18 December 2017 Dois

Dear family and friends,

We had some good surprises this week. Let´s get started wit the main course.

We worked with Paulo a bunch. We know him for a few months now, but in all this tame he didn´t come to church and we couldn´t keep in touch with him to plan lessons. Things changed lately. He got a phone and we were able to teach him nearly every day this week for a few minutes. He works in construction in a city a bus ride away and works a lot of hours. Fortunately, we were able to meet up with him at night in the chapel each week. The chapel is a bit out of his path, so he basically added a 2 mile walk home each time he came to meet up with us...

We taught and payed a lot of attention. We started to feel more comfortable with his progress, and he began to show some true desire. We ended up marking his baptism for this last saturday. He had to work overtime a certain day so we had to cram 2 lessons and a baptismal interview into a single visit, but Paulo did really well. He was taught, interviewed, and baptized at 9pm on Saturday by Elder Hawkins!

He´s trying to repair some broken family relations, as I said last week, and his ex-wife came to his baptism and confirmation the next day. Paulo told us that she has been enjoying it. We will try to find an opportunity to formally teach her one of these days, it´s been a bit complicated. But it was a great miracle! Paulo really changed. He used to be aggressive and had problems with alcohol, but he left it all behind and was baptized with a true desire to start over. Great guy. He´s excited to learn more and get integrated in the church, he´s already started to make some friends here.

One morning, as Elder Hawkins and I were planning, we got a call from Elder Egbert, the assistant to the president. He informed us about the progress that the mission is making towards our monthly baptismal goal, and the mission is getting really hyped up with this and is baptizing a lot more than it did in the past. He said "we need to do things that we´re never done before, we need to work as if there wasn´t 2018"

I sat and thought about that for a bit. That day we decided, instead of doing our normal routine, to hunt down Ângela. The last time we had talked with her, we had markerd her baptism for Saturday, 16 December, 11am, coincedentally her birthday as well. She had committed to come to our next lesson, but that was when she disappeared.

We only had been told her street, and she mentioned that sometimes she goes to a food center place to get lunch and dinner, and I had a faint memory of her telling me that she lived on the 3rd floor. So, during lunch ours we headed there to "camp" for a bit, keeping an eye out for her. No luck. We then ate and studied at home for a bit, and then we headed to her street and we started to knock doors and talk with everybody, asking for Ângela. We talked to Café owners, shop owners, and we didn´t have a ton of luck. But we kept searching and we eventually knocked on her door! Well, not her door... She just rents out a room inside another man´s apartment. Well, some guy (he didn´t even open the door, just talked through the door to us) told us that yes, an Ângela lived there, but wasn´t there at the time. Bingo.

We went back there to visit a few times, but she wasn´t there each time. Finally, that planned Saturday morning, we decided to go and look for her once more. We thought that maybe by chance she´d remember her baptism.

We found her on the street of the chapel. We came up behind her and we started to sing her happy birthday in portuguese. She turned around with a surprised face and a big toothless smile. She said "can I still be baptized today? I was walking here and I forgot were the church is... Did I already pass it?"

I thought for a moment and said "well, if you come with us to the chapel now, we can chat and work it out. If all goes well, yes, you can still be baptized."

We headed to the chapel and for the next 2 hours we taught her. She had only been taught one lesson and had gone to church two times at the time. We were a bit nervous about her preparedness, but we felt good about the situation and we also felt that the Lord had prepared everything else just right for this moment, so we continued.

Funny, Elder Hawkins had to help another member prepare stuff for an activity, and there was another priesthood holder there at the chapel, so I stayed with Ângela and that member and taught basically everything as Elder Hawkins was helping that other member.

Turns out that Ângela had a few problems with the Word of Wisdom, however, they were problems of the past. She explained that she still has desire to return to some of those things. I chatted with her for a while about the baptism and the commitment that it is, and after a bit she accepted to leave it all behind, she had been meaning to for a while.

Finally, she went to eat lunch, and we planned to have her back at 7pm for her interview and baptism.

We brought the Zone leaders to our area after attending a small ward activity after lunch and we split up for a bit. I stayed to set things up a bit as Elder Hawkins and one of the Zone leaders went out to look for Ângela because she hadn´t shown up at 7. They found her in the nick of time just outside of her apartment, and brought her over. (Turns out that she is a very forgetful woman). An Elder gave her an interview (a tough one because of her timing) and she passed.

Paulo and Ângela were baptized together Saturday night. It was a really good experience. Elder Hawkins and I worked really hard these last two transfers and it seems like it payed off.

As I mentioned a little while back, Ângela isn´t so well-off financially. She survives, but not very luxuriously. A member at the baptism sent her home with a few sweaters to help her out.

On sunday, Paulo came to be confirmed. It ran well. However, we saw no sign of Ângela. She had found her number written on a peice of paper and gave it to us at her baptism, so we tried to call her, but no luck. Before church we knocked on her door, but the landlord there said that she had already left. So, we did a lap of the whole neighborhood but no result.

She showed up at the chapel at about 5pm on sunday. A member called us to tell us she was there. We didn´t even ask what kept her from coming to her confirmation when she told us that the sweaters that she got the day before helped her sleep so well that she didn´t wake until noon. She has a little phone with an alarm, but doesn´t know how to use it that well. We discovered that when it makes noise when she doesn´t want it to, she just takes out the battery... So, she took it out that saturday night to sleep.. logic. Turns out that that landlord who answered the door lied to us... we had actually thought that he had lied that morning, he didn´t lie very well... but what more could we have done?

We sat down with her and had a serious conversation about the commitment of baptism. She said she felt bad for missing the meeting, and that she´d come next week. She stuck around afterwards for an activity, she had a good time.

So, she´s not confirmed yet, which is a bit complicated and stressful, but now we have her phone number as well as address, so we can stay on top of things much better now.

So yeah, it was a crazy weekend, and that´s the main course of this last week. Now the sides.

Welton has still been busy. He´s a former cook, so a friend of his recruited him for the weekend to do catering... darn, he didn´t make it to church. But we´re still working with him.

A couple weeks back we stopped this guy in the street named Mário, a portuguese man about 27 years old. We explained a bit about our message about Christ. I showed him the book of mormon, and before I could introduce it he cut me off and said politely "no, no thank you". Normally I just let that slide and call it done, but I just smiled and said "I don´t mind which you choose, but before you make a complete decision, can I at least tell you what it is so you can make a more informed dicision?"

Usually people say no, but he said "well, okay." I used the next few minutes to explain the Book of Mormon and the uniqueness of it and it´s significance. I explained that we just invite people to see for themselves. He then said "so you´ll give me the book?"

Long story short, we ended up scheduling with him for this last friday. We showed up and we taught the restoration. It ran well, he was very intrigued by the message. He committed to read and pray, but he said he´d consider baptism prefereably without a date... We´ll be meeting up with him this week again.

Turns out that Fernando got a job... on the weekends. So, he didn´t make it to church. But, he made it to Paulo´s baptism (which was really cool because in the first place Fernando introduced Paulo to us! Basically it was a baptism of Fernando´s referal!) Fernando was super happy to see his friend being baptized. Afterwards I just went up to him and simply said "you´re next, Fernando". We joke a bit, but he really needs it! He´s been a bit slippery... And now with this job it´ll be tough.

But funny enough, Fernando showed up to church to support Paulo in his confirmation. Fernando had told me that he´d be at work, but I chatted with him after and he said "he got it worked out" to come to church. I think he ditched work to come personally...

And desert!

We got transfer calls! Elder Hawkins will leave the area, I will stay. Elder Hawkins will go to Portimão, in the Algarve, an area that I´ve already visited a few times, and he´ll be serving with Elder Gunnarsson! In other words, two missionaries that I just finished training are going to serve together! Woo!

I´m going to start my 3rd transfer here and I´m going to train a new missionary. I don´t even know his name, I´ll find out later... I´ll pick him up from Lisbon Wednesday morning and we´ll get to work here. It´ll be fun, I´m excited to train again!

That wraps it up. Hope you enjoyed.

Adeuzinho,

Elder Ward