Monday October 24, 2011

Dear family and Friends,

Good News! I can now send my weekly emails to my aunts, uncles and grandparents every week, and they can email me!, so if you want to give them my email adress, they can email me, and I will just send them the big email.

Ok, so this last week has been really hard, but really fun at the same time. It is a different area because it takes 20 minutes just to walk from our house to our area, and we don't have the bus, so it is very fun to get people to church, especially when we don't have busses or anyone in the ward able to give rides to them.

So, we marked a guy named Wayalo for baptism for this next weekend. He told us he wanted to be a part of this church, so I said, ok, how about next sunday, and we prayed, and he said, alright, next sunday. Little did we know he has no time to meet with us until saturday, so we gave him all of the pamphlets and gave him a reading schedule, and then everyday we call and find out if he has any questions about the topic and review it on the phone. This will be a fun experience. He doesn't smoke, and only drinks wine, so everything is great.

We met with the bishop of our ward to try and get some support, and he has had it with the missionaries, because there are a ton of people baptized, that didnºt stay active. There is a list of 150 recent converts in the past year and a half, and only 10 or 12 are active right now, so it isn't a very good exchange rate.

The mission as a whole has been having problems. There were 40 people marked for baptism last weekend, and only 18 were baptized, so needless to say, there are a lot of questions that have been raised.

My companion and I are getting along really good, it is hard to lead a zone. We have a couple companionships that are slacking off a ton, it is hard to encourage people who simply don't care, I have seen first-hand what president Torgan talks about with the Celstial missionaries and the Terrestial missionaries and the Telestial missionaries. It is interesting to see how stressed out they can get too when they just have one thing go wrong.

Anyways, it has been good. Oh, my zone has the Cristo Rei Statue, it is like the one in Rio de Janeiro, just smaller, but it is outside of my area. I see it everyday, but I can't go there until next p day, (we can only leave our area once a month for P day) and President Torgan called a meeting for us from 11 to 5 next p day, so we will see if we can swing by right after, lukily it is only 20 minutes from our area.

We are getting into the rainy season, and it is raining a lot now, so we will keep working through the mud, rain, and cold for the next 4 to 5 months. The other missionaries say that is starts in November, but it has been starting early this year (maybe it will end earlier too), it is a humid cold, so the Utah Mormons are sort of whimps, it is funny. It should end march or april.

With Love,

Elder Hope

Monday October 17, 2011

Dear family and friends:

Ok, so I had the name of my new area wrong. I am in the Almada Zone, it is over by Lisboa and Seixal, and I am actually serving in an area called Miratejo. I didn't even know my area was Miratejo until the zone leader meeting on Tuesday.

My new companion's name is Elder Washburn. He is from Mapleton, Utah and he is a Lisbon Elder through and through. It is interesting because we have the Porto Elders and the Lisbon Elders, it is really sad, but it is giving me a chance to learn a lot. The Lisbon Elders have been under President Torgan and his form of leadership is amazing. He is super bold and direct, he doesn't pull any punches, while President Walton was one who was more of a subtle and would encourage people. It is interesting to see the two of them in action. Our home is a 4 Elder Home, we live with our district leader. the conditions are terrible, we spent 2 hours just throwing tons of stuff away. Elder Da Silva has already gotten fleas once this transfer, it is crazy. We have already talked to the office about it, and we will see what happens, we have black mold on our ceiling.

Last sunday we had stake conference. We found a guy named Wayolo that is from Santa Mae (off the coast of Africa, it is 2 islands, and really small, and I don't know the spelling) Anyways we found him and he didn't have time, but we invited him to stake conference. He showed up to our meeting spot before us, with his book of mormon in hand, ready to go. We hadn't taught him anything, so we were sort of nervous, but we were so excited.

 

President Torgan was there to speak, and he gave faca to the members there, it was so strange. (Dar Faca is a brazillian frase that the missionaries use that littearally translated means give knives, but in english is basically extreme chastizement) So what has been happening is our mission has tripled the numbers of baptisms in the last 2 years. Every week 20 to 30 people are baptized, on really good weeks we will have 37 or 40 baptisms in our mission. Anyways 24 people were baptized in our ward in in the last 5 or 6 transfers and only 2 are active right now, so President Torgan let the members know it is their fault. Our investigator told us that he wants to be a part of this church.

So we have 2 parts of our area, the dirt poor and the rich people. The missionaries have been working with the rich because they didn't want to go to the poor, I don't know why, so Elder Washburn worked in the poor part for 4 days and came away with 28 new investigators. They are so humble and ready to hear the gospel. It does require the I keep up on the Vitamin C, because I went into a house that was painted in black sploches. It had a dirt floor, a flea infested couch and a door that wasn't anything more than a curtain. Later I found out that the paint was actually mold, and that would explain the headaches. It is intersting to see how happy people are there, they are truly happy, they don't have anything, but they are happy. They love us missionaries, and know we are there to help them out. I am still curious why some people have dirt floors, concrete walls, and a plasma tv, and nothing else, but oh well. I don't know how to describe this area, it is where the lord called us to work, in the poorest place I have ever seen.

Anyways I also interviewed a witch god to be baptized. 4 months ago she was worshipping satin, and in a vision she was told to stop and join the Church of Jesus Christ of the last Times. She denounced everything, destroyed everything in her house that had anything to do with it, called everyone in her congregation telling them that she is sorry and that witchcraft is false, and came with tears in her eyes praying to be baptized. She passed the interview (an hour and a half later) and was baptized. At her baptism one of her followers (a less active) was asked to give a prayer, and she gave a voodo prayer asking god to send us a sign and letting us mark our testimonies in his blood. She was doing really wierd signs and such.

Got to go, it was an intersting week,

Elder Hope

Monday October 10, 2011

Dear Family,

First off, Mom, my wart is fine, is still there, but isn't causing too much pain, but am being obedient to our "mission nurse" and following her counsel. It is Sister Torgan, she is brillant, but gives me medical instructions in Portuguese, so half of the time I just guess what she wants me to do. She doesn't speak Portuguese and she speaks brazillian portuguese, so life is very fun trying to understand her. I have found that brazillians from São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are the eaisest to understand. As you go North, it gets a little more difficult.

I was sort of down, because I have been sort of sick lately, but nothing too bad.

COOL STORY: So as you know I tell people that my dad served in Brasil. We have a member named Claudia here from São Paulo (the state just north of Paraná, where dad served) So, I she has moved to Portugal, and will start coming to the Ermesinde Branch at the end of the Month. She is staying in Porto until then. So, she came to an activity to meet the ward, and she saw my name and just stared, just stared. I started talking to her, and found out she was from São Paulo, Brasil. So, I told her my dad served in Curitiba, and she paused and asked what years. I told her I think it was 83 or 84 and then she said that she was baptized in 1984 in Curitiba. She said there are 4 Elders that she remembers by name, and only knows 2 personally. She knows Elder Hope and Elder Silva (she doesn't think she knows them personally), and then an Elder Brown, and I don't remember the other name, I wrote it down and left it in the house. She said that she has a sister named Ana, and Ana has a group of friends. Aparently, one of the friends (of Anas) was baptized by an Elder Hope and Elder Silva, and because of her baptism, Ana was Baptized, and shortly later Claudia.In other words, I MET A LADY THAT WAS BAPTIZED AS A RESULT OF DAD´S MISSION!!! She is almost certain that it is the same Elder Hope, she said after the mission split, another Elder Hope came into the Londrina mission, but she thinks it was the Elder Hope from the Curitiba mission!

Yesterday we were teaching a family, and our phone rang, it was our mission president (it was about 9:33 at night and we have to be home by 10), so I rejected the phone call, with the intention to call back after the lesson. We had a prayer, committed them to pray and read the book of mormon, and then as we were leaving the phone rang again (this time 9:40 ish) and it was the mission President again. I answered it, it was the voice of President Torgan who said Is this Elder Hope. I told him yes. He asked, How many baptisms did you have, I told him one, and then he said, ok, The Lord has many more things in mind for you, He then said Elder Hope, you are hereby released after tonight from your calling as District Leader of the Ermesinde District, because you will be transfered to Almeda (i don't know the spelling), and he said Elder Hope, the Lord has revealed to me that you are not to be the district leader there, but you have been called to labor there as a Zone Leader. Good Luck. He then asked me if I felt ready for Zone leader, I told him no, I don't even speak Portuguese. He said, good, Samuel was only 16 when he was called and Joseph Smith was only 14, you are older than both of them and you are only a zone leader, not a mission President or the Prophet, and then he said, the Lord will prepare you really quick because who he calls, he qualifies. Report to the Lisbon Mission office at 10:30 am and you have authorization to travel alone, your companion will stay in the house until his companion arrives in Ermesinde. So I get to travel to a city that I have never been to alone, with all of my bags. Luckily, one of the other missionaries in Braga has to do the same, so i am going to hop on the same train as him.

Later I read a quote from President Hinckley that says, Brothers, I want to ask you to be happy in your work, Have a smile on your face and a song in your heart while you serve the Lord.

I get more or less an hour for email, just depends on the area that I am in. In Viseu we could have an hour and a half, 2 hours, whatever, same in Viana do Castelo, but here, we only get an hour.

With Love,

Elder Hope

Monday October 3, 2011

Family and friends

Ok, so here is how conference works here in Portugal. Saturday morning starts Saturday at 5pm and saturday night has 2 showings, one at 9pm saturday and one at 1 pm Sunday. Priesthood session is at 10 am sunday, and sunday morning is at 5 pm sunday and sunday night is at 9 pm sunday. I watched the last half of Saturday morning right as President Monson was announcing the temples. I watched Preisthood, Saturday evening, and sunday Morning, and didn't watch any of Sunday evening. I am fine, we can watch it on the internet mom, but thanks for thinking of us.

So friday night Olivia was interviewed to be baptized and passed!! She is the Jehovah Witness that we have been teaching for the last 4 weeks. She is probably the funnest investigator to teach. We taught her the law of Tithing 6 times until she finally understood it. In the Jehovah witness you can pay tithing with your time proselyting, and they open the donations infront of everyone, where it is personal in our church, she didn't understand that.

Also, Margarita passed her interview, but we still don't know the date, it looks like she will wait until the 30th so that her family can be there.

We had 6 investigators at conference, 2 were eternal investigators, but they went none the less. We also had 3 less actives at conference which is always good to have.

We were walking to a train stop to catch a train and there were 2 Jehovah witnesses on the other side knocking doors. There was one door in particular they entered. We saw them come out, and I told Elder Searle we need to go and knock that door. We did a few days later, and came out with a new investigator!!

I love our lovely bus drivers here too. if you want to get off, you hit the button and wait by the door, so we hit the button and waited and it was only us two, I saw the driver look through his mirror, and just keep on driving right past the stop and stopped at the next stop because there were people waiting to get on.

I lost half my time trying to get onto the internet. so I don't have much time.

Love y'all

Elder Hope