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
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