Monday, April 18, 2011

Family!!

Thanks for the emails and I am able to email until elder brown tells me to stop.
I am living in Viseu (a section called Marsevelus) with an elderly woman and her husband (and my comp). We live in the basement. Apparently it is the best apartment in our mission and the coveted apartment, because it is small (easy to clean), the lady cooks for us and does our dishes for us (she gets mad when we do them, which is strange), and she also does our laundry for us. She knows the church is true but isn´t baptized yet, because she has ties that she won´t give up.

And just fyi, incase you were wondering i get 210 euros a month for stuff (groceries, hair cut, ect . . .) there aren't a lot of members and most are poor. infact, the Silvia family is really poor too, but they save money every week to feed us because she wants the blessings for feeding the missionaries. It is her highlight of the week. According to elder brown, him and his old companion elder Packard  took food one time, and she was offendend, but they are the coolest family ever.

So we broke our contacting record in a day . . . 17 contacts (they count as people that actually talk to you, you have to teach a principle and give a pamplet or a card to count them as a contact), and it is a companionship record. We still only have 1 investigator, but we have 2 appointments marked this week. One lady was really cool, and said she would come to church, but never showed up, and gave us the wrong phone number. (it was a street contact)

We contacted a deaf guy, that was fun. we have to write to communicate, it was fun.

I haven't made too many mistakes with the language in terms of mixing up words yet. I did call the trashcan beautiful once (Lixo and lindo)

I also got a mini Preach My Gospel in English and Portuguese.

Milk comes in a box or bag
all the sidewalks are hand laid cobblestone
some people are really rich while others are really poor
the gypsies scare me, because all the elders say that they are really good pick pockets
I love Portugal though I do miss air conditioning
euros are coins that are really annoying, a little different than bills. (they have 5, 10, and 20 bills)
I played their game and payed a guy in 5 cent pieces . . . he wasn't too thrilled I don't think, but they won't trade let you trade it in for bigger coins. (like the 1 or 2 euro coins, and tax is generally already included in prices)
we have special training this week and a supposive baptism on may 7th, but we still have to finish the first lesson with her.

yes on sisters tags it now says irmã. and all the people are trying to learn engish (which is really funny, so the members call me Élder Esperança, and the mission home offered to make a nametag for me that said that for sundays, but i haven't decided yet, because it is easier to say Esperança than Hope for them. They have problems with the i sound like in igloo, the H sound and the th sound, and we have problems with the lh and lhe sounds in portuguese)

I mark my scriptures blue for Restoration scriptures, Orange for Plan of Salvation, Green for Gospel of Jesus Christ, and Purple for Laws and Ordinances and red for other and for really really important parts, it works well.

Here if you want a perscription drug you just have to ask and the Pharmacist asks for the Perscription. If you don't have it, he scolds for a little bit, and we tell him we are americans and don't have a portuguese doctor, and they give it to us. People in portugal just say they are too poor, and that generally works too.

In closing, I hope you keep that adress to yourself and only use it for family, because we get transfer info on Mondays or Tuesday, so sometimes I might not even know until after I email, and the mission office is easier and you can give others that address.

President Torgan is a very good mission president but very strict too. I think I am going to like him, I hear if you stay obedient you don't have anything to worry about, but it might be hard for us to make the transistion.


I Love Y'all
Élder Hope