Week 10 Letter

Monday, July 22, 2013

Dear Dad,

Yeah, I know all about avoiding the bulls... an Elder Harvey (haha, now the Assistant to the President, probably so he can keep an eye on him) decided it was harmless enough to go tease a bull and got a horn right into his upper thigh... When we see a tourada going on we do a one 180º turn and head out.

We are kind of changing the way we do work right now as a companionship. I have a vision for a stake here in the Açores, right now we only have a district but I want to go for a stake. If this is going to happen, we first need to strengthen our branch, because retention right now is really low. It's hard. It’s just a young little branch of fifty or so active people or less, and there just haven't been a lot of converts staying the past couple years I guess. So we are going to fortify our branch, and we are kind of alone on it right now, so we don't really know what to do, and whatever we do we don't want to step out of our bounds as missionaries and take over the ward. But we want to teach them.

First we are going to have a meeting with the branch president. We would like to get a branch council going, because right now we don't even have that. We need a ward mission leader called, and hopefully some ward missionaries. We desperately home teaching, and we don't really have any. I really want to set this Branch on fire; I know we can have a stake here.

If you have any suggestions, I am open. We want this to happen, and we are willing to do anything.

Anyways, we are excited and happy. I sure love you dad, I miss you a lot, but there is work enough to do ere the sun goes down, and I love this work.

Keep your stick on the ice,     Elder Lee

Yo yo yo famlee!

Another week gone by already? It’s crazy! It is probably going by fast for vocês as well, seeing as it is summer vacation and all. I hear you are all having a good time in the sun and in the water! I can see the water from almost anywhere I am here, so it is hard to not think about how nice it would feel to do take a nice cool swim, but then I remember I need to focus and get back to work! 

I'm trying to think of some fun stories to tell you. Hmm. We got threatened by a guy with a knife who said he would mess us up with it. So I said, 'Não obrigado, com licensa' (No thank you, excuse me) as I walked by him, my companion following, and he just let us go like that. Who says sarcasm doesn’t pay off?

We had our first baptism yesterday, Josué and Rute. They are awesome; we just got done playing basketball with them. They will be great members, and Josué will get the priesthood soon. Also I am sure their mom will get baptized, and then the friend of the mom. We are going to baptize their whole neighborhood, they live in a little corner tucked up on a hill, and there are already 3 houses with members now, and only 2 more to go. It will be our little member community. 

One more thing about the island. They have pastries they sell that are AMAZING. If you buy one after 6 o clock at this one shop they are 40 percent off, so 50 cents for a nice big pastry. We only get one every once in a while, otherwise we might not be able to stop eating them. Their bread here is awesome too. They cook fresh bread everywhere, and it is so good. You can get a lump thing of bread as big as like 6 Costco rolls for 20 cents... yum!

Well, they are closing the library on us, so I better get going. I love you all; I want a letter from some more of you this week! 

Love you all!!!      Elder Lee

PS - I probably will not get transferred. It would be weird if I did. But my comp might and then he'd have to take his old camera with him, so I wouldn’t have a back-up anymore.