Well, well, well,
I am now in the Portugal Lisbon Mission officially, and wasn't able to email on Monday because of a conference we had in Porto to meet the New mission President. His name is President Torgan, and things are going to change dramatically this upcoming year. He changed some rules on us, but it is all good, we will figure out how to make it work. He said he wants the name of the mission to be the Portugal Mission, not the Portugal Lisbon Mission, so officially it is Portugal Lisbon Mission, but we will call it the Portugal Mission (I think this is a way to make us people in the Portugal Porto Mission happier and more willing to serve)
So I finally set my goal for baptisms I believe I can acheive in my mission. I know it is high, but it will be well worth it. The Baptsim of Rui was priceless. I can't explain the joy that is there at baptisms. We might have a baptism on Sunday. We still don't know, but will know on Saturday if we will have it or not. It is a baptism of a boy named David. His mom is a member, his dad isn't and they are divorced. He isn't baptized because his dad won't let him. It is all over the fight that his dad won't let him. As Elder Vrooman and I were praying, we felt like we need to call the dad and ask him. He asked why the Elders are so persistant, and Elder Vrooman said because we ware talking about Salvation. He then set up a time for us to meet him on Saturday and he said he will decide then whether or not David will be baptized. Melissa is set and is going strong. She will be baptized the 16th.
President Torgan is very different. He loves us a lot, and is very supportive of us. We talked to him about the difficulties with the baptism of Rui and how the Branch counsel was against the baptism. He looked at us and asked if he passed the interview, and we said yes. He said, well, the Mission has the Keys of Baptism and Confirmation, not the branch. We are greatful for their concerns, but the mission has the keys, and the mission has the right of revelation.
President Torgan is huge on the Vontade do Senhor. When he first started, it sounded as if he was calling us to repentence, but then he just started speaking to us in a foreign language (Brazilian Protugeuse).
By the way, you do loose service of the cell phone if you are in a train and going through a tunnel.
Story of the week:
We went to teach Harry and while we were going to his house, we found a Pre-roman village. It was sort of cool, but you couldn't even tell it was a village. There were just a ton of rocks, but the wall was still there, and it was sort of cool. Harry is our guy from England from last week. We taught him the Plan of Salvation, and said goodbye. The cool thing is that he said he will look up the church in Spain (we got his contact info too . . . just in case to give as a reference), but he was genuinely searching for the truth. I have never seen anyone that just soaked up the gospel like him. A lot of the time it seems like an uphill battle, but for him, he was searching. I told him not to believe me, because I am a guy that can lie, but I also told him that god can't lie, and god will tell him the truth. He told us that he feels like we are telling him the truth (and we were happy). We left him with an English Book of Mormon and asked him what he wants to study (after death, plan of salvation, ect . . .), he said Everything. We left him a lot to read because he is going to spain, but we left him 2 Nephi 2, 31, Mosiah 2-5, Alma 11-12, Alma 40-42, 3 Nephi 11-24, and Moroni 10. He thanked us and said he would read what he could on the train. We showed him the website of the church, and it was a sorry goodbye, I didn't want to leave him because he would have been baptized. He agrees that baptism is essential (that was interesting. we explained that our bodies need to do certain things, ex. breathe, heart needs to beat, ect . . . and to survive we need to eat, our spirits need to be born, and this is possible through baptism and the other ordinances. The food is the scriptures, but the breath and the heart are in the ordinances, and that is why ordinances have to take place . . . makes sense to me)
Have to go, I didn't get as much time as normal today
Elder Hope
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