This was another great week here in Portimão, and it may actually be my last. This week we have trnasfers so i may be leaving. In fact, i may get the call while emailing so you may find out in this email.
Almost everything went according to plan this week with our baptisms. Only one of the guys marked got baptized but we knew he was going to be a long shot anyway. We didn´t talk to him all week because he works alot but we talked to his wife, the lady i baptized, and she said he really didnt have much interest in being baptized right now. She explained that he has been reading in the Book of Mormon and going to church just because she asked him to and not because he had any interest. She also said he doenst like to be pressured to do anything so she asked us kindly to back off for a while. That was kind of a bummer but we felt better after we baptized someone else this week. The other guy was the husband of the lady we baptized at the end of last year. He was fine with everything when it came to baptism except for the fact that he smoked. he had already tried to stop smoking a bunch of times but never could. Then we started teaching him and he started reading in the Book of Mormon and he finally was about to stop smoking. We did the same thing we did with our last investigator who had a problem with smoking and it worked again! He stopped smoking and was baptized yesterday. It was great! The strange thing is though, that i wasn´t nervous about him getting baptized. For some reason i just wasn´t. Maybe that means i´m getting used to this baptism thing!
The baptism was great. When we were planning who was going to speak, i suggested his wife who is a new member and he loved that idea. She didn´t...and so she voted me to pray and then maid mean and threatening faces at me. But she did a great job! A year ago, when the Sister missionaries found her (they do great work), she didn´t believe in God or anything. But yesterday, she bore a powerful testimony of Christ and the importance of being obedient to God´s commandments. It´s amazing to see how far people can come and how much they can change through the gospel.
And as i said, this week is transfers so i may be leaving Portimão. The Zone Leaders have pretty much told me to pack my bags...and so i did! Eventhough President Torgan didn´t tell me anything definte in my interview, i still have a feeling that i´m leaving. One of the Zone Leaders has made some bold predictions about where i´m going but we´ll just have to see. I´m sad that i might be leaving this area but i´m also excited to see where i may go and who i will serve with. I´m also a little nervous that i may have to be senior companion next transfer with someone whos younger than me but i dotn think that will happen just yet. But we´ll see. But one thing i´ve learned here, and something i can bare testmony about, is something one of our investigators(who we baptized) said. "O que faz um campeão, é nunca parar de tentar". You can have Mike translate that. Hopefully it makes sense. But here in Portimão, we´re champs!
As for the language, i´m still learning and making mistakes but where´s the fun in speaking perfectly? I´m not too worried about the language anymore, just about keeping up with President Torgan´s and the Lord´s expectations.
I´ve attached some photos that i copied from Elder Thomas´s camera from the baptism and also some other pictures i thought you guys might enjoy.
Thanks for all the love, support, and prayers. Eu amo vocês!
com amor,
Élder Haws
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