heeeeeeey yoouuuuuuu guuuuyyyysssss
Ten points if you know that movie!
This week was AWESOME. Soooo good!
The first day and a half of this week were like awful, really awful. But, on Tuesday we had a zone meeting which helped a ton! Our zone leaders did interviews for some of us and mine was with Elder Ca. He asked how things were going. We talked for a while, and he said that he had been praying about how he could help me with the things he already knew I was struggling with. He said that he felt like he needed to share his favorite scripture, Alma 17:10-11. We read it together and he said that he felt like the Lord is testing my patience right now. He said that if I handle the circumstances of this transfer well, I can be an example to other missionaries as well as to investigators. That is the way the Lord wants to make me an instrument in His hands. It was a really good conversation, and patience is definitely something I'm trying to have more of. That and humility. I'm learning a lot about the fact that I'm a really prideful person. Like, I kind of knew that before because I'm stubborn and mean and competitive. But, I didn't realize how extreme it was or how badly I needed to change it. Everyone go read the talk "Beware of Pride" by Ezra Taft Benson. It's a great one. Well, it also cuts kinda deep, but its REALLY good!
The next day we did a division for 24 hours! It was awesome. Our new president called a coordinating sister for the mission and so she and her companion are doing divisions with like all of the sisters in the mission! The coordinatin sister, Irma Boshard, is hilarious. Like, I want to be her. She's amazing. She's seriously a great missionary. She came over here to Mem Martins with Irma Quebbeman and I went to her area with her companion, Irma Baer.
Irma Baer and I were in Odivelas. It's a really pretty area, closer to Lisbon. It's the area where the temple is going to be built! Crazy! We had such a great time during the division. It was EXACTLY what I needed. Irma Baer is pretty new on the mission too, she got here the same time as Irma Quebbeman. So two transfers before me. She had pretty much exactly the same feelings about her first three transfers that I've been having. We had a really great talk and the whole day was awesome. We quoted movies together and laughed hysterically and taught some awesome lessons!
She gave me some advice that has helped me a TON. She especially talked to me about when she finally changed her attitude about the mission. She said that for the first three months, whenever things got frustrating, she would say to herself "It's only 18 months. It's only 18 months." But she then realized she was going to reach the end of her mission and have hated the whole thing. So, she changed her frustration mantra to "I LOVE MY MISSION!" and after a little while she wasn't convincing herself of it anymore, it became true. She is such an excited missionary!
I didn't really believe her when she said she didn't like the first few months. So, I'm doing the same thing. I've just started repeating in my head, " I love my mission". It's helping a lot. I already feel ten times happier and excited to be here doing the Lords work. She also reread her call letter with me and we had a long talk about how we made the decision to serve and what the process was like. It reminded me of how amazing it is that I'm on a mission! The call letter says, "you have been recommended as one worthy to represent Christ" How incredible is that?! Christ is the Savior of the world! Every one of us in the world that's walking around wearing this tag has been given the right to be his representative!
I remembered that really no one, myself included, expected me to serve a mission or wanted me to do this. The fact that I'm doing it is so crazy, but in the best way possible. I love it! I feel like a completely different person now that I remembered that I'm lucky to be here and that this is going to be the thing of the most worth in my life! The Lord said so himself.
If you're getting ready for a mission, or thinking you maybe don't want to go, read D&C15:6. The Lord will tell you what's right. Also, tell EVERY SINGLE person, you know who is about to serve a mission to make a copy of their call letter and take it with them! THEY WILL NEED IT! AND IT WILL HELP SO MUCH! So yeah, Mom, if you wanna make me a copy and send it, that would be awesome. Really though, I only have 11 days left until my six month mark. I'M ALMOST A THIRD DONE WITH MY MISSION. That is ludicrous, I'm actually sad that I wasted so much of it being whiny and sad about being here. What an idiot. But, this next year and 11 days will be amazing! HARD, but AMAZING.
I know this church is true and I know there is absolutely nothing else in the entire world that I should be doing or want to be doing. I love it! Sometimes I still have to remind myself of that, but it's still true! I love you guys, have a great week! Read the Book of Mormon!
Monday, August 27, 2012
Monday, August 20, 2012
Tracting for the first time
This week was pretty normal.
Here are a few highlights though. Elder Franco's mom got baptized! It was a reallllly beautiful baptism. Like, a lot. I loved it, and shes amazing. We decided to be daring and go do some Procura (tracting i guess...?) in the half of our area where there are literally NO INVESTIGATORS not even from way back when. This area is really far and full of tourists. But, that new family, the Nielsons, moved in there and it makes sense that someone has to live there to run the businesses for the tourists. Yeah, we didn't meet very many people. Even if the people weren't tourists they were way meaner than the people here in the city area. Boooo. But, it wasan adventure!
Our ward really loves us, and we love them. It was kinda hard to tell there for a while but in the past few weeks, everyone in the ward has just been so incredibly nice to us and helped us so much. They will just come up to us on Sunday now and say, "We are so glad you've stayed here, we really love you two." That's a relief because we really like don't know how to interact with the ward sometimes. So yeah, everyone go tell your missionaries that they're awesome and that you appreciate them being in your ward. Even if you don't know them. They will love it. Other than that, there's not a ton to write. Our district leader (who has already said he's jealous of the friendship Irma Quebbeman and I have) is trying really hard to become besties with us. He does things like ask us to bake for him. And he tells us he's going to play pranks on us. And he says that he really likes to irritate us for laughs. Yeah, he's making a ton of headway on that one.....
But, having the elders here is really fun. So we have enjoyed hanging out with them too. It's really funny watching a greenie eat at members homes sometimes. He takes it like a champ.
I love and miss you guys!!
Happy early Birthday Mom!
Love you and I'm recording a tape for you! I'll send it as soon as its done!
Here are a few highlights though. Elder Franco's mom got baptized! It was a reallllly beautiful baptism. Like, a lot. I loved it, and shes amazing. We decided to be daring and go do some Procura (tracting i guess...?) in the half of our area where there are literally NO INVESTIGATORS not even from way back when. This area is really far and full of tourists. But, that new family, the Nielsons, moved in there and it makes sense that someone has to live there to run the businesses for the tourists. Yeah, we didn't meet very many people. Even if the people weren't tourists they were way meaner than the people here in the city area. Boooo. But, it wasan adventure!
Our ward really loves us, and we love them. It was kinda hard to tell there for a while but in the past few weeks, everyone in the ward has just been so incredibly nice to us and helped us so much. They will just come up to us on Sunday now and say, "We are so glad you've stayed here, we really love you two." That's a relief because we really like don't know how to interact with the ward sometimes. So yeah, everyone go tell your missionaries that they're awesome and that you appreciate them being in your ward. Even if you don't know them. They will love it. Other than that, there's not a ton to write. Our district leader (who has already said he's jealous of the friendship Irma Quebbeman and I have) is trying really hard to become besties with us. He does things like ask us to bake for him. And he tells us he's going to play pranks on us. And he says that he really likes to irritate us for laughs. Yeah, he's making a ton of headway on that one.....
But, having the elders here is really fun. So we have enjoyed hanging out with them too. It's really funny watching a greenie eat at members homes sometimes. He takes it like a champ.
I love and miss you guys!!
Happy early Birthday Mom!
Love you and I'm recording a tape for you! I'll send it as soon as its done!
Monday, August 13, 2012
ai ai ai
You guys, I’m really bad at taking pictures. I’m sorry, I don’t have anything fun to send you yet.
Next week. As to the title of this email, I’m beginning to pick up a really bad habit of saying, "ai ai ai", just like the Portuguese people. I’m going to go home and people will think I’m even more of a kook. I don’t need that stress. Sometimes I get to P. Day and then I think wait, already? Because we do pretty much the same stuff all the time just with different people so unless I have some really epic cool story to tell you guys I feel like I’m going to bore you to death.
However! Two really cool things did happen this week. First! an American family moved into our ward! FROM UTAH!. They are Nichols family, from Alpine. They are awesome. Seriously. The mom is Mozambique and she grew up in Portugal but moved to Utah 20 years ago for school, fell in love with a whitey (he’s super cool though) and stayed in Utah. They have five kids and their only daughter is hilarious and loves us. She’s 11. So we get to church last week and we see brother Nichols walk in and we knew instantly that he wasn’t from here but that he was a member. They sit the kids down, he walks right over to us and says "I’m brother Nichols, we just moved in. When can we start working?"
Holy lantah! Thank you, Heavenly Father. I felt more excited than the people in the desert with Moses who finally got to the milk and honey. Yes, I did just botch that bible story. I’m a good missionary. So anyway, his wife is the only one who speaks Portuguese. But, her husband got up in testimony meeting and bore the most broken but beautiful Portuguese testimony I’ve ever heard. Their family is so awesome! They had us over for lunch this week and had to come pick us up because they live waaaaaay out in Sintra by the ocean. They're literally the only LDS family. So we're going to be doing a lot of work with them! I didn’t realize just how different an American family is until we had lunch with them. It’s a totally different family vibe and I forgot what it felt like! I wanted to cry when we left because we had such a good time!
Another cool thing that happened this week was zone conference! They did it a little different this time though because they had it in the area of our zone leaders and not in Lisbon. It was only our zone instead of two zones. BECAUSE... we had interviews with President!
I don’t remember if I’ve already talked about our new mission president and his wife yet but I can just tell you I freaking love them. They speak Portuguese with a Texas accent and are hilarious people but such amazing spiritual people. They are so nice I can’t even handle it. When we divided for lunch, Sister Fluckiger walked right up to me and said, without even looking at my tag, "Sister Dean, How's that back doing?"
"I’ve been worried about you".
Yeah, I’ve spoken to her once. I love her. Then she may have come up three times throughout the rest of the day while we were eating and during practices and smelled me and told the people around me that I smelled fantastic. She’s a kook. And precious as anything. The APs were like, "Okay, as soon as you pick up your requests from the office, if you’ve already been interviewed you need to leave immediately for you area." She goes "Oh, but I have pictures of my new grandson!"
Ha ha ha. It is a HUGE difference from the strictness of President Torgan. It’s so amazing how Presidents can be so different and their wives as well. I still feel so much love from them no matter their style. Like when President Torgan told us he was our father on the mission and if we have a bad dream or have a problem we need to call him directly and not our leaders. My interview with President was great and he was really encouraging and so happy. I was expecting it to feel like a bishop interview or something but it was so fun and he joked around and forgot to start it with a prayer and goes, "Oh well, we can just close, you’re doing great Sister Dean." Ha ha ha I love it.
Anyway, yeah. two weeks down, four more in this transfer and then I’ve officially hit six months/one third of the mission over. CRAZY. I’m not sure how I feel about it honestly, but I’m really glad that the first third at least, has been with two companions that I’ve adored. I also had an amazing MTC district and an amazing ward here in Mem Martins.
Love you all, the church is true!
A Jehovah’s Witness tried to outsmart me yesterday but knowing scripture references doesn’t trump personal revelation and receiving answers directly from God when you have a question!
Love you, ficam bem!
Next week. As to the title of this email, I’m beginning to pick up a really bad habit of saying, "ai ai ai", just like the Portuguese people. I’m going to go home and people will think I’m even more of a kook. I don’t need that stress. Sometimes I get to P. Day and then I think wait, already? Because we do pretty much the same stuff all the time just with different people so unless I have some really epic cool story to tell you guys I feel like I’m going to bore you to death.
However! Two really cool things did happen this week. First! an American family moved into our ward! FROM UTAH!. They are Nichols family, from Alpine. They are awesome. Seriously. The mom is Mozambique and she grew up in Portugal but moved to Utah 20 years ago for school, fell in love with a whitey (he’s super cool though) and stayed in Utah. They have five kids and their only daughter is hilarious and loves us. She’s 11. So we get to church last week and we see brother Nichols walk in and we knew instantly that he wasn’t from here but that he was a member. They sit the kids down, he walks right over to us and says "I’m brother Nichols, we just moved in. When can we start working?"
Holy lantah! Thank you, Heavenly Father. I felt more excited than the people in the desert with Moses who finally got to the milk and honey. Yes, I did just botch that bible story. I’m a good missionary. So anyway, his wife is the only one who speaks Portuguese. But, her husband got up in testimony meeting and bore the most broken but beautiful Portuguese testimony I’ve ever heard. Their family is so awesome! They had us over for lunch this week and had to come pick us up because they live waaaaaay out in Sintra by the ocean. They're literally the only LDS family. So we're going to be doing a lot of work with them! I didn’t realize just how different an American family is until we had lunch with them. It’s a totally different family vibe and I forgot what it felt like! I wanted to cry when we left because we had such a good time!
Another cool thing that happened this week was zone conference! They did it a little different this time though because they had it in the area of our zone leaders and not in Lisbon. It was only our zone instead of two zones. BECAUSE... we had interviews with President!
I don’t remember if I’ve already talked about our new mission president and his wife yet but I can just tell you I freaking love them. They speak Portuguese with a Texas accent and are hilarious people but such amazing spiritual people. They are so nice I can’t even handle it. When we divided for lunch, Sister Fluckiger walked right up to me and said, without even looking at my tag, "Sister Dean, How's that back doing?"
"I’ve been worried about you".
Yeah, I’ve spoken to her once. I love her. Then she may have come up three times throughout the rest of the day while we were eating and during practices and smelled me and told the people around me that I smelled fantastic. She’s a kook. And precious as anything. The APs were like, "Okay, as soon as you pick up your requests from the office, if you’ve already been interviewed you need to leave immediately for you area." She goes "Oh, but I have pictures of my new grandson!"
Ha ha ha. It is a HUGE difference from the strictness of President Torgan. It’s so amazing how Presidents can be so different and their wives as well. I still feel so much love from them no matter their style. Like when President Torgan told us he was our father on the mission and if we have a bad dream or have a problem we need to call him directly and not our leaders. My interview with President was great and he was really encouraging and so happy. I was expecting it to feel like a bishop interview or something but it was so fun and he joked around and forgot to start it with a prayer and goes, "Oh well, we can just close, you’re doing great Sister Dean." Ha ha ha I love it.
Anyway, yeah. two weeks down, four more in this transfer and then I’ve officially hit six months/one third of the mission over. CRAZY. I’m not sure how I feel about it honestly, but I’m really glad that the first third at least, has been with two companions that I’ve adored. I also had an amazing MTC district and an amazing ward here in Mem Martins.
Love you all, the church is true!
A Jehovah’s Witness tried to outsmart me yesterday but knowing scripture references doesn’t trump personal revelation and receiving answers directly from God when you have a question!
Love you, ficam bem!
Monday, August 6, 2012
Elder Franco's last transfer
Ola fam bam!
This week has been full of miracles but also full of stress. It was the first week of the transfer so things were a little crazy. I think I wrote last week about how they were re-splitting the ward to have two sets of missionaries again. Thank goodness! So now we have elders.
Well, a few weeks before transfers, we got a call from this elder up north, Elder Franco, who is from Mem Martins. He said that his parents had finally gotten baptized and that we should start reteaching them so they could get baptized. We went over tons of times and talked to them and appointments would fall or they wouldn’t really want to talk to us about it so nothing really resulted. We felt so badly but we were trying really hard! So we get the transfer call last Monday and they say that Irma Q and I are staying together and we will have elders again. We asked who would be with us and we were told that it was Elder Franco and a greenie. So we were like uhh, Elder, you know he’s from here right? That’s like not a thing that happens. You do not serve in your own home ward. He puts me on hold and goes to confirm with the assistants and they said, "yes, he’s going to serve in his own home ward, as our district leader and he’s going to train a greenie!" What the whaaaaaaaaaat??? Crazy.
So we met him this week, he’s a little intense but he’s cool and an incredible missionary. Don’t worry, his parents are getting baptized next week. Turns out that he was supposed to finish his mission last week but four weeks ago he felt really strongly that he needed to extend. So he prayed and then talked to president about it. President paused for a moment and then said, you need to stay, there is still work left for you to do. Then he got the transfer assignment to his own ward. Seriously insane but so cool.
We had been having a really rough week and trying so hard but not finding ANY new people to teach throughout the week. Then we got to Saturday and we were just trying so hard and after lunch we started our fast. We weren’t even fasting to find more people to teach, we were fasting that we would have investigators in church because no one is coming. However, on Saturday, after we started our fast we found nine new people! Only two of them were street contacts! We found the most incredible family who are all so nice. They had already talked to missionaries before and been to church. We're going back to teach them this week and I feel so good about them! Usually when we come in to teach someone the TV is on, the kids are running around and screaming. No one wants to join us and they just go to their own room. There’s just such a sad feeling in those homes. This one was so different.
We knocked the door, they invited us in, and were all so happy to talk to us. When the kids heard someone at the door they all came into the living room to talk to us and they instantly turned on the lights, turned off the TV and had an actual discussion with us, AS A FAMILY. You guys. This is not normal. It was amazing! Ha ha ha so I’m really happy that we're starting to find people we feel good about. Irma Quebbeman and I are still as good as ever :) At lunch yesterday, we were all in a members home, and the member said something that reminded Irma Q and I of an inside joke and we just busted up laughing and couldn’t stop. Elder Franco was like shocked and said that he’s never seen a companionship that seemed like such close friends in his entire mission. He’s always like watching our interaction and weirded out by how good of friends we are. It’s really funny. Anyway, have a beautiful week everyone!
I love you and I’m praying for you!
This week has been full of miracles but also full of stress. It was the first week of the transfer so things were a little crazy. I think I wrote last week about how they were re-splitting the ward to have two sets of missionaries again. Thank goodness! So now we have elders.
Well, a few weeks before transfers, we got a call from this elder up north, Elder Franco, who is from Mem Martins. He said that his parents had finally gotten baptized and that we should start reteaching them so they could get baptized. We went over tons of times and talked to them and appointments would fall or they wouldn’t really want to talk to us about it so nothing really resulted. We felt so badly but we were trying really hard! So we get the transfer call last Monday and they say that Irma Q and I are staying together and we will have elders again. We asked who would be with us and we were told that it was Elder Franco and a greenie. So we were like uhh, Elder, you know he’s from here right? That’s like not a thing that happens. You do not serve in your own home ward. He puts me on hold and goes to confirm with the assistants and they said, "yes, he’s going to serve in his own home ward, as our district leader and he’s going to train a greenie!" What the whaaaaaaaaaat??? Crazy.
So we met him this week, he’s a little intense but he’s cool and an incredible missionary. Don’t worry, his parents are getting baptized next week. Turns out that he was supposed to finish his mission last week but four weeks ago he felt really strongly that he needed to extend. So he prayed and then talked to president about it. President paused for a moment and then said, you need to stay, there is still work left for you to do. Then he got the transfer assignment to his own ward. Seriously insane but so cool.
We had been having a really rough week and trying so hard but not finding ANY new people to teach throughout the week. Then we got to Saturday and we were just trying so hard and after lunch we started our fast. We weren’t even fasting to find more people to teach, we were fasting that we would have investigators in church because no one is coming. However, on Saturday, after we started our fast we found nine new people! Only two of them were street contacts! We found the most incredible family who are all so nice. They had already talked to missionaries before and been to church. We're going back to teach them this week and I feel so good about them! Usually when we come in to teach someone the TV is on, the kids are running around and screaming. No one wants to join us and they just go to their own room. There’s just such a sad feeling in those homes. This one was so different.
We knocked the door, they invited us in, and were all so happy to talk to us. When the kids heard someone at the door they all came into the living room to talk to us and they instantly turned on the lights, turned off the TV and had an actual discussion with us, AS A FAMILY. You guys. This is not normal. It was amazing! Ha ha ha so I’m really happy that we're starting to find people we feel good about. Irma Quebbeman and I are still as good as ever :) At lunch yesterday, we were all in a members home, and the member said something that reminded Irma Q and I of an inside joke and we just busted up laughing and couldn’t stop. Elder Franco was like shocked and said that he’s never seen a companionship that seemed like such close friends in his entire mission. He’s always like watching our interaction and weirded out by how good of friends we are. It’s really funny. Anyway, have a beautiful week everyone!
I love you and I’m praying for you!
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