Monday October 22, 2012

Well the transfer has come to an end and Elder Govier and I will be staying together in Braga.

The computer crashed, so, well It won't be as long as I wanted.

This last week was very interesting

monday we went to Bom Jesus with the rest our district, it was fun and I had the oportunity to see Elder Searle again.

Tuesday I went on a division in Ermesinde. I spoke with Jaime and he told me to go and pass all of my recent converts and people that knew me really well instead of finding new people. I didn't quite understand his plan, but at the end of the day I was able to make a lot of headway with the baptism of Marta and Arlindo's son and they came back to church this last sunday!!! Also 3 other people that I knew went back to church. Everyone was so excited to see me, that I got 3 dinners!!!! and 1 lunch!!! They were all telling me that I was the missionary that helped restart the branch. The ward mission leader showed me the list of everyone that was baptized in the last 2 years. I was there one year ago and the list had 11 people on it. I taught 7 of those 11 and 2 were baptized before I got there and 1 was a reference of a guy that I taught. It is interesting to see what god has done.

Wednesday I ate lunch with another one of my buddies in Ermesinde and convinced him to give me a ride up to Braga. We ate Rabbit. and then got back to Braga. In all it was a successful division. We got to braga around 3 and we got to work but didn't really have any sucess.

Thursday we tried really hard to get out and work but with the rain and the cold on Wednesday Elder Govier got sick and gave it to me now.

Friday, despite our sicknesses we got out and worked again without really any success. What I have learned is that Braga is not Coimbra and it is a whole new game to learn. Coimbra is a college town, this is more of a single people, just graduated town.

Saturday we finally talked to Sandra, our Brasillian that wants to be baptised on the 4th. We are sad to annouce that she still really wants to be baptized and she is married, just to a different guy than the one she is living with, and if she divorces, she will be deported. . . We told her to have faith. We also marked a lady named anita for Sunday the 21st, she sat us down and said elders, I want to be baptized.

On sunday Anita was interviewed and it was decided that she should wait until this saturday seeing as she smoked saturday morning. Luckily it isn't a bad addiction, she smokes an average of 4 or 5 a week, not even everyday, so we should be just fine in that regard.

all in all the week was interesting.

I forgot to tell you about Mario.

We share a ward with the sisters and we are only 5 melquesideck priesthood holders away from splitting!!! , and one moved in this last week!!!, but we don't know if he can be one of the 5 or not for worthiness reasons, but he can get worthy.

Mario is the boyfriend of a less active brasilian lady from São Paulo. They are going to get married this week!! Well, for the last two weeks the sisters have been teaching them and got them to come to church this last weekend. I met Mario and he was super cool, he does smoke marijuana, but hey, he can stop!!! Well after talking to him, he went up to Manuel Bento, our Ward Mission Leader (he found out he was in charge of the missionaries in our ward), and asked if we can teach him because he clicks more with the elders. He came and asked me, but I told him he would have to speak with the sisters. I feel like it was sort of a low blow to the sisters, but he was super excited to tell me where he lives even though I had no clue where he was talking about. After looking on the map, it looks like he lives right next to our house. So all in all, without doing anything, we stole the Sister's investigator. I feel bad, since the sisters did all the hard work trying to get them married.
Love y'all

Elder Hope