Monday June 27, 2011

Dear Family and friends,

These last 2 weeks we made one of the hardest decisions that I have ever had to make in my mission. Under the direction of our Zone Leaders, we basically spent half of our time that we have visiting members and strengthening members because the members here are really weak in the Faith. We have a lot of problems in our little Branch. The members feel like if it isn't a commandment, then we only HAVE to do it. For example, we can use cake instead of bread for the sacrament, because D&C says we can. (Elders in the past fixed that, not us, but it was right before we arrived here in Viana) Also, it is only counsel that we have to wear a white shirt when we bless the sacrament, so we don't HAVE to. So, in other words, we are having to work a lot with the members. Apparently a while back, we had some very disobedient elders that all the members are wondering why we don't do some things with them (such as go to the Spain Temple, go skimboarding, sunbathing on P Day, ect...) It was a hard, but very necessary decision to be made. After this, Pedro decided to let us teach his daughter, so she can be baptized.

So yes, last week we missed the bus and thus couldn't get an email off to you. I called Pedro immediately, and he said would send a message to mom, but he had the email address incorrect and didn't get if off until Quinta-feira. Is the only member who speaks English in Viana do Castelo, that is why I asked him. Pedro's daughter, Melissa, will get baptized on July 16^th, and she will be 9, so it is another Convert Baptism we have marked!

Elder Vrooman has been out about 8 months. He is from Castile, New York (Rodchester area) He went for 1 year at a community college in Rodchester. What kind of living conditions are you in? Well, the easiest way to explain it is small. Our apartment living room and kitchen are about the size of Megan's old room. (they are in the same room) Our bedroom is skinny and long. It is big enough that I can put the ironing board across and have about 1 foot on both sides, and the bathroom is about the size of our bathroom for the kids minus the area with the sinks. It is small, but sufficient. We have a ½ meter X ½ meter granite block that is our counter space.

So big things to let you Know. This week the missions are combining, because of this we will have a conference on July 4^th and 5^th (President Torgan said that we will not be celebrating the 4^th of July or Thanksgiving this year) That means that I won't be able to email that day. According to the Waltons, it looks like we will either have a couple of hours another day, or we will just lose the P Day, they don't know.

Dad, can you send me the stuff from Correct Quotes about Caffeine? Don't worry, we are telling our investigators that it is not prohibited. But I guess more the references for the talks, because those talks were about the Word of Wisdom. We have a big problem in our Branch and in Portugal with the Word of Wisdom.

Story from last week: A guy named João (about 18 yrs old) just started talking to us and we gave him a LdM. He seemed interested, but we couldn't contact him, so we just dropped it. Randomly, when we were up by Rui's house in Meadela to teach a lesson, he was there, and said he had started reading the book we gave him, and says he wants some explication about some of the things, so we taught him a little. Got his real phone number, and left. It was great! We start teaching him on Terça-feira after school exams!

Story from Saturday the 25^th. So we didn't have any success all week with much. We passed a lot of members and feel satisfied, but couldn't find new people. We went up to talk to Rui Pinheiro (he likes us a lot) because it was right before his baptism. We walk in without knocking because we yelled and he said "entre" so we did. He came out in an orange swimsuit, no shirt, trying to remember how to tie a tie (the people here love the way us americans tie ties) so we taught him how to tie the tie. He went in the back, changed his clothes and came back out about 2h30 (only 2 minutes or so), Our ride was to come about 2h30, and at 2h32, he called her to ask where she was. She said she was coming. Again at about 2h40 he called and asked again where she was. It was fun to see how antsy he was to get baptized. He was so ready, he asked us to skip the talks until after the baptism, so he could go, we told him to hold his horses, and it was a special baptism. Elder Packard showed up to support us.

Anyways, have to go and get a haircut.

Love,

Elder Hope

(In another Email...)

Please call and let President Packard know too, because it sounded like Elder Packard was already done emailing today. This happened Today, 27 June 2011

Ok, so Elder Packard lost his residency card, and we went and asked the bus company for it, and it wasn't there. So, we called, told him they didn't have it, and continued our day and went to email this morning.

A random guy was sitting by to email, and asked if we spoke english, and we told him we did. He started talking to us for a little bit, and then we left, there really wasn't anything else.

We then left to get haircuts, but we were late by about 10 or 15 minutes, so the barber yelled at us and told us to return a lot later. As we walked out of the barber and around the corner we found this guy again who spoke English and we struck up a conversation. He was impressed with our English and then he found out we were americans and didn't seem as impressed after that. He said he was going for lunch, and invited us to go with him. So we ate lunch with him and learned a lot about what was going on with him in his life and such. We found out he was from England and was way awesome.

We invited him for a chapel tour. He seemed really impressed by it and then told us he had to go to the train station. We walked with him, and got his address so we could pass by (he leaves for spain on thursday and won't be coming back . . . dang, but he is going to meet with us on Wednesday)

Right as we left him, another man who worked at the train station came up to us, showed us a picture of Elder Packard, and asked us if we know him. We said YES!, it was his residency card! He then had us call Elder Packard and get elder Packard to give him permission to give us the card and his wallet.

Elder Packard was estatic, and couldn't express how happy he was.

The miracle. We wouldn't have been at the Train station if we hadn't met the guy from England, we wouldn't have had met the guy from England (Harry, and I am serious that is his name) if we hadn't been emailing, and if we hadn't gone overtime to the barber. Everything worked out for the better, and for perfection.

Please, send this on to President Packard. I know he will be interested, if he finds out, he gets our end of our story, not the end of Elder Packard who got a random call that said we had his card.

Elder Hope

Pictures!

 

 

Letter From Mission President

Dear Missionaries-

This explains what will happen on July 1^st with the mission consolidation.

Sister Walton and I love each and every one of you.  We have told President and Sister Torgan what wonderful missionaries you are.  The Torgans need your help with the number of their missionaries increasing from 110 to 175.  We have no doubt you will give them all of the support they need.  You are great missionaries.  We are excited for the miracles you will experience as Portugal becomes the lighthouse for the Church in Europe this year.  You are prepared for your part in this miracle.  Do not doubt yourself or the Lord.  This is your time.

We are grateful that we still have one more zone conference with all of you.

We love you.

President and Sister Walton

Monday June 13, 2011

Family and friends:

What a week. We had a lot happen and I don't know where to begin. A few highlights is that Rui’s Baptism is the 25th now and not the 18th, and that we had a medieval fair, and now I am getting sick, but its not bad, and I have already been perking up.

As far as Jessica’s accident, it sounds like a Fender Bender!

Ok, so the room looks fine but I didn’t get any final pictures, which is sad, but its ok of the room getting painted. We don’t know what our next service project is.

One of my purposes here is to strengthen the members and to teach the members about some of the policies of the Church . . . which is strange, I never thought I would have to do that. Our branch will have 25 active members when Rui is Baptized. Most of the members have been members less than 10 years. They won't let a guy named Bruno bless the sacrament (he is deaf and can't speak very well) because he is deaf and can’t speak very well. Our mission president said he thinks he can still bless if he signs the prayer, but he is going to contact Salt Lake to Verify. Bruno has a testimony stronger than some of the missionaries. He is so cool, and has a heart of gold. The women didn’t think they could touch the sacrament tray, so they had to pass from preisthood holder to priesthood holder, which they still somewhat believe but that is just about taken care of. We have a slightly mentally retarded member who still gets confused about that sometimes.

So about Rui’s baptism. We have had this planned for the last 4 weeks without any problems. Póvoa (the chapel with the baptismal font and Elder Packard’s area) had it planned to come to the baptism and support Rui. Apparently they even had a barbeque planned for our branch if we wanted to attend. And they scheduled the barbeque around the baptism. Elder Packard interviewed Rui and found him ready to be baptized. In ward counsel every week, we have to convince the ward that Rui is ready. He missed 2 consecutive weeks in a row of church because he was sick out of his mind (Diarrhea (same word in Portugês) and Vomiting (vomitar)) and there was one other thing that I think should remain confidential because it is a lie. Anyways the ward told us that we have a stake activity on the 18th and no one is going to go to the baptism. We called Póvoa and they said there wasn’t a stake activity and about the baptismal plans that the ward had for Rui. The ward counsel kept asking us if he has repented and they don’t feel like he has repented of all of his sins because we have only been teaching him for 4  weeks (more or less) and that isn’t sufficient time to repent of all of your sins for the last 45 years of life of his and such. The Presidente de Ramo said that he doesn’t feel Rui is ready, but then stood up and said to the Ward Counsel. 'Eu vou deixar disso. A missão tem as chaves de Baptismo' Which means that I am going to let this alone, The mission has the keys of baptism and they have the spirit of discernment on whether or not he can be baptized. The first counselor kept saying Esquese Junho which means forget about June for his baptism and finally we agreed on the 25th for the baptism because the 'Stake Activity'. It really peeved Me, Elder Vrooman, Elder Packard, Elder Ruis and Ellsworth (Zone Leaders), and Presidente Walton is shocked that a branch is trying to stop the baptism.

We had a feira medieval, and it was basically a big open air market in the center of town. Presidente said we can go but we have to limit the number of pictures we take. He made it clear we can take pictures, but we need to limit them at that event because we are missionaries, not Tourists. Our Church members organized a booth to raise money to go to the temple and we met a lot of people from around Europe. I think I spoke more English than I did Portuguese during the fair because I don’t speak french or German. We had a lot of spaniards, Frenchmen, Englishmen, Germans, Irish, and Scottish people there. It was cool, but we didn’t have english tracting materials, which was hard. We have them now, for next time there is a big fair, but not then.

There is a communist poster that says 'Por um governo Democrático e patriótico' it was a vote for us poster for the communist party, apparently it is really big here in portugal. I didn't get a picture because it was by an area we can’t take pictures.

Funny Story of the Week

Yeah dad, I think the Lisbon address would be the best address to send them to. Presidente Torgan said that on the transfers in July (we think it is July 13 or 15, transfers are a different day) every area in our mission will have at least one, if not both elders leaving the area. He said he likes to whitewash less productive areas, which means having both missionaries getting transfered.

We had an appointment with a guy named Ámadu, and he was so cool in the contact. We were going to meet him in a park. All of a sudden another guy that looked like him came up and we contacted him and said Hey amadu. He said no, é Mamadu. We said oh, Hi anyways. He just kept walking so we followed him and we asked him what he thought of the fair and stuff, and he said this was his first time in Viana. I figured I didn’t understand, so I just kept going. We soon realized that it wasn’t our appointement and we looked like fools following a guy that had never talked to us before.

Story of the week.

 So with the Feira medieval, we were contacting and all of a sudden a lady comes and puts a hat on Elder Vroomans head. We start talking to her, and over the period of the 3 day fair, we gave her the first lesson, book of mormon and the zero Lesson, and she is a vendor das coisas. Her name is Agnes, and we are going to pass her this week, we are so excited!

Also church is supposed to start at 9h but we didn’t have anyone in church yesterday until 9h20, we also found a random chicken in our church building, so we took pictures and had the kids take care of him.

I decided it was in my best interest to pay the mission back for the camera card reader thing with my personal cash that I have as well as buy the insoles with dad’s card. I payed the mission back last tuesday and on wednesday I was on divisions in Póvoa and a lady named Ana contacted us and said she was interested in the church but doesn’t know where it is or much about it. We did the first lesson and gave her the Book of Mormon and she said she would read and pray about it and was way excited to give us all the contact information we wanted and then some more (email, phone number, address, hours of school, best hours for us to visit, and when not to pass by her house), it was so cool. I think that is a direct blessing from being obedient. Elder Vrooman said that the mission president before president Walton gave the missionaries money each month for souvenirs and such, and that is why the zone leaders thought that way.

I am a little sick now, but not to worry, I will be better soon, I have plenty of drugs to use.

Ok, so about the money situation,

I got my reimbursement, so everything is good. I talked to the Zone Leaders about the personal and mission funds. (I did bring us bills with me to portugal that i traded with DeSoto for Euros), anyways they refered me to the list of things that we can use our mission funds for that i got earlier. They told me that I can buy insoles with the mission funds, that that falls under the category of Personal supplies (we have a budget of how much for each section), they said that camera thing to attach the camera to the computer is under the section for ºMail, Film, and Cameraº, but my companion was right on the fact that when it goes over the amount that we are given, then we use our personal funds, which made sense to me, because I didn’t understand how insoles weren’t covered in our line of work. So we worked it out.

Love,
Elder Hope

Monday June 6, 2011

Story for the week:
Ok, so because I am not very good at telling "everything" that is why I try and send a story of the week. I will try and expound on this story. We decided to go and visit our less actives and passed by a lady named Cátia. She lives in a house that you have to walk to get to because the road is very narrow. All the houses in this road (which is called Rua de Viela de Água) has a lot of houses that have red bricks. There is a small mini plaza in the street (which is fed on both sides by Rua de Viela de Água) where a lot of stray cats live. While we were walking to get to her house, I was in Front, and a cat hissed at me. He raised his fur, and hissed 3 or 4 times. He scared the daylights out of me and then started to what it look like pounce at me, but he just ran around. We got to the house, and it was a Black door, sort of out of place, but it it was still neat. It was slightly cracked open to allow air to go in. (Not that there could have been enough breeze, because the road is so small), but we knocked and it sounded like the door was a thin sheet of Metal. A lady in her mid 20’s answered the door, she was wearing jeans and a Yellow t shirt we introduced ourselves as missionaries new to the area and we were going around to meet all the members. She was cool and understood why we were doing that. We invited her to church and asked if we could share a message. She said yes, we can share a message. She listened intently to our prepared message about the importance of the book of mormon and the blessings that the book of mormon bring into our lives. She was impressed and said that she has been continuing to read the book of mormon, but since the other elders left she hasn’t continued to go to church. She then saw our nametags (i forgot to use our names) and stopped mid sentence. And asked if I knew of another Elder Hope.  I told her that I heard one was in the mission a long time ago, but nothing more. She thought for what seemed like an eternity but was probably only 3 or 4 seconds. She said that he was really cool. and then I asked "Como podemos ajudar-te", or How can we help you? And she said that she wants more messages. And I said alright, and she said "Devem" or you should come back and give messages and I said "Vamos" which means we will. and then we left after offering a prayer with her. All of this was done on her doorstep and it was probably 78 to 80 degrees outside.

So the shorter version is that we had a lesson with a less active that said that another Elder Hope was here in Viana a long time ago, and they absolutely loved him. After he got transferred she started to go inactive, when she saw my name, she was just about speechless, and didn’t  know what to say. I honestly feel like this was one of the reasons I was sent here to Viana. 

Oh I forgot 2 things: nariz constipado is how you say that you have a stuffy nose literally translated is constipated nose.

They have bands that march in the streets here for the presidential election. and they have 4 main canidates 1 is like an independent and 2 is like our democrat 3 is a socialist (it actually is the socialist party and he is supposed to win) and 4 is communist part, and he should get 2nd or 3rd place. I think it is interesting.

Rui is our guy that we have scheduled for our baptism on the 18th of June, we have been helping him overcome problems of the Word of Wisdom (he was using 4 of the 5 things that are prohibited Tea, Coffee, Smoking, and alcohol) though he wasn’t using illegal drugs.  He wants a guy named Irm緌 Andrante to baptize him. He was a native elder that lives in our zone now. I called him last night and talked to him about this. That miracle story that 2 years after you teach a guy you find out that he is getting baptized and wants you to baptize him. I got to make that phone call, it was cool. Rui will have is baptismal interview this Thursday and we will know then what all will happen.

Ok, I am just going to send the letters to Grandma and Grandpa Hope and Aunt Sylvia since I didn’t hear back

The zone leaders said that Elder Vrooman and I are nearly doubling the numbers from last transfer each week (not quite, but almost)

Love,

Elder Hope

Monday May 30, 2011

Friends and Family!

So we had a way awesome P-day today! We went on a hike down by the ocean and saw 2 forts (they didn't have anything inside, and one was locked and abandoned), but they were awesome! we also went and toured a lighthouse museum thing and saw some rock drawings that date back to the Metal ages (whatever that means!) The rock drawings weren't as cool as it sounds, but they were cool. We also went and saw a lot of old windmills that are now vacation homes as well as some boat houses that are now vacation houses. All in all we took a hike down by the ocean and it was cool. It is weird to think that you guys are just on the other side of that ocean.

Português thing! 1 Néfi 7:14  English- ceased to strive with them (Laman and Lemuel)
                                          Português- uses the verb Lutar, which means to fight or to struggle
read it, it's cool!

We have a deaf guy in our branch here! He is in charge of the music. And since no one plays the piano they use the cd player, and he never knows when to stop or end the song, it is sort of humerous, but he is way cool, and he can read, so it is all good. Our branch has 20 members or so, and was built to be an apartment, it is sort of interesting. I didn't have info about it last week because we we were at stake conference.

Our apartment adress is:
Avenida Rocha Paris Nº79
2ª Esq Frente
4900-053 Viana do Castelo
Portugal

Funny story of the week (I don't know if I should share it, but it was funny)
So we were eating lunch with elder Packard and Elder Park (so, 4 of us) and Elder Packard and I were talking about Dallas. I told him I knew President Smith, that I met him at the special meeting I went to with the elders with him, and I asked him if he knew President Smith. He said "Yeah, I made out with his daughter in the mission home!" We all got a laugh out of that and then learned that President smiths daughter is Elder Packards girlfriend . . . anyways

For our serious story,
We were praying and asking all the members to come with us to an appointment that we had, but they all had some service thing they were doing as a ward, and our investigator couldn't come because he was sick. So, we went without a member and taught him the Word Of Wisdomand but half way through a member just randomly showed up unexpected, it was awesome!

We are teaching a less active named Karin, she is from Norway and doesn't speak português, so we teach her in English. It is interesting, but she had us paint a room for her, which was fun, and started out to be one small room, but after finishing it has turned out that we will have painted the room, her bathroom, and a good portion of the living room! We are going back tomorrow to finish and do touch up in the room.

Love,

Elder Hope