Monday November 14, 2011

Dear family and Friends,

Well, it is another week and a fun time to be here in Portugal. We have been trying to figure out how to get people to church and work with the ward leaders. As Zone Leaders, we get to meet with the ward leaders, or at least we are supposed to, but they always cancel the meetings, and they are super fun to work with when they understand what we are saying. It is sad that we have to defend our other missionaries when the leaders get upset with them because of things the leaders should be doing, but hey Come what may, and love it!!!

For Christmas we need to wait until transfers which is November 22^nd, and then we can figure it out. If I stay in the same area, we can skype, but if I go out to another area, maybe not, it just depends. About half of the zone thinks that one of the 2 of us are leaving, and the other is staying. It is hard to guess because we both whitewashed, so anything can happen, and President likes to move people around. I suggest you make a list of things to ask, so that the conversation keeps moving, I don't know what I would say.

So our fun for the week was going out with a member to go proselyting. We were all excited to do a blitz with the members there, so we get out there with the one member, and the other lived in this area. (this is that really poor area that I was talking about), so we get there and the other member was completely drunk at 11 am. We asked him if he had been drinking, and he said no. We aked if he had alcohol, and he said no. We asked about wine, and he said no, so we asked about beer, and he said no, so then we asked about Whisky and he said just a little bit, so that was fun. We ended the week with 12 member present lessons and 31 other lessons . . . which is better than we thought it would be. The hard part is that no one wants to be baptized “again”.

I did a baptismal interview this week for a little boy. I asked him if he ever went to jail, and he said NO, but I have kissed a girl on the lips, and I asked him why just to see his response, and he said because I liked her. I thought that was funny, and then told him to be careful with that (he was only 10 years old).

I did another interview this week in English, that was strange. I didn't know how to explain certain things in English, I knew the Vocabulary, but I have gotten to the point that the gospel is easier in Portuguese than in English. It was really a cool thing. She is from São Paulo Brazil, but speaks English better than Portuguese, so she asked for english. At the end of the interview I asked her if she was ready to make the covenant and be baptized. She said she doesn't know if it is all true, she thinks it is, but doesn't know with certainty, so we prayed and I asked her how she felt, and she said she didn't feel anything, and then I felt like I needed to tell her that she really felt a peace, so I did, and she stopped dead in her tracks, and said, how did you know? I explained more about the holy ghost in Broken English, and so that was pretty cool. She still won't get baptized because she hasn't gotten permission from her mom yet, but we got permission to interview her, so we will see.

I can't really think of anything else that happened this week that is really cool. We do have a couple here named brother and sister Lund. They sort of know Gerald and John, but don't really talk to them much about them.

To be honest the mission is something really hard. It makes us someone else I have seen a change, and I have seen the hand of the lord and the angels preparing the people for this work, it is wierd how just 9 months can change one's life so much. In 9 Months I have been speaking another language in which the natives still question if it is portuguese, In 9 months I have been put into the refiners fire and back out again. In 9 months I have seen a culture that makes absoultely no sense if you think about it. In 9 Months I have learned what it means to be an American and a saint.

Elder Hope