Transferências e um Baptismo (Transfers and a Baptism)

Óla!

Oh My Goodness the past few days have been the craziest of my life. But in a good way, y´know.

So on Thursday we decided to pass by an old investigator who is amazing. He has a testimony of the gospel, he loves hanging out with the young adults, he goes to church most weeks... but for whatever reason, hasn´t been baptized. He´s been taught by missionaries for quite a while, taught and then dropped, taught and then dropped... it´s hard to know what to do with him, because he´s so great (and such a fantastic missionary too, most of the references we get, are from him, and he wasn´t even a member) and I really think he´s wanted to get baptized for a long time, but never wants to commit... It´s difficult, I don´t really know... but anyway, on Thursday, we stopped by, and taught a really amazing powerful lesson. And the best part was, I actually taught part of it! Ha. I always teach part, but it was the first time I felt like I was really teaching, rather than just trying to find the right words in Portuguese. We had planned to invite him to get baptized 1 April, but ended up filling out the paperwork right there because he said he wanted to get baptized that weekend. So then on Saturday he had his interview, and we always go and wait while that happens. But it took three hours and talking to the district leader and a zone leader and it was hard not to wonder if this was actually going to happen, he´s been a ´work in progress´ for so long and has had dates set for baptism before. But in the end there wasn´t any problem, and he felt fully satisfied he was ready for this, and was baptized on Saturday and received the Holy Ghost on Sunday. It was amazing, and I am so glad to have been there for that. I have pictures, I will send them sometime.

And THEN, last night around 9:30pm, I get a phone call that I´m getting transferred, and have to leave at 5:30 am this morning. So I hurridly packed (Irmã Lima left too, and Irmã Olson stayed in Braga), got up this morning around 4:30, and we called the taxi... and they didn´t answer their phone. So we call a member from the ward who was going to give the Elders a ride this morning (same train to Lisbon), and ask if we could get one two, before they have to pick up the Elders. So we pile all our bags in and get to the train station, and try to buy tickets to Lisbon, and they say ´Sorry we´re sold out.´ So then we had to figure out the next best route, seriously, I felt like I was on the Amazing Race this morning (and it gets better...) so we get on a train to Porto, and then transfer to a train going to Lisbon, and then when we get to Lisbon we wait for the office Elders to pick us up.. and then I am told that my flight to the Azores leaves in an hour (and by the way, the Azores was not where I was told I was going...). So I hurry to the mission office and rearrange my bags because you can only take one to the Azores, (and picked up my package THANK YOU SO MUCH, I really appreciate it! Really alot) then hop in the van to hurry to the airport... but we go to the wrong terminal, so back into the van then get to the right place... the office elder basically hands me off to some random airport worker, gives him my flight plans and says ´She doesn´t really speak Portuguese, get her where she needs to go, bye´ and I felt a little slighted because I speak SOME Portuguese, at least enough to get around an airport where everything is repeated in English anyway, but it ended up being a good thing, because when I got to the check-in gate the lady said, ´Sorry, the check-in is closed.´ But really, what are they going to do with an American who doesn´t speak Portuguese, without a telephone, money, or any way to really go anywhere or do anything... so they check me in nonetheless, I run to the gate, and then turns out the flight is delayed anyway... ha. It was exciting. And here I am, in the Azores, which is every missionary´s dream... I have heard it´s hard to go back to mainland Portugal after living on the islands, and I believe it. But mainland Portugal is awesome too, it will be fine when I have to leave, and I´m so excited to be here, now, because it is beautiful and amazing. There aren´t too many missionaries who serve on the islands, so I´m glad I have this opportunity! My companion is from Brazil, I think, but she got here the same time I did. Which is really odd, because we´ve both only had one transfer. The new training program lasts twelve weeks, and we´re only six weeks in. So I guess we will be training each other. Ha. She knows the language and knows the area (she served her first transfer here) so she has a little bit of a leg up, but really, ít´s kind of nice to be sort of on the same page. I´m excited for it. I think it will be good, even though we´re both inexperienced, we know enough. The only other problem is apparently they speak some other dialect here, not actually Portuguese, so it will be interesting, since I don´t really know Portuguese that well yet. But it will be good. I´m excited.

Irmã Gourley who I knew in the MTC is here as well, she was here last transfer too. She and her companion opened an area. It is pretty awesome, they don´t have a chapel so they have church in their house. They baptized two people, but one left, so they have one member. They just leave the door open and people walk in and they have church. I guess they ship in some Priesthood holders every week so they can have the sacrament. Their goal is to get six people in the area with the Aaronic Priesthood so they can have a branch. My area is a little more established, there is a chapel and a branch and everything. Anyway, I am so excited to be here, and I will let you know more next week!

Hope everything is going well for all of you!

I love you! Thanks for everything!

Mais fotos! (More Photos!)

Olá! (Hello!)

So first off, We Had A Baptism!!!! It was so exciting! His name is Armando, and is the one who we´ve been helping to stop smoke. I have been amazed at how well he´s done-- after our lesson on the Word of Wisdom a couple weeks ago, he went home and got rid of all his cigarettes, and hasn´t looked back since. I forgot to say last week, we made him this awesome thing, I wish I had taken a picture, a little box the same size of a cigarette box, but we glued pictures of Christ and things we cut out of one of our pamphlets onto the box, and then we wrote out scriptures on index cards and rolled them up and put them in the box, and told him everytime he wanted to smoke, to read one of the scriptures instead. He´s been doing so great, and was so, so, so excited to get baptized. And it was such a powerful, sweet meeting. There were a few snags but nothing terrible: apparently we did the water wrong and it was freezing, icy cold (sorry, Armando...), and then someone had the bright idea that I should conduct the music... well it was interesting. My lack of conducting abilities combined with my lack of Portuguese abilities made this a little less than smooth, especially during the intermission bit after the baptism when the pianist just called out numbers (56 and 106 sound pretty similar, when they just say it fast). But it was okay, no one ever pays attention to the chorister anyway. We had some issues making the program too, but who needs programs, anyway? Ha. But it was really nice, it was a neat experience. And his parents came, too, which was great. They are really nice.

So one of the cool things we get to do as missionaries is work with the recent converts, to strengthen them and make sure they are doing well, after baptism. In some wards this job is turned over to the ward missionaries or ward mission leader or someone else, but in Braga, we get to do it. And it´s always neat to talk to these new members, because they have such a fiery testimony, they are just so excited about everything and so anxious to learn more and of course sometimes a little doubtful or unsure but still, just so eager. So we were talking to a woman named Maricela on Thursday, she is awesome. And the ward was going on a temple trip to the Madrid temple Friday/Saturday, and she was going to do baptisms for the first time, so we were talking a little bit about the temple. And I was just thinking, how grateful I am that I´ve always had a temple nearby. These people are so grateful that it´s only an 8 hour drive. I am just so unbelievably excited for the Portugal Lisbon temple, I have no idea when it will be finished (hopefully the ground breaking will be while I´m here) and of course I was excited ever since I got my call but now that I actually know these people and love them I am so excited for them to have that blessing and opportunity. I heard rumors that when the ground breaking happens, the missionaries will be invited to attend so I hope I will be able to go.

So another one of my favorite things is when we have district meetings, not because I just absolutely love district meetings (not that I dislike them either) but we get to go to the beatiful beautiful city of Guimirães, I think that´s how it´s spelled. I don´t have any pictures of it but maybe you could google it, but really, a picture couldn´t capture it very well anyway. It´s the ´birthplace´of Portugal, and so amazingly amazing. Everything is very old, and not just very old but also very well preserved. Walking down those narrow cobblestone roads with the old town houses and everything, I feel like I´m in a different time and place (well it is a different place of course, but it feels even more different. And Braga has cobble stone and old buildings too, and is very beautiful too, but it´s not the same) Maybe someday I will have a chance to take a picture. As of now, sisters don´t get sent to that area, but maybe things will change- we are getting a new mission president in June. But I get to go there once a week, and that´s plenty =)

 

I love you all! Have a great week!

12 de março (March 12)

It is odd because sometimes a year and a half seems like such a short amount of time, but sometimes it seems really long- it is odd thinking that Bradley will be 15 and Carolyn will be almost 19 by the time I get home. At first it was really hard to imagine getting up and walking around and trying to find people to teach for another 16 months, but now that a month in Portugal has gone by I am realizing that it is going to fly by. (Somedays it still seems like a lot, and somedays are harder than others, but overall it seems more doable than it did at first)

There are loads of cats here, tons of strays everywhere, it is kind of sad. Our cats should be grateful that they have a nice warm home and a family to love them!

So today on Pday we went to this magnificent Catholic cathedral that is in our area, it was huge. It is way up on the top of the hills, and is really old and very beatiful architecture. It is called the ´Bom Jesus´ I took some pictures, I will send them next week. But it was pretty neat to see, the area around it is very nice too. They let anyone go in, so we went inside, and there were all these giant paintings and statues gold trim everywhere, everything was very detailed but it felt a little eerie inside. But it was neat to see, and kind of fun to be a ´tourist´for a change.

This week has been kind of crazy, full of ups and downs. There was this one guy we´ve been teaching, he is about 32 years old, and he quickly gained a testimony of The Book of Mormon and was very eager to get baptized. He was a ´golden investigator´ to the extreme. So we taught him Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then on Thursday we taught him about The Word of Wisdom. And he didn´t really like that, but he said he would try. But then on Friday and Saturday he was out of town (in hindsight it probably wasn´t good to teach that right before we wouldn´t see him for two days) and then on Sunday when we stopped by his house before church he said, thank you very much but I´m not interested anymore. It was heartbreaking, to say the least. Because of things he said and how he described how he felt before, I know he knew that The Book of Mormon is true and the things we are teaching are good. We are going to wait a little while and then stop by (we are teaching another investigator who lives a block away, so we are up there a lot anyway, we might even run into him in the street or something) and then if he still doesn´t want to talk to us anymore, let it be, I guess there really isn´t too much else we can do.

Oh but here is a happier story: there is this other guy we are teaching, he is a friend of the stake president. Well I feel like we can´t take too much credit for this, because when we met him he was practically a member, he´s already read The Book of Mormon, goes to church every week, everything. I don´t really understand why he hasn´t met with the missionaries before, or if he has, why he stopped, but anyway, he´s awesome. His only problem is that he smokes. A lot. But he has a very sincere desire to quit. So we pulled out a plan the church has for quitting smoking, and have all sorts of ideas for how to help him. But when we talked to him on last week, before we photocopied this plan and all these things, Irmã Lima told him to read The Book of Mormon everytime he wants to smoke, and to drink a liter of orange juice a day. And this morning we talked to him on the phone, and he hasn´t smoked since! It´s only been a few days, but things are looking good. But we will see, because it is hard to overcome an addiction like that, but I think the thing really going for him is the fact that he really truly wants to quit.

Yesterday the Elders had a baptism and we got to go, and it was really neat. Elder Baltodano, who was in my district in the MTC, did the baptism so it was pretty neat to watch. And we brought one of our investigators, so it was a good experience for him. I am hoping next week it is us who has the baptism! But who knows. I never realized how hard it is. I mean, I knew it was hard, but I didn´t realize that, after someone says they want to be baptized, have a specific date set, are so so excited, that usually, they end up not baptized. We´ve had people ´marked´ every week but yet to have it happen. (well we know by Saturday or so that it´s not going to happen, it´s not like a surprise on Sunday when they don´t show up) I know that it is a big decision and a big change, it is just odd when they are so excited and then... not. The only sad thing is usually they end up not talking to us anymore, rather than postponing or something. I am not really sure what we can do differently, though.

Thanks for all of your love and support. I love you all! Have a great week.

05 de março (March 5)

The people here are so funny with their futebol. So there are about a million caffés here, several on every block, that sell all sorts of pastries and bread and also grilled ham and cheese sandwiches. And they all have TVs in them as well. And every single night, every single caffé we walk past is PACKED with people watching futebol. GLUED to the screen, it´s dead silent, they don´t talk to each other or even eat their food, they just watch. It´s pretty cute, too, on Saturdays and Sundays, all the parks are full of dads out playing futebol with their kids. They are very devoted to their sport.

There is a kitty who lives in the apartment building next to us on the very top floor who is all white, and makes me miss our kitties. He isn´t very smart though, he´s always sitting on this little ledge, maybe three or four inches wide, outside the window, and he´s about twelve stories up. But he hasn´t fallen yet, so I guess he knows what he´s doing.

I don´t think anyone in Portugal really has dryers. Even the big, fancy houses always have clothes outside drying on lines so I think it´s something they just don´t have here. It is funny because in the apartment buildings a lot of people string their lines between windows (almost everybody in my area lives in apartments. I have only seen a handful of houses here, don´t know if all of Portugal is like that or if it´s just Braga) and even the people who live at the top do that, I would be so worried about all my clothes falling down but I guess it doesn´t happen to often because that´s what all the people do. We dry our clothes on a rack in our apartment, so we don´t have to worry about all our clothes falling.

Well I don´t have too much to report. The two people who were supposed to get baptized on Sunday didn´t, and they didn´t even come to church, which is a little discouraging. The elders were supposed to have two baptisms as well, two teenagers. But then the parents read some not-so-nice things about our church on the internet and forbid the missionaries from ever contacting their children again. The ward mission leader is going to try to talk to them this week, though, so hopefully that will go well.

Anyway, I hope you are all doing well. I love you all!