Change of email

Dearest family,

This ldsmail account that I was using as a missionary will be shut down soon. Please resume emailing me to my hotmail account, modernstriplingwarrior@hotmail.com  . Should I change to a more sober sounding email address, I will be sure to let you all know. Thanks!

--Spencer Ellis

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Keep breathing, that´s the key!

"We dwarves are natural sprinters! Very dangerous over short distances!"

 

Hello lovely family!! I love you all and am grateful for the emails sent. My prayers are with you all, especially with Rachel´s tooth situation. The final stretch has finally come, and I´m going to sprint to the finish! Love you all very much, and I´ll see most of you next week. Much love,

 

--Elder Spencer Ellis

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Lagos looking up!

Hello lovely family!

 

Great to hear the news, funny quotes from kids, and see pictures! I´m very happy everything is going so well for everyone!

 

Things in Lagos are going well. We´ve found some new people that look promising - a Brazilian family/friends group, a Brazilian couple (the husband was actually baptized a few years ago in Portimão, a neighboring city with a solid branch, but has been attending a different church for the past couple of years) and a Portuguese young man of 17. This young Portuguese kid, André, came to church on his own and liked it too! (Of course!) Yesterday was our zone conference, so we´re taking care of the Preparation Day essentials - groceries and internet - today. The zone conference went really well, and we´re really going to increase our efforts to focus on and find the elect. Then teaching and helping them be baptized will be easy as pie! (Apple... or chicken pie... take your pick.) So we´re going to focus on this young man André, and this 9 year old son of a less active woman who hasn´t been baptized yet. And all in all sprinting to the finish line!

 

Love you all, and I hope you have a great week!

--Elder Spencer Ellis

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Life at the Lakes

Hello lovely family!!

 

So life here in Lagos is going swell. (I´m pretty sure Lagos interprets as ´lakes´, but I don´t know of any actual lakes nearby. Just lots of beaches...) Anyways, Elder Brown and I have had a good week of hard work. We had some good lessons, and found some people that seem to have some great potential, but we are going to focus more on this week on helping these people to really start progressing and coming to Church. In other words, we´re going to try to work smart as well as work hard, and always follow the Spirit!

 

Everything´s going great though! We´re going to be playing ultimate frisbee as a zone today, so that´ll be fun. And we´ll be careful so as to not have any injuries. Can´t afford to slow down the work! Thanks everyone for your great emails of news and whatnot. Love you all tons! Thanks for all your help in ´cheering me on´ to sprint through the finish line!

 

Hope you all have a great week! Love you tons!

--Elder Spencer Ellis

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2 Lagos 2

Hello wonderful family!

 

Well things are pretty hot in the Algarve, and that is meant in both ways - it is quite hot and one sweats quite a bit wearing dark slacks, white collared shirt and tie, but also we had a great week starting from scratch! From dividing the area with the other elders, we had plenty of people on ex-investigator and potential investigator lists, as well as all the other people from our own contacts and door knocking. And while it is pretty tough with all that work, there is still the adage - "when the going get´s tough, the tough get going!" So it´s great to be working hard with optimistic Elder Brown focusing on finding the elect. It´s rather easy, because the people who don´t want to talk to us won´t talk to us, leaving it easy to tell between the people who are nice and people who are really interested. So... life is great!

 

Happy birthday Rob!! 28 and feeling great, right? Have the best birthday yet!

 

And congratulations to Kit and Kev on lovely baby #4 in the oven!

 

I love hearing from all of you, and hope you all have a great week! Love you tons!

Much love

--Elder Spencer Ellis

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Lagos 2 - Take one

Hello Happy Family!!

Lagos 2 is the official name of the new area that Elder Riley Evan Brown and I are opening up. But from the way we divided up the area with the other Elders (Elder Nair, also from my MTC group, and Elder Noda), we could also go by Lagos East-side (and them Lagos 1 / Lagos West-side)! Maybe we´ll stick with the official stuff. But whatever you call this new area, it is soo great to be back in the field and out of the mission office! YeeeHAW!! My body isn´t quite accustomed to the sudden jolt from being inside with air-conditioned office paper and computer work to being outside in the hot and sunny oven-like asphalt. The worst though was the shock from all the walking instead of driving around in a car - my calves were screaming rebellion until today. Anyways, the point is it´s great to be out working like full-time in-the-field missionaries do! 

Lagos is quite nice. From what I´ve seen in the past few days there isn´t a beach right exactly where we are (just as well) but there are tons of tourists around in beach clothing. The beach and boats are not very far away. We´ve started to get to know our area pretty well, and we´ve gotten a bunch of the potential investigators from the Lagos 1 Elders. We´ve also gotten one investigator who they said is progressing pretty well. He´s a Brazilian man from Espirito Santo, and he came to Sacrament meeting and seemed to enjoy it. Apparently it was his second (or maybe third) time. We´re excited to work with him and keep finding more men and families! Elder Brown is a great guy. Easy-going but really optimistic, ready to work and excited to be here. I´m such a lucky guy with a great companion to train, great elders to share the house (and area) with, and yet another pair of elders to also have in the district! Great stuff! 

Happy Belated Birthday Darrell! Hope you had a good one! 

Much love to/for everyone else, too! Have a great week everybody!

--Elder Spencer Ellis

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Constant Change!!

Helloo Lovely Family!

Well, today is the preparation day right before transfers, and the news of who-is-going-where is causing the typical excitement. Before all that business started though, President Torgan called me into his office and let me know in advance that I will be training an Elder Brown from Farmington Utah (he didn´t say the hometown, but I checked on the board) while opening up a new area in Lagos (down in the Algarve - that´s as beach bottom south of Portugal as you can get) and serving once again as a district leader. Needless to say, I am very very happy and excited for the new area, new companion, and new challenges - not saying anything bad about being a financial secretary with Elder Dias in Amadora. But I´m looking forward to be in the full missionary swing of things!

So, that´s the biggest news. Otherwise, things are looking good for the future of Amadora/Queluz. There is a man from Mozambique in his 30s named Manuel who has come to church the past two Sundays and has really liked everything. He came to the baptismal service of another man who was baptized last Saturday and really liked that too, and everything looks great for him to be baptized in a few weeks.

Should anyone desire to send further mail, please keep sending stuff to the mission office. If anyone needs a reminder, here´s the address:
Elder Spencer Ellis
Missão Portugal Lisboa
1500 Lisboa
PORTUGAL

So how is everybody? John and Laura and kids are all comfy cozy in Provo now, right? What´s new with everyone else? I hope you all have a great week, and I hope to hear from you all soon. Tchau!
--Elder Spencer Ellis

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What kind of name is Azzim? Irish? Culrish? ... Moorish!

Hello happy lovely family! Congratulations to Joy and Darrell for the safe and successful delivery of little Maurie! That´s niece #5 I have yet to meet - can´t wait to see her in person! As hard as it is to beat a new baby being born, I hope everyone else is fit, fine, fantastic, and having a blast! This week went really well - and really fast. Time is flying by, and I´ve gotta get the most of it. Our missionary district has started a tradition of having a street meeting every other week (every week would be ideal but doesn´t always work out) on Saturday mornings. This last Saturday was the turn for the meeting to be in our area, and it turned out great! We received about 22 people total who let us take down their contact information and get back to them, some of them seem very very promising. One of the last people we contacted turned out to be a Brazilian man from Recife, and it was fun to be able to say that I had lived there too! As far as our teaching pool goes, aside from that explosion of references, we´ve started teaching this one lady named Titi (teeTEE) who is super nice and loves learning with us. And Celinho and Vaníce are making progress - it looks like they´re really close to finding a good housing situation soon. Yipikiyay! Haha, and in regards to the quote from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, for our P-Day pleasure today Elder Walker, one of the other office Elders, and myself went to the Moorish Castle in Sintra, and it was quite fun. A lot of other people were there, including from the UK, Germany, probably Spain and Italy and who knows where else! But we still managed to take a lot of cool pictures, but only some of which I´ll include. I was in a meditative mood, you may say. Well, love all of you, and hope you all have a great week! Tchau! --Elder Spencer Ellis NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

Great Week!!

Hello lovely family!
Well, this week was indeed big and busy, but it was very enjoyable and edifying, much to my surprise. Just goes to show that as we do our best the Lord will be by our side to help us out! This week was a testimony of that to me.

Last Monday we finished closing a missionary apartment (the elders had moved to a new one in the same city, very close to their chapel). Tuesday I had the opportunity to be interviewed by Elder Teixeira, which was quite uplifting. One thing I particularly enjoyed was his invitation for me to read two or three scriptures from the Topical Guide sections about Jesus Christ. The more I read and study about Him, the more I can focus on Him; the more I can focus on Him, the more I will desire and strive to become like Him, and be of service to others. It´s wonderful stuff, and I invite all of you to commence doing so, if you are not already doing some sort of study.

And throughout the week, despite being so busy - especially on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday - we were able to have a good amount of Spirit-led lessons. The two highlighting fruits of those labors for the week were 1) Edgar Gourgel, an 8 year old (soon to be 9) son of a member family that we´re working on strengthening was baptized and confirmed. He didn´t count as a convert baptism, but I´m sure both member and convert baptisms are valid and of great value to God. 2) Vaníce is now committed to being baptized (and she will count as a convert baptism)! Unfortunately though, we still have the obstacle of her living with her member boyfriend Célio, even though they´ve promised their not breaking the law of chastity. But to follow the Lord´s standards, we want to work on them getting married or living in separate apartments. (That´s still a challenge because Célio is having some family feud problems, isn´t working and doesn´t want help from his parents and a bunch of extended family.) But, as Dad has said and was quoted frequently by Elder and Sister Teixeira, onward and upward!!

So, life is great! Thank you all once again for the news, and especially your thoughts and prayers. Keep them coming, please! I hope everything is well as can be with Joy and lil´ Marguerite coming so close to delivery. Be strong, be well, and be happy! Have a great week, and I love all of you!
--Elder Spencer Ellis

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Hello!!

Hello beloved family!
Another week flown by, and this email reporting for two weeks in one! Sorry I missed last week, but these past two weeks have been the calm before the storm and the breath before the plunge. The storm and plunge I refer to is the fact that this week and next will be very busy. This week we have Elder Teixeira (who was a mission president in São Paulo while I was still around) coming to do a mission tour. He arrives today, there will be a leadership council tomorrow, a tri-zone conference on Wednesday, a typical bi-zone conference on Thursday (typical except for the fact that a Seventy is here), all back to back with organizing materials and lunches, etc etc. During and after said conferences we´ll also have to keep on top of our other financial duties, opening and closing houses, getting money, preparing payments, and monthly filing. Next week will be interviews, meaning the lunch stuff will happen all over again. YAY! "All things shall give thee experience, and be for thy good," right? Maybe all this financial experience is a suggestion from Upstairs saying I should look towards that kind of career? We´ll see soon enough...

Anyways, that was just the teaser for this week that´s starting. What happened the past two weeks included getting a new house for the Amadora elders and getting them moved in; getting a new checkbook; finishing moving the utility deeds to our name for Amadora and another missionary apartment, continue the search for an apartment in Vila Franca de Xira, sending our supply order for the month, updating the financial secretary manual/guide, and focusing on the investigators we´ve felt are closest to being baptized. We also had a cool street meeting by the train/bus station in Amadora with the Amadora and Linda-A-Velha elders.... And I turned 21 years old!! Now I´m completely legal, including being able to rent hotel rooms in the state of Indiana. But I´m not planning on doing anything in Indiana anyways, so no worries. My birthday celebration included lunch at Chili´s in Telheiras and phone calls from President and Sister Torgan and other well-wishing missionaries. Oh, and last Monday we cooked up some fajitas with that seasoning stuff Mom sent, and they (fortunately) turned out delicious! Thank you Mom and Dad!

Thank you everyone for your happy birthday wishes, and the usual awesome emails, prayers, and all other support! Congradz to Mark and Aup with the healthy little boy in the oven! I hope everything is going well with everyone else and their moves, studies, work, babies, and other great things! Love you all, and I hope you have a great week! Tchau!
--Elder Spencer Ellis

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Amadora ... Queluz? Take 4!

Hello happy family!!

Due to the snippets of emails I´ve received, I´m guessing everyone is having a fabulous time at the lodge! (Where this mysterious and fun lodge is, I know not, except it be somewhere in the land of Utah.) Well, the menus looked scrumptuous, and I´m sure the games and other activities will all be very fun... so enjoy! Meanwhile in the land of the Portuguese, things are going well. Elder Dias and I have looked at the office necessities for most of what we´ll need to do in the next 6 weeks, which will include a mission tour from President Teixeira (who was a mission president in São Paulo a few years ago - one of his office elders is in our ward by the way!), with interviews the immediate week after, and the other stuff. Lots of stuff to do! Yipikiyay!

Missionary work wise, we´re pretty excited. Like I said last week, our ward is receiving another pair of elders (who are the zone leaders now), and the area is divided and ready to be conquered - let´s go with converted! (By the Spirit, of course.) Also yesterday, President Torgan came to our ward for church and spoke in sacrament meeting, and told an allegory/story of him and his best friend for eternal life João (John). They were waiting in the pre-mortal existence waiting for their mortal mission calls, and when they got their call packets they found out Pres. Torgan would have the privilege of being born into a family already members of the Church and would be taught the gospel in his youth. João on the other hand was very solemn and anxious when he found in his mission call, he would not have that privilege of being raised in the gospel. João turned to Pres. Torgan and urged him to find him in mortality and bring him all the blessings of true happiness found in the Restored Gospel and Church. Then President Torgan invited the ward members to be diligent and find those Joãos and Marias who are really so dear to us, and need the gospel in their lives too. One member of a big less active family we´ve been working with came up to us after sacrament meeting and pointed to an investigator we´ve been working with (Vaníce) and said ´She´s one of those Marias!´ It´s great to have the members excited and to work with them!

Well, I wish you all the best, and a very fun time, at the lodge or elsewhere. Have a great week! Much love,
--Elder Spencer Ellis

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Hello!

Hello wonderful family!

Well, life is great in Portugal! This is the preparation day before transfers, and there´s a whole lot of stuff going on in the mission, lots of changes, lots of stuff to do. For example, our ward will be receiving another pair of elders (who will be the zone leaders too), so our area will be divided up. That will be great so that there can be a pair of missionaries to work fully in the area instead of being tied down so much with office stuff. Let the work move forward! But among so many changes and with so many missionaries coming in, that means new areas are opening up and Elder Dias and I have to find the houses for them. Looking things up on the internet is good but slow for getting feedback, calling up people/businesses takes a lot of time, and (besides Amadora) the areas are too far away to go house hunting ourselves. But, as Dad said, it´s great to be alive! So, we´re working on that a lot, and doing what we can to work with the members in our ward, especially strengthening the less actives and working with their friends.

Well, love all of you, and I´m happy to hear things are going so well with all of you! Keep going!
Much love,
Elder Spencer Ellis

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Belated

Hello family!

First off, this is late because President Torgan decided to have my zone´s interviews (and the whole meeting that goes with the interviews) yesterday. So since the Preparation Time was sapped, I quickly write ya´ll now to let you know all is well in Portugal!

Always lots to do, especially in the office. The whole last week was interviews with all the zones, so we prepared all the requested materials and supplies, as well as the lunches for some of them. And when we weren´t bogged down with that and other office stuff, we tried meeting with the investigators and less actives with whom we are working. A little bit slow, especially in comparison with how super prepared Fábio was and is, but we´ll keep doing the best we can in helping these people and keeping our eyes out for the elect, as always.

Thanks everyone for your emails, prayers, and support! It really is great to hear from you. I´m really happy that Cosette´s ear infection is gone - yay! Good luck with everything on that end, John and Laura! Joy and Aup, keep being strong for those little babies in the ovens. My prayers are with you, and all of you, for what challenges I know you face and that everything may go according to God´s tender-mercy-filled plan for us. Love all of you, and hope ya´ll have a great week! Tchau!

--Elder Spencer Ellis

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Hello from Portugal!

Hello happy Family!!

Thank you everyone for the news, emails, etc! It really is so amazing that we can keep in touch so quickly, and over thousands of miles too! Everything in Portugal is going great. There´s lots of horns honking, so I guess everyone´s favorite teams are winning in the World Cup. We´ll have to see who makes the noise when Brazil and Portugal play... But on to the better and more important things - I had the honor of baptizing Fábio Daniel de Jesus Grilo on Saturday afternoon. The water heater wasn´t working, and we tried to make do by heating water in big pans in the kitchen, but the water was still a little on the chilly side. But despite that and other tiny obstacles, everything went really well. Elder Dias voiced the confirmation yesterday during sacrament meeting, and a lot of members (besides the mother and daughter that have already supported him a lot) gave him a warm welcome and congratulations.

It doesn´t get much better than that. Now we just need to find more Fábios (seja, the ready and willing elect)! Thanks again everyone for your news, updates, blog posts, and other emails. My prayers will be with little Cosette in particular, but as always with all of you as well. Have a great week!
Much love,
Elder Spencer Ellis

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On the road again!

Hello greatest family in all the world!!

 

How is everybody?? Emails have gotten a bit slack - please read Alma 60:6. Thank you oh ye faithful ones who have continued writing regular (ou seja, weekly), please continue with your weekly correspondences. As for the rest of you, I know ya´ll are busy, but I´m certain you can budget your time to take 10 minutes to write a simple, personal email to your favorite missionary in Portugal. The blogs are great, but personal emails are even greater. And I will respond to every personal email I receive, as best I can with the time that I have.

 

Just kidding! Haha, well, sort of. I don´t really mean to sound stingy at all, but it would be nice to get more personal emails from all of my lovely family! That would even suffice as my birthday present, since I don´t want extra weight in my luggage from sizeable gifts or extra pounds from goodies since I´m getting chubby enough being fed every day by members and not walking it off because driving around in the car. (Oh the car, I´ll get to that soon.) So the birthday list will suffice as such: personal emails/letters for the rest of my mission as much as possible; drink mixes (easy like tang - just add to water); other cool things that will not add to my baggage or personal weight as ya´ll desire. And for all of you with the matchmaking itch, you can pass around this little application too. Lots of laughs ahead... oh, and all mail can be sent to the following address:

 

Missão Portugal Lisboa

Apartado 40054

1500 Lisboa

PORTUGAL

 

Well, hopefully that answers all questions asked or that would be asked in the near future. This week has been great! Driving has been a blast - accident free, stress relieving, and fun! I won´t sign up for drag races just yet, but I´ve driven regularly throughout this past week and am starting to feel confident with stickshift. Yeehaw! Aside from driving and the boring office stuff, things are going great! Fábio is all set to be baptized this Saturday, and if the elder who first started teaching him about a year ago can´t come up from the Alentejo to baptize him, then I will have the honor of baptizing him. Hard to beat that good news! Other people are coming along, and it is a great joy to help people obtain and strengthen testimonies of the restored gospel and act on those testimonies to receive true conversion. Life is great! Such persons are a young woman named Veníce who is humble and eager to learn, and she has the great support of the huge Gourel family, some of which are stalwart members, others can use a boost. We´re also working with the family of an Elder Barbosa who is serving in this mission, and his mom and a sister aren´t baptized yet, and the others need to be reactivated, and we´re happy to help!

 

Well, that´s all the news for now, I guess. Have a great week everybody! I´m looking forward to hearing from all of you! Much love,

--Elder Spencer Ellis

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Great things are happening to me...

Hello beloved family!

 

Well, thanks everyone for your emails, updates, and news. I´m happy to hear everyone´s doing great! And things are going great in Amadora as well! To get everyone on their toes - especially Mom - and maybe on their knees for praying more, I´ve started driving! Bring on the Portuguese road rage, muahaha! Just kidding. I got my Portuguese license on Saturday, and have driven three our four times and all is well. Thanks for all your prayers so far, and I´ll go ahead and thank you in advance for the rapid increase in prayers that no accidents occur. The only thing that is a real bummer about it all is that I had to exchange my Texas driver´s license for it, and I´ll never see that piece of plastic again. On the bright side (if driving and getting stick under my belt wasn´t enough) this Portuguese driver´s license will be good for 30 years or more, so we can start planning family reunions to Europe where I can be the legally licensed driver for all of the European Union! So I´ll just have to make a trip to Texas sometime and get another driver´s license there.

 

And even better than driving, is planning for baptisms! When we met with Fábio on Saturday he told us he had prayed (he´s such a stud, praying always) and had decided to be baptized on Saturday June 19!! Our ward mission leader was helping with that lesson and we started planning out the next two weeks of when to get certain things done, like trying on the baptismal clothes, filling out the baptismal form, having the baptismal interview, etc. Thank you all for your prayers in Fábio´s behalf, and I thank God for the tender mercies He is pouring out on us. Aside from working with Fábio, there´s this huge (said just like Natalie and Rachel love to say it) African family (Família Gourgel) that range from steady faithful to dwindling less active, and in working with them they introduced us to a friend of theirs, a young woman of 24 named Veníce who has wanted to be taught. We visited with her Friday and Sunday (she also came to church with some of the Gourgel family), and everything´s going great with teaching her from the beginning and helping out the less active members of the Gourgel family. So far she´s really receptive and we have hopes she´ll be ready for baptism soon.

 

I love and pray for all of you and hope you have a great week! Much love,

--Elder Spencer Ellis

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Stress... It´s a killer, sir!

Hello greatest family in all the world!

 

This past week has been quite eventful, let me tell you! But since I can´t tell you everything, I will suffice to say that Elder Bennett was peacefully transferred to my former area Caldas da Rainha, and Elder Dias (from Braga, Portugal by the way) and I have been getting lots of things done! I´ve felt pretty stressed out - hence the Anastasia quote - but ´I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me´!

 

Elder Dias is a great companion. He´s really been picking up on my slack and taken the initiative on a lot of things. So we´re doing our hardest to be the most effective we can be in getting the office junk - I mean, stuff - done properly, and then get out and work. And we´ve already been blessed for our efforts. We´ve found some new people (especially a family that looks promising), and have been making progress with others, especially Fábio, who is prayerfully deciding his baptismal date for this coming weekend or next (depending on how his schedule with finals turns out), and a part member family, reactivating the inactive kids and teaching the mom and getting them to church. Life is great!

 

Congratulations to Kelly and Pattie! Can´t wait to see (and meet) you all in good time! I hope everyone else is doing great, especially Joy and Aup and their little munchkins in the ovens. Hope to hear more great news from all of you, and have a great week! Much love,

--Elder Spencer Ellis

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Constant Changes

Hello beloved family!

 

Well, great to know where Mom and Dad are moving to! Centerville... sounds like fun! Well, lots of things have happened this last week, and we´re getting news of all the transfer happenings. One of those is Elder Bennett will be transferred to Caldas da Rainha - one of my previous areas! - and Elder Francisco Xavier Matos Dias (Elder Dias is wonderfully simpler) will be my new companion and fellow financial secretary. I finally get to serve with a native!

 

Anyways, on to what happened this past week. Last Monday night we had a lesson with a man who had gone by the church the previous Friday wanting English lessons. We weren´t at the church, but the members there took down his name and phone number and we called him up later and set up an appointment. So, back to Monday, we made it to his apartment and met him and his wife. She´s quite the evangelical, but very nice, and he seems to remember a lot of what missionaries had previously taught him while he was also having English lessons. Cool stuff, and we´re looking forward to working with them.

 

On Wednesday President Torgan rode back with us (Elder Bennett, myself, the executive secretaries, and the assistants) from our lunch out, and he mentioned how his favorite soccer team in Belém had moved to the second division. I forgot what that meant, and in an attempt to be conversational and polite I had said ´oh, that´s good...´ but he said, ´No, it´s not! They moved down!´ Oops! But then he continued, `Don´t worry, they´ll beat everyone in the second division and move back up soon.´ My reply slipped off my tongue rather too quickly. `What, just to move right back down again?´ Haha, he seemed surprised that such a comment had come from quiet soft-spoken me, and finally gave me a semi-hurt look and said ´Oh Elder Ellis, what´s all this shooting down my team for?` Good times. I myself am still a São Paulo and Sporte fan!

 

But the best news of all is that Fábio´s out of his rut! We had been praying a lot for him, and he had been praying a lot too, and his opportune moment to talk to his parents about investigating the Church and being baptized finally came - ironically during the Pope´s visit to Portugal. Apparently the Pope said something that his parents didn´t like that much, or something or other, and he took that opportunity to relate with them that he didn´t think it was fair having to ´stay´ Catholic just because he was born to his Catholic parents, and told them he was investigating and felt good about another Church (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) and they gave their permission to continue and be baptized! God answers prayers! So Fábio finally made it to Church, and since he is so elect he came with dress shoes, slacks, white shirt, and tie, everyone thought he was already a member. We´ll wrap up the finishing teaching touches and pray with and for him to know when - how soon - he should be baptized.

 

Well, glad to hear everyone is preparing for another fun family reunion, and all the other details that I hear. Have a great week! Much love,

--Elder Spencer Ellis

PS - Happy Belated Birthdays to Mom and Kit! Hope they were the greatest with the best yet to come!

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Already halfway through May?!

Hello happy family!!

 

Sounds like it´s been a good week for everyone, from what I´ve heard. Happy (belated) Birthday to Uncle Charlie, and Happy (early) Birthdays to Mama KK and Kit! Time keeps flying faster and faster, huh? Mark and Aup - glad to hear everything is ok with Tearisa, especially after that ´hot seat´ experience.

 

I don´t know if I told this bit of news, but a few weeks ago I saw Elder Scott Braithwaite - he stayed the night with us a week or two ago because he had to be in Lisbon to renew his visa. It was cool to see him, and he seems to be doing great!

 

Anyways, this week´s gone pretty well. Most of the zones´ interviews were this week, except mine - we´ll be having our interviews on Tuesday/tomorrow. We had some good visits with the less actives that we´re working with, and we finally were able to meet with the bishopric about working with the ward more, especially with that family plan. Fábio´s still coming along, but hasn´t talked to his parents yet nor come to church, unfortunately. Friday night we had a dinner with a huge African family who has an 8 year old that hasn´t been baptized yet and they want us to teach him, just like with Filipa Torrão several weeks ago. We haven´t been able to start teaching him because the family is always so busy, but while we were there and finishing up dinner he was there and asked if we could teach him really quick. Kids are awesome! To paint the scene, it´s a rather chaotic apartment since a bunch of the relatives are always coming in and out. This time Teddy (the 8 year old) and some of his older siblings were there talking to us while we ate, and when Teddy asked if we could teach him just his 16 year old sister was there and asked if she could stay. She seemed to enjoy hearing about the Restoration again, and really chimed in when we mentioned James 1:5. When we finished the lesson she asked us about if she should still give a talk on Sunday, because she didn´t like the idea of speaking in public (no one does I think) and she felt a little embarrassed about giving a talk when she had missed the previous couple of Sundays being at Church. So we encouraged her to come and give the talk, because that´s what she should do, and she came and gave the talk and everything went fine.

 

The coolest thing happened yesterday at Church! When Elder Bennett and I arrived and walked into the Elder´s Quorum lesson, Osvaldo was there! Osvaldo was the African father I met and taught in Seixal, and he was baptized shortly after I left! Turns out he´s moving into the Amadora ward! Not that I´ve been depressed or anything, but that was a definite pick-me-up, and a tender mercy from the Lord!

 

Well, I hope to hear more from ya´ll soon! Have a great week everybody! Much love,

--Elder Spencer Ellis

 

 

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

Already halfway through May?!

Hello happy family!!

 

Sounds like it´s been a good week for everyone, from what I´ve heard. Happy (belated) Birthday to Uncle Charlie, and Happy (early) Birthdays to Mama KK and Kit! Time keeps flying faster and faster, huh? Mark and Aup - glad to hear everything is ok with Tearisa, especially after that ´hot seat´ experience.

 

Well this week´s gone pretty well. Most of the zones´ interviews were this week, except mine - we´ll be having our interviews on Tuesday. We had some good visits with the less actives that we´re working with, and we finally were able to meet with the bishopric about working with the ward more, especially with that family plan. Fábio´s still coming along, but hasn´t talked to his parents yet nor come to church, unfortunately. Friday night we had a dinner with a huge African family who has an 8 year old that hasn´t been baptized yet and they want us to teach him, just like with Filipa Torrão several weeks ago. We haven´t been able to start teaching him because the family is always so busy, but while we were there and finishing up dinner he was there and asked if we could teach him really quick. Kids are awesome! To paint the scene, it´s a rather chaotic apartment since a bunch of the relatives are always coming in and out. This time Teddy (the 8 year old) and some of his older siblings were there talking to us while we ate, and when Teddy asked if we could teach him just his 16 year old sister was there and asked if she could stay. She seemed to enjoy hearing about the Restoration again, and really chimed in with James 1:5. When we finished the lesson she asked us about if she should still give a talk on Sunday

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.