Not even kidding. Before his mission, he was living in Park City, and building his dream home in a gated community that happens to have Michael Jordan abiding amongst its walls. I learned that last Monday when Elder Valentine and I went to the Mission Home to receive transfers from President Amorim. He showed us pictures of his house that he is building. Due to some construction laws or city ordinances, or something else, he has a fastly approaching deadline for when his house has to be done. So, every once-in-a-while, I hear him on the phone with some dude (probably the Project Manager) and they talk about where he wants things, what he likes, or doesnt, and so on and so forth. But, the good thing is that President Amorim says we will have mission reunions at the Golf Clubhouse that he lives close to! :D Sweet! But that is for after the mission. Right now, we work!
My apologies for not writing this week, last Monday we had transfers, and therefore, I was busy in the office helping out with that. Updates on the mission. We now have 3 financial secretaries in the office, and only one executive (Elder Valentine). Two zones were put together, and know we have one zone for every stake/mission district. That gives us a total of 5 zones (3 stakes and 2 mission districts: Coimbra, Porto, Porto Norte; Madeira and Santarém, respectively). Our mission is growing! We were able to open up a new area last transfer! And this next group coming in is going to be big, so we will open up even more areas! :D That is always super exciting! In fact these next two groups coming in (One in December, and the other in January) are both really big! Why!? Well, these two groups will be replacing the group of missionaries that came in the transfer before me, and the group that came in with me. Both were around 20-30 missionaries. That was back when the mission was the whole country. This time, we are getting around 15 missionaries. Which is still pretty good! Our average of missionaries coming in 7 or 8. We are basically reaching full capacity for the size of our mission, which is around 140. I have heard rumors that President Amorim wants to increase the size of our mission, in terms of missionaries. I dont know what is necessary to do that, but I am sure there is some qualification that we need to hit, so that the Mission Department and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will give us more missionaries!
OK, now, for my past two weeks. I got a few little stories to tell, but in order to differentiate from what happened when, I'll use two different phrases: 1.) The week before transfers, and 2.) This past week. Obviously the week before means from the 17th to the 23rd of October, and the week after refers to the 24th to the 30th.
During the week before transfers, we met a guy named Virgílio. We actually found him while trying to find some less actives, that ended up not living in the house where we found Virgílio. Virgílio is pretty cool. He is pro-American. Loves the United States, so automatically, he loved us. He is a classic non-practicing Catholic Portuguese man, with a wife, and a kid. I have my doubts, but I am pretty sure he was a little bit drunk when he was talking to us. Nonetheless, he let us in, and we were able to get through half of the Restoration (basically up to the point of Joseph Smith). He talks a lot, which is why it took us awhile to get there. He has a very broad view on religion, and life, which makes it a little difficult to apply what we were teaching to his life, and how it is more than just an idea, it is the truth! Overall, it was a decent lesson, and he invited us to come back another day. We tried passing during the week after transfers, but it hasnt worked out so far. But, we have plans to pass by tomorrow.
This past week we had a baptism in our ward!!! It was the Sister's baptism, and it was an awesome baptismal service. Her name is Dani, and she is pretty cool. The Sister's found her last transfer, and worked a lot with her, to get her to the waters of baptism. She brought a lot of her family members!! More than half of the people there were her non-member family relatives! It was super cool! I wish I would've taken a picture of the room, cause it was packed! Probably around 80-90 people, majority her family, and jovens (young people)! It was on friday night at 8pm, which happened to be right during Institute. And it actually worked out well, because the lesson that week was on Baptism, and the Institute teacher decided it would be really cool to have everyone attend the baptismal service. It was also really cool, because Dani is in her late 20s early 30s, and so she has been going to Institute and has made many friends there. Overall, one of the best baptisms I've been to on my mission.
Then on the following day, we had a stake member-missionary activity, which was based on the idea that we had of going to a public square, setting up a table, a passing out copies of The Book of Mormon, and contacting a bunch of people. However, the idea was to have the members and the missionaries do divisions, that way the members would get a taste of what our day-to-day life is like. And it worked out great! It was pretty fun, and the members enjoyed it! So, I'll consider it a success! :)
Well, it looks like I am going to be staying in the office for these next two transfers. By the time I leave, I will have been here for about 8 months. About a third of my mission. Wow, that is insane. But I am enjoying my time here in the office. I am taking on new roles, I am working with the Bishop of the other ward here in Porto, and we are analysing everything during 2016 that has to do deal with missionaries' utilities. I also have a few other projects that have to do with analysing 2016, so I now am taking a backseat on the day-to-day financial tasks that have to do with communicating outside the office, handling stuff with the missionaries, and talking with Area Headquarters in Germany. Pretty exciting!
Oh, other news. Our bishop in our ward got released yesterday, and the one that was called is a lot younger and was in the Stake Presidency! I am pretty stoked about that. The new bishop also invited the missionaries to attend his setting apart by the stake presidency after church, so that was pretty cool. Now, both Bishops in Porto are young with young families! I think it is what this country needs. It needs the youth to take the lead, and take to the next step! We had stake conference the Sunday before transfers, and President Amorim got the chance to speak, and during his talk, he compared Brazil and Portugal to when the Church was the same age in each country. Right now, the Church is 40 years old in Portugal. And when the Church was 40 years old in Brazil, it was not as big as it is now in Portugal. Less stakes, smaller districts, etc. Basically, his message was that Portugal is prime, the field is white, and the time is now! Portugal has sooo much potential right now!
Oh, and other great news! Remember Ascenção? She got baptized yesterday! She was the investigator Elder Gomes and I starting teach in Tomar! She was a reference from some missionaries in Madeira, and she lived outside of Tomar, and she was super cool! I know that one day she would get baptized one day! And she got baptized with her husband! I never got to teach her husband personally, but I got to know him a little while I was there! I think he will be called to be the branch president pretty soon. The branch president that was there when I served in Tomar (he was young, and Brazilian) moved about a month ago, and right now, the second counselor in the Mission Presidency is the Branch President.
I love you all! Have a great week! Continue coming unto Christ, and growing a personal relationship with Him! I suggest to all watching the Face-to-Face with Studio C, it is super funny, but also very spiritual! :)
Here's the link for that: https://www.mormonchannel.org/
Com amor,
Haha, I didnt mean to send my letter last night (my time). :D I was in the office with Elder Valentine (he was doing weekly numbers), and I decided to get a head start on my weekly letter by just writing it out, and then sending it the next day (today)... but I accidentally pushed the sent button! Woops!
Anyway, for Pday today we decided to go check out the Livraria Lello (where JK Rowling received some inspiration for Harry Potter), but there was a huge line, and we didnt want to waste our pday doing that! So we ended up eating lunch at a mall (ViaCatarina). I got some Kebabs, which is a really yummy Middle Eastern-"Taco Bell-like" restaurant (except the quality is WAY better). :) And then we just finished the day with normal pday stuff. Cleaning, buying food, and writing families. :)
I got some pics from the outside of the bookstore, which was going under renovation when I went there the first time. Enjoy! Also a picture of a sunset while we were out proselyting by the river :)
Love,
Elder Yoder
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