy, I already know that guy, yeah, that´s João! I´ve seen him around town a lot/I used to work with him/he knows my cousin/he lives on my street, etc..." I thought each time "Why didn´t you introduce him to the missionaries years ago?!" oh well...

     João got to chat a bunch with a lot of members, he practically hypnotized a few toddlers with his shoes. I chatted with him afterwards about the goal he had made to be baptized as I showed him the baptismal font. He seemed a bit uneasy, which made me uneasy. Later, I brought it up again and he said "Elder, it´s not going to work out. I have to visit some relatives on saturday, I´ll be out of town." "how about sunday" "oh, ok that works. Yeah, let´s do that!"

     We´ll be visiting with him a bunch this week to teach the rest. If all goes well he´ll be baptized this sunday after church.

     Lesson learned (for you guys too): You never know who is ready for the gospel. It could be that guy you always ride the bus with, it could be your barber, it could be that guy with light-up shoes that you always pass in the street. Just thing of a way to bring up the gospel and just make a simple, simple, invite. What´s the worst that could happen?

     A couple weeks back we stopped a teenage girl in the street from Angola named Carla. She was nice but really shy. She left us with her address, and we passed by later to see what we could get out of it.

     She answered the door and we actually got to teach her with no problems. She was really nice, she used to go to another church a year or so ago. She recognizes that she needs to better, to better her relationship with God. We´ve got the stuff to fix that.

     We taught a good lesson about the Plan of Salvation and the Gospel of Jesus Christ and we showed her what she could do to grow closer to god. She accepted baptism and to come to church.

     We came back the next day, and she gave us some bad news... her mother doesn´t like us. Wont let her be baptized nor come to church. Every time.

     We taught some more and we cleared up some of Carla´s doubts and helped her with the steps for her to form a stronger testimony. She prayed in the end of the lesson and said things like "I hope that these missionaries can always come back and continue to help me/ Help me to prepare to be baptized and get to church someday/ Help my mother understand" etc. She was really open to the gospel, it´s really cool to teach her. We´ll visit on tuesday (mom´s day off) to try to talk to her. We´re going to bring our secret weapon — american cookies.

     We have a really cool kid in our ward named Marcelo, 16, african. He likes working with us, teaching with us, etc. So we walked with him for a day of work, he helped out in the lessons with João and Carla. That night, he said "hey Elders, you guys want to meet one of my frien—" "YEah, where does he live?"

     He took us to his friend´s house, Cândido, another african fellow, 18. He was a great guy, we taught the restoration and he took it well. Marcelo bore his testimony. Everything ran well, he accepted to prepare for baptism, but unfortunately had to babysit sunday, so didn´t make it to church. But even so, it was a good start. We taught once more last night and worked out some questions that he had. We´ll be continuing this week.

     We stopped a portuguese man named José close to the train station late one night, and he stopped to listen for us to a bit. I was really surprised, he was dressed in a suit and briefcase and everything, he was getting home from a day of work at the bank (you think that he might be rich?), usually people like him don´t even look at us when we talk to them haha. We taught him a brief lesson about the restoration, Elder Vigne let me teach nearly the entire lesson. He commented afterwards "it´s a good thing you tought most of it, I don´t know how to teach sophisticated people like him, sometimes they don´t take me seriously because of my slang and my accent."

     José enjoyed it. He was intrigued by our always unique news of a modern prophet. We´ll try to meet up with him once more this week.

     A couple weeks back a drunk guy named luís stopped us speaking sloppy english. We dodged his distracting comments and ended up with his address. We stopped by later to see if it was worth is and we found him sober at home and it turns out that he has already investigated the church for a few years. We had a decent lesson, we´ll give some, but not a lot of attention to him.

     Funny enough, this last week another guy stopped us in the street and immediately said "elders, come to my house, let´s pray" I thought "this guy´s gotta be Luís´s brother or something." Lo and behold, he was! We gave a brief lesson, we´ll see if they follow through with the "homework" that we left with them.

    We found another fellow who lives in the middle of nowhere in our area book named Carlos. A portuguese man, 50ish, already investigated the church for a while last year. He wasn´t baptized due to the word of wisdom, but since then he had stopped drinking, so now we´re working with him to stop smoking  too. He seems to have some potential, we´ll see what happens.

     I´m going to wrap it up here. As you see, we had a busy week! I didn´t even tell you all the details nor all the people that we taught! But we have high hopes for João, Carla, and Cândido. We´re excited to put in another week of hard work now.

Ciao,

Elder Ward

lunch today. Vigne loves McD´s

AH! I don´t know if I mentioned this fine man in my emails from Setúbal, but I´ll review anyways.

This is Lourenço. He´s catholic, and knows the missionaries for almost 20 years. He respects, but doesn´t want to join the church, even though he knows so much about it. (I personally think that he knows that it´s true, he just has some sort of hesitation... he didn´t let us teach him). Even so, he feeds the missionaries nearly as much as they please, and enjoys having them over. In setúbal I ate lunch with him probably about once a week (he fed us more that the ward! shhh). In such time, we got to know each other. He always throws little parties when missionaries have birthdays but I was transferred just before my birthday. In spite of the transfer, he called me and came to Costa da Caparica with a trunk fool of picnic stuff, food (lots of it) and a cake! He´s a great guy haha.

12 February 2018 Doente

Dear friends and family,

     This week was simple. On monday we did some shopping, I managed to find a cheap light jacket to use and some ties. Elder Vigne and I got to work for the next day but then I ate something that got me really sick... lets just say that I got a fever and my digestive sistem stopped working and I had to do a full restart. I had to stay home for the greater part of the week... because of suck, I just don´t have anything to say... Sorry to disappoint you guys, but I was not able to get stuff done this week.

     But in other news, I don´t know if any of my old friends or acquaintances are still chugging through my emails, but I´d thought that I´d through out a side info just for your guy´s information. I applied to BYU Provo, BYU Idaho, and LDS Business college, and it is very likely that I will attend one of those schools this fall.

     So yeah, that´s a wrap. One of my shortest, sorry.

Take care,

Elder Ward

PS my health has returned back to normal, all is well. We´ll have a bomb week now

here we are

5 Feb 2018 Começando em Costa

Dear family and friends,

     Our second week in Costa da Caparica just passed. We have explored and gotten to know our area much better. It´s been running well. I´m getting along really well with Elder Vigne, we´re both getting a lot of work done here.

     So we´ve been doing the bread and butter of missionary work lately. We´ve been filtering through our anorexic area book to find direction in what we´ll do and where we´ll go throughout the day, and when things fall through, we improvise with street contacts, door knocking, etc. It has worked well, fortunately, a handful of people this week that we found in the street or by other methods let us in to share our message.

     We visited Márcio once more this week, but he´s been awfully busy. He works for a large broadcasting business in Brazil and received a big project. He´s a fault-finder, basically. He observes for hours and hours the same 30s commercial to make sure that there weren´t any CG errors... He examines every shadow, frame, it´s really deep. So, he didn´t have time to have us teach for very long, but he said that he´d surely try to come to church. He still desires to be baptized. However, it looks like his week was just too busy.. we havent heard from him and he didn´t make it to church.

     But, like I said, we found some other cool people. For example, as we were searching for an investigator from a few years back we simply started to chat with this guy, bruno, +/-22, from Cabo Verde in the entrance of the building. He lived right there and we marked to come back. He said that he had been interested in finding a religion.

     We came back the next day to teach and we had a really good lesson. We taught him the restoration with really opened his eyes and helped him understand what he could do to find the solution to his search. He came to church (he lives a bit far away but he drove to church, which is rare!) and really enjoyed it. We taught him the plan of salvation there and he soaked it all up. He will travel to france for 2-3 weeks to visit his family, but we´ll pounce again as soon as he gets back, we kept his email to stay in touch.

     Like last week, we found a bunch of people from old records in our area book, but due to the lack of missionaries here for a time they too lost interest... but even so we´re manageing to find new people to teach.

     I didn´t mention it last week, but last sunday I played the role of translator! It´s been a while haha. A south african lady named Neo came to church. I chatted with her a bit and learned a bit about her, but also learned that she was passing through a tough time in her life, and that basically she was trying to re-activate herself in the church. So, I took advantage of the opportunity of translation to teach too haha. She had revealed some necessities, and as people were giving their talks or teaching the lessons I may have changed the subject a bit to help her understand which gospel principles she could apply to confront her difficulties.

     She said that she was living with some people who gave her a ride to church so we invited her to bring those same people with her this week but unfortunately she didn´t make it... but it was an interesting experience.

     Speaking of english, in language study I´ve been teaching Elder Vigne English. He´s certainly a beginner. As I teach him I realize more and more just how ridiculous the english language is... summarizing, I would say that english is a very disobedient language... It´s amusingly frustrating sometimes because I have to explain to Elder Vigne that a sentance is structured a certain way, but I sometimes genuinely don´t know why, its just the way it is... I´m grateful that I learned english growing up, it´d be so annoying to learn as a second language.

I think that´s it for now. Sorry, not a lot of news. We´re working hard here and we´re enjoying it. It´s great being able to focus in my area and my companion, and most importantly my relationship with the savior, and nothing more. Please take the time to forget the world and focus on what really keeps you living.

Tchauzinho, vá,

Elder Ward

I´ll give you guys a treat. A series of phrases and expressions that Elder Vigne, a true Gaúcho uses in his part of brazil- (I´ve got a list)

—"Tou mais perdido que uma cebola numa salada de fruta" 

"I´m more lost than an onion in a fruit salad"

—"Este é o pulo do gato"

"This is the cat´s jump", meaning "this is the secret"

—"O pato tá morto"

"The duck is dead" meaning, "the job is done"

—"Porque eu sou um bixo solto!"

"Because I´m a loose critter!" aka because I´m unpredictable. He always says it before doing something really out of the ordinary or funny.

 A view from our area.

Elder Vigne doesn´t run much, especially during our day to day work, but he ran to see the new sandwich in McDonalds.

29 January 2018 E.T.

Dear family and friends,

     In short, a crazy week.

     So things were going normal in Setúbal, I was training Elder Baird, we were getting stuff done, I knew the area well, it was all good. We had plans to teach some new people like Manuel and Paula.

     Tuesday morning I wake up and get stuff going. We go to a district meeting. I noticed that the zone leaders weren´t in the meeting. I called to find out where they were, and they said that they were in the mission office... ok. I continued in the meeting, and just as I got it started my phone rings with the contact "president Tavares". Uh oh. I left the room to answer.

     "Good morning President."

     "You doing good Elder?"

     "Of course President." A short pause.

     "Elder, are you sitting at the moment?"

     "No... Should I?"

     "Well, lean on something, I have news for you... You are being transferred now."

     "Now?"

     "Now."

     He then explained to me that I would be transferred that very day to a new area, Costa da Caparica with a new companion, Elder Vigne. He explained to me that there were some complications in a few areas and he needed to mix some things around. He explained to me that I would be there to help out Elder Vigne in this part of his mission. It´s a long story, really.

     So, wide-eyed, I returned to the meeting and continued for five minutes. I then received a call from the the Assistants saying that they had already planned the trip. They´d be there in a half hour to pick me up and leave me in my knew area. Elder Baird would stay temporarily in a tripla with some other Elders in a nearby area.

     I returned to the meeting once more, and we finished the quickly ended the meeting. I knew that I wouldn´t be ready in a half hour, not even close, so I took a moment to call a few people and we stopped by Welton´s house for example on our way home. I then passed some time cramming everything into my suitcases and we quickly called a taxi to get to our rendezvous point. There I met up with Elder Vigne, and we drove to our area.

     I wont use a paragraph to explain how surprised I was, but just take my simple words and understand that I was certainly not expecting that. You could have sat me down in a blank room for hours and hours and just let me guess and guess what would happen the next day and I wouldn´t have ever guessed.

     Anyways, Elder Vigne is a great guy. He has french decent, hence the name, but is Brazilian through and through, a really funny guy, reminds me a lot of Gabe. He´s 20, and a crackup. He´s from Rio Grande do Sul, the southernmost part of Brazil. He´s a good worker, and really enjoys the work. We get along well. In fact, I met him a year ago when he started his mission. I was his zone leader while he was being trained in a neighboring area. I was his first division, I´ve seen his growth as a missionary. He´s passed through some recent difficulties, so I´m here to help him.

     President told me that he had plans for me to train yet another new missionary, he would have been the 5th! But I´m actually super grateful for this opportunity to serve with Elder Vigne. We don´t have leadership responsibilities... we can focus completely in our new area and the work that we have to do.

     And about the new area... Costa da Caparica is a pretty small city that sits right on the beach. It´s very similar to one of my previous areas, Quarteira. I like it a lot. It´s a bit touristy, but even so we´ve already learned that we can get stuff done here. It has had rumors of being a tough town, but we´re not worried.

     For the first time in my mission I´m not living in an apartment. We live on the bottom floor of a little house, a member lives above us. The house sits 30 meters from the beach, so each morning we jog on the beach and do other exercises there. It´s great. The house is tiny, cold, but no worries, I like it that way.

     Our area was actually closed last transfer, and we are re-opening it. The ward was happy to see us on Sunday. When we got here we quickly looked through the area book to find that unfortunately the past missionaries hadn´t written a single thing since last November, meaning that a large chunk of work before its closing wasn´t even registered. We used what we had. We managed to find a few people who were being taught in the past, but many had lost interest. We are now starting from near zero, but even so we have seen some good success.

     The first contact we did was a man named Márcio, a brasilian. Him and Elder VIgne of course worked out really well. We managed to teach him twice now. He missed church because of his pregnant wife, but we had a really powerful lesson about the plan of salvation yesterday with him and he accepted baptism for the week after next. We have high hopes for him. And looking back, it wasn´t even planned for us to be there that day... but lo and behold, we were.

     Anyways, I returned to Setúbal today just to open the area book there and write down whatever more I could. Our train and bus both didn´t work out, so we ended up getting back late... but we got permission to still write a little. I already don´t have any more time. I´m doing good, it´s been a crazy week.

Take care,

Elder Ward

Oh! While I was visiting Setúbal I ran into Paulo! He´s doing well, went to church and everything! He said that his xwife told him that he wants to be baptized, the sisters are going there now to teach! woo! Also heard that Manuel came to church which means that he´s progressing well!

 Paulo today!​

 Our district in my rushed departure.

Saying goodbye to Setúbal...

18 January 2018 Steady Climb

Dear family and friends,

     We had some ups and downs this week. I think I´m going to keep this email a bit shorter, I´m awfully tired today.

     We lost a few investigators this week... In attempts to call and mark appointments with them a few folks just said "yeah, I just dont have time for this church stuff, don´t get me wrong but we´ll be fine without more visits etc". Bummer, a few good people showed a lot of interest but it´s interesting how quick it can die off.

     We we´re in the cha+el one afternoon, having finished teaching someone. I looked at our phone to see that the fiancé of one of our investigators (who was likely to be baptized this month) sent a message saying that "they" had decided that they didn´t want us to visit anymore... worst part is is that that person is a member... gosh. Our investigator was super excited, he was saying things like "I´m going to be the new young men´s leader, it´s gonna be great!" and all that jazz... shot down.

     Logically, I was a bit annoyed... nothing annoys me much more that when people decide to reject us in someone else´s place. So, we left the chapel to continue with our plans, and as I was frustrated, I obviously didn´t feel like talking with anyone...

     But we saw this guy in our path walking towards us and I thought "well, I can let him pass and continue with no problems, but to stop the next person will be even harder"... So, reluctantly I stopped the man to talk with him. We introduced ourselves and after a short introduction he accepted to come with us to the chapel (which was only around the corner) to visit and see.

     His name was Manuel. He´s about 50, and he´s got some difficulties in life. A portuguese man, quite normal, grew up catholic, doesn´t practice. His kidneys don´t work, so he hooks himself up to a machine every other day to clean his blood. He´s got a lot of side problems because of this. We took him into the church, and we sat down and we had a great lesson.

     We talked to him about Christ. We explained our life on earth and the Atonement. We shared Alma 7:11-12 and we explained to him how Christ could help him overcome his challenges, enfermities, and pains, whichever type they may be, if he decided to actively follow him. I was able to bear testimony about how much that support from christ was able to help me in my own life and challenges, and especially with my family in the challenges we faced with Marie, even the help that Marie herself got. It was one of the most powerful lessons I´ve ever taught.

     We explained how Christ taught us to access such divine assistance. We talked about faith, repentance, and baptism. We invited him to come closer to Christ, preparing with us to be baptized and he accepted. He didn´t accept a day clearly, but he is certainly considering it. At the end of the lesson he asked if we could bless him with health. We obliged and explained a bit about he preisthood. He felt better right after the blessing.

     We tried to meet up with him other times this last week before church but it didn´t work out, he was stuck in bed with treatments and such, and I think that when he´s not feeling well he doesn´t like to do anything... But fortunately Sunday night (he hadn´t come to church that morning) he called us and we happily heard that he was on his way to the church to visit with us again.

     We gave a reveiw and we talked about some commandments that he can follow to begin the process of preparation with a good start. He fortunately is showing a lot more progress now, he thanked us numerous times for the blessing, he said that it was powerful to him. We have plans to meet up with him more this week. And, if all goes well, he can be baptized here in the near future.

     It´s a good thing I got over my frustration for that small moment to meet Manuel.

     Mayck is doing well. He´s as shy as ever, and he lost his phone recently. He´ll be moving soon too, lot´s of little changes. But he came to church punctually, came to our weekly activity, he´s doing good.

     We taught Paula, Paulo´s x-wife. It´s a long and complicated backstory, but she´s very open to us and our message because she´s seen the difference that it´s made in Paulo´s life. She had us over with tea, cake, and everything, she´s awfully nice. She had a lot of thoughts and questions that related to the restoration, and she was intrigued after we taught it. However, she´s a "slow thinker" in her own words, and will only "think" about baptism after receiving her own testimony. She´ll progress, I think, and will do so well, but it could take a little while.

     Paulo is doing good, he came to an activity this week and chatted very naturally with everyone. However he didn´t make it to church this sunday, we still don´t know why. I´m not too worried, he´s a good guy.

     Unfortunately we´ve lost contact with Ângela. She doesn´t know how to use her phone very well, and if my math is right, she lost her house recently... so we´re keeping an eye out for her.

     But that´s it I guess. I´m doing good, we´re working hard.

Ciao,

Elder Ward

 Beach

 Lookout

Is the church true? What, do you wanna sign?

15 January 2018 Mayck e hike

Dear family and friends,

      I´ll start off telling you guys about last pday. After writing emails we headed up to a little hill behind our area to explore. Basically a simple hike. We found some cool stuff. Nice views, abandoned houses, an abandoned 19th century mansion, an old spanish fortress, an abandoned (according to my understanding) WWII  bunker, and beaches. Pretty neat.

     Well this last week we focused a lot on Mayck. In fact, we taught him each night. I mentioned that Mayck had that hint of second intentions with going to the US but that seemed to have disappeared completely.

     However, Mayck still showed a bit of hesitation to his baptismal date. We talked openly with him. We discovered over the continuation of our lessons that he had already gained a testimony of the BoM and the Restoration. He had also plainly felt the spirit. We helped him recognize that such responses had already come, as small or as big as they may have been.

     As we went on, he began to understand for himself that God himself was responding to him, in a very calm and simple way... He felt peace and calmness when he was with us, when he read the BoM, when he prayed, when he visited church. 

     This continued as we taught the Plan of Salvation one day, commandments another day, etc. Finally, around Wednesday, he re-committed to be baptized. It was a great experience teaching him. He progressed very well and very quickly. The night before his baptism day, he asked us if he could still find the church if he returned to brazil. Well, we showed him how to locate a chapel on the computer. He then asked, "well, can you put the info of my family in there to find it too? Can missionaries go visit them?" Of course! We then sent the info of his mother and sister to the mission there in Brazil. After that, Mayck said "are you guys busy tonight?" "No, we have plans, but nothing firm"  Well, Mayck took the evening to take us around town to meet some of his friends. We ended up having a good conversation with two of them Diego and Ígor, we hope to go back this week to truly teach. He knew this lady who worked in a restaurant so we went there and chatted with her too. It was pretty cool, Mayck is a good help!

      Saturday night Mayck was baptized (see below!) by Elder Baird and Sunday morning he was confirmed by the bishop. Things ran pretty well. Mayck had a good experience. He´s already getting welcomed well by the ward, particularly the brazilians.

     Well, in the business of the week we actually didn´t see a lot of other results. Often times when we´re really close to a baptism other things slow down, which is a weakness that I ought to improve. We visited Welton this week, he´s doing ok... He´s still passing through a lot of problems and hasn´t progressed much. Sandra didn´t have time to have us over this week but said she´d come to church, but didn´t make it... and finally Kély and Rodrigo from a few weeks back said they´d come to church but came down with a sunday morning headache...hm. 

     Paulo, our friend from Moçambique who was baptized about a month ago came to church today and brought his X-wife Paula a third time! Paula is a tricky situation... she´s technically a single mom with a two year old. She supports Paulo a lot in his decision to come to church, etc. However, I think that we will have an opportunity to help Paula in the process! So far, 3 people, non-members, helped Paulo to be baptized, encouraging him, etc. Until now, 2 of the three have been baptized, we only lack Paula now! (The other two were Fernando, and a good fella from the neighboring area, Mateus.)

     Paulo hopes to show Paula a repented life so that way they can get together again, however, Paula, as kind as she is, is a bit thorough and cautious in her examination of Paulo´s repentance... if that makes sense, and I don´t blame her. Also, Paula´s family doesn´t want her to get back together with Paulo, if she does they threaten to abandon her, but Paula wants her son to have a father back at home... a tricky situation. Our plan is to come in slow with the Proclamation to the World to let her know that family is our priority. I think it´ll go well. We´re two for two so far haha.

I think that´s an update for now. Elder Baid and I are doing well. We have plans to finish these last two weeks of the transfer with a lot of good work.

Take care everybody,

Elder Ward

 Mayck!

 ​"Don´t count the days, make the days count"

 Make deuces, not war

Old gun, older fortress