On Monday we had a family home evening with a lady named Sandra. She is a lady that wants to be baptized, but doesn't want to live the law of chastity. . . . so in other words, wants to get baptized, without getting the blessings . . . makes sense to me!! We went to the house of one of the counselors in the Bishopric and she understood why she had to be baptized, she understood that the lord does want her to live the commandments. It ended in my opinion a little tense where she told her "boyfriend" that she doesn't want to marry him. . . so we are going in circles with her. The Sisters were mad at us becuase they feel like we stole Anita from them. The funny thing is we started to teach her and she lives in our area and then the niece (member) gave the Sisters Anita as a reference and told the Sisters that she wanted the Sisters to teach Anita. Well, turns out, it didn't matter for Anita and she already really liked me, so everything was cool. To add to the confusion, I told the Sisters to go and teach her Monday night because we couldn't due to the family home evening. So the Sisters were upset that we "stole" their investigator. It ended up that we got to teach Anita since she lived in our area. the worst part of it all is that she was marked for baptism on this last saturday and the Missionaries were divided on who was teaching.
On Tuesday we had a lesson with a guy named Paul . . . by far my most favorite investigator because he makes me think, and he is an American. He is a Yoga teacher that travels a lot, so we won't teach him this week, but the following week we will. He wanted us to relax before our lesson, so we got into our sweat pants and did Yoga in a White shirt, tie, and sweat pants, and then taught him a lesson. We were on the 2nd lesson and asked an interesting question, if the people in the spirit world are taught by the missionaries in this world, since the spirit world is here in this earth.We taught Anita in the Chapel with the Bishop and we got the bishop on our side for the baptism. We went by the "coolest less active in our ward" according to the members, and he literally kicked us out of his house because he was drunk and "didn't have a contract with us"
On wednesday we were having problems with people showing up for their appointments, but during the night we managed to have a night at the chapel with some investigators and some members. Anita told us that she had absolutely no friends to invite to her baptism, after we found out that she has roughly 300 friends on facebook . . . . interesting
on Thursday we had correlation with our ward mission leader. he is cool and helped us organize Anita's baptism. I also managed to make Chicken Fried Steak with gravy that didn't turn out too well. I am very pleased with the way that I am cooking now because Elder Govier is just letting me at it, and I am learning some new things. So that dad knows, the No Bake cookies are a hit.
on Friday, Anita got really scared that she would fail the interview, even though she was ready. she made us squid for lunch, but the Stake President couldn't come (the Stake President was told to do the interview). So we had to reschedule. I told Anita to be at the baptism 30 minutes early to get ready.
Well on Saturday, I convinced a part member family to make me lunch since "we didn't have a lot of time" and they did!!! It is good because they came back to church and brought a friend. We spent the rest of the day at the chapel. Aparently, according to church guidelines, someone has to be in the chapel when the font is filling up, and we were the ones volunteered to be in the chapel at that time. It's ok because apparently according to church guidelines missionaries can cook in the chapel, so we made no bake cookies. I just think it is funny that the church guideline book is different in Portugal than in America. . . or people just don't read it and guess!! Anita showed up 35 minutes late, but since I told her to be there 30 minutes early, she was only 5 minutes late. We got her in her jumpsuit and everything, and then realized that Manuel Bento wasn't there, the guy that was supposed to baptize her. He showed up and the 5 pm baptism started at 5:45. Turns out that according to church guidelines only non members can film the baptism . . . that one was my favorite. Anyways, The baptism was a success and Anita brought 3 families to see the baptism and 1 is progressing!!! She also decided to bring a ton of food for afterwards, so we had a party after.
On sunday, Anita got confirmed. We were late to getting to church because we were walking with a less active member, and they made Anita stand up to tell everyone that she would be confirmed later in the meeting, and then we walked into the sacrament room right as they told her to sit down, so they told her to stand back up and go to the front to get confirmed. She got confirmed by me. I don't know why I was asked to do it, but I was at the last minute. Afterwards, we made our way to Lisbon, what a long 4.5 hour train ride. I found out it is only 3 hours by car. Well, we got into lisbon late at night and slept there so we could be in lisbon for the meeting on monday.
On Monday we had a meeting with Pres. Fluckiger and on Tuesday I did a division with elder Barros, but those are stories for next week.
Elder Hope
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