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.