Tuesday December 27, 2011

Dear Family and Friends,

So we have some really cool news this week. In our Zone Leader meeting president Torgan told us that Portugal is now the Lighthouse of Europe, and that we were the missionaries that were prophesied of to fulfill that Prophesy. Here are some cool statistics. There are 27 missions in Brasil, we baptized more than 20 of those 27 missions. In the European area we baptized 1094 people, and the next closest was Cabo Verde which baptized 500 (which isn't even part of Europe, but in the European area bacause of temple districts). My only fear the the activity of those people, because a lot of those people were baptized and need to be strengthened, in my ward, I have seen 5 baptisms in the last 3 months and not a one of those people have a calling in the church yet.

 

Update for y'all: Rui Pinheiro, the man I baptized in Viana do Castelo, is now blessing the sacrament and should be recieving the Melchizedek preiesthood in February when they have Stake Conference.

 

                           Marta and Arlindo (from Ermesinde) have "revived the branch" according to Elder Searle. They have 3 little boys that have opened up new callings for the members, and Arlindo blessed the Sacrament for the first time on Christmas.

 

                          Orlando (from Miratejo) is going back to Santo Mae where he will be forced to go less active because our church isn't in that country yet.

 

I don't know about any of the others, they are the only ones I have been keeping up with.

 

The meeting yesterday was quite interesting and involved the following scriptures: Hebrews12:5-7, D&C 95:1, D&C 105:6, and D&C 136:31 incase you are curious how our meeting went.

 

 

Thanks for your love,

 

Elder Hope

Monday December 19, 2011

Dear family and friends,

 

This has to be short because i was trying to get a video sent, but it didn't work

 

This started out to be the best Christmas ever. We got beds last friday, and Elder Washburn Broke it within 24 hours (its alright we fixed it)!!!!, but then on Saturday we went to pick up Benicio for his baptism and found out that he had drunken wine the night before, so he wasn't able to get baptized. He is one of the guys that we are having to do everything for and won't do anything on his own. He didn't come to church after saying he would, so we are seriously contemplating on dropping him, since he will come to church only when we go and get him, it is a really hard choice, but I would perfer to baptize strong members rather than people who go inactive right after I leave.

 

We had a ward Christmas party that was sort of funny. we had a fun time trying to figure out a skit to do, so we went and found did a thing where one of us laid down and we sat on the other one, and then put a towel around us so that they couldn't tell . . . ish, and then we played around and were able to put "our legs" behind our heads and such, it is sort of funny, i'll try and get a video sent, it starts about 50 seconds into it.

 

Yesterday we had a great time, we had a lesson with a guy named Moises, and he is super awesome. his friend was over and was giving us really good answers and such. We were sort of curious, and then right as we got to Joseph Smith, she left and got her bible, she came back and found a scripture, and then Elder Washburn and I looked at each other and realized she was a Jehova Witness. So we closed the lesson before talking about Joseph Smith, and her face got a smile of disgust on it, she was so furious. It is sort of funny how sad it is that they have to play dumb just to try and prove us wrong. So we left and didn't get into it. It is sort of hard, because between Elder Washburn and I, we could probably bible bash pretty good, but there is no point to it.

 

Anyways, love y'all tons.

 

Elder Hope

Tuesday December 13, 2011

Dear family and friends,

 

yesterday we had our Christmas conference which was one of the most spiritual and frustrating times at the same time. We had Elder Texeira of the first quorum of the 70 speak to us, and I really think he likes english better than portuguese, because he kept switching back to english, and then to portugese. I sort of felt bad for the brazillians there that couldn't understand the English. The whole mission was there, and it was interesting to sit and talk with old friends and companions. Elder Whitaker, Elder Searle, and I all sat and talked for a while during lunch. Elder Searle reported that they are still baptising the people him and I found when we were there in Ermesinde. He is still there. Elder Whitaker was called to be district Leader in Vila Franca de Xira, but then decided he didn't like it, so the next transfer was transfered to be in another area in the middle of Nowhere, Portugal. We sang songs, had fun, and met a lot of new people.

 

Elder Brown, my trainer has 6 more months left on his mission and was so happy to see me sitting on the stand yesterday with the other zone leaders. He came up to me, and told me he was glad that his greenie turned out ok. I was his first person to train, and he thought he had failed.

 

Elder Del Aguila is going home on December 20th. He is from Houston, TX, and he has already extended for 9 weeks, so he is going home, but oh well, he is one of the greats.

 

Presidente Torgan was speaking to us, and then paused, and then he said that the spirit has commanded him to bless each and every one of us with protection from evil and against the firey darts of Satan.

 

We got to get together as a zone and one of our missionaries refused to wear his plaque and told us that he doesn't believe the gospel anymore. This is super hard for everyone to see this because he was one of the legends. He baptized nearly 50 people in Portugal which is almost unheard of, and now he has given up and told us that he doesn't pray or fast or do anything anymore, that the story of the church is a "nice story". I debated whether or not to share this, but I think is goes to show an example, that when we stop doing the basics, pray, read, fast, and follow the savior, we lose the most important things to us . . . including our testimony. It is super sad to see that one of gods most faithful missionaries can fall into the same trap. Our mission president told us he would be going home since this has been happening for over 2 transfers now. This is his last transfer in the mission, and he is going home early. How sad . . . how sad. The legends are the ones who finish strong and work until the last hour of their missions. It shows me the kind of missionary I want to be, the one who finishes strong.

 

The great missionaries are not the ones who baptize and baptize and baptize, the great missionaries are the ones who work as hard as they can every day of their mission.

 

Love

 

Elder Hope

Monday December 5, 2011

Dear family and friends,

So this was by far the worst week of my mission up until now. Monday we went to a members house, Tuesday, I was sick, throwing up. We thought I got something from the food, because Wednesday I was fine, until wednesday night, and was just a little queezy. Thursday I came home early to throw up again, and friday we stayed home littlerally all day, so our numbers were terrible. President Torgan even called to find out how I was doing, and told me jokingly that God only wants healthy leaders and he wants the sick leaders to get better soon. He was stressing out that we wouldn't be a very good example for our zone that week, but in the end, the numbers that president Torgan is worried about we ended up doing well (baptisms, people marked, people in church, and new investigators). We only taught 13 lessons this last week, but still led our zone in number of people marked for baptism and people in Church. We have 1 (basically 2) marked for the 11^th and one marked for the 18^th, but about 80% of our marked baptisms fall through because the wards don't fellowship people, and they feel like loners at church, and they don't go to the baptisms. That is why our ward list has 800 people but only 60 or so are active. We teach people, bring them to chruch and mark them, and then find out they are already baptized somewhere else too, it is great.

So on sunday morning we went to a house of a family that has told us every week for the last 4 weeks that they would go to church but never have. The mom went to the Gypsie fair, but said she would meet us for sacrament meeting (last meeting), but the kids would go with us. So we got there and knocked on the door, and one of the kids answered the door, and pulled the I am too tired and don't want to go card. We said, that's ok, we can wait. They said they weren't dressed or anything, so we sat down in front of their house and waited. They went in and out and didn't do anything to get ready, but we waited there for about an hour and a half. The mom came back from the fair and saw us and asked if we had been waiting for all that time, we told her we had been, and she said, one minute, I'll get them. (the youngest is 11 and the oldest is 20). She went in there and woke up her kids and told them they were sinning and how rude it is to tell us one thing, and do another, and such. So they all went to church (4 investigators) and then one of our drunk friends showed up again, and told us he didn't like it when we chewed him out for not going to church, so he made it a priority to change, so that will be interesting.

Next monday we have a mission christmas conference, so I won't be writing next monday, probably. President Torgan said the conference starts at 10:37. They have figured out the trains and everything, and the last area should arrive infront of the chruch at 10:35. We will get there probably by 8:30 or so.

Well, the news of the mission is that we got happy p day taken away until president torgan leaves in July. Happy p day is when we can leave our area and travel in our zone and have p day with other missionaries, which is supposed to be once a month, but it never happens anyways.

We were super excited because beef was on sale for once. This last sunday is the first time I have had 'real' meat from a cow in a long time (they substitute pork for everything). It is €1.79 for 500grams. It is generally 4 or 5 euros for a package that size which is roughly 4.50-6 USD. It is interesting to see how happy we are for the little things, a washing machine, beds, beef, and a heater.

We had another strange thing happen to us the other day. We were knocking doors and all of a sudden a lady answered the door. She looked like a whitch, literally. I have seen a little bit of voodu stuff here, but not much. Her eyes were black as night and super shiny. She looked at us as if she was looking into our souls. There was a super dark feeling there and behind her there were little black statues that looked like they came from africa. Right as we said we were sent from Jesus Christ to help her, she stepped forward, put her right and on the door, and just slammed the door hard. We decided she was possesed by a dark spirit, likes satan more than Jesus, and wasn't too interested in the gospel, though we did pray outside her door to help her. She was the first lady that ever slammed a door in our face. Most people just slowly close it and keep saying Excuse me, excuse me.

With love,

Elder Hope