Elder Anthony Scott Lee

Elder Anthony Scott Lee

Tony can be reached at...

ELDER ANTHONY LEE
Portugal Lisbon Mission
Rua Jorge Barradas 14C
1500-370 Lisboa
Portugal


Monday, December 16, 2013

Week 30 Letter

Monday, December 16, 2013
Mom,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! 

How are you!?
You have to do something for yourself today. Even if it is just a little thing. 
Grandma emailed me as well as Jason and Spencer and told us to ask for something we need or want for her to send to us. I don’t want to ask for anything. I am going to ask for her hot chocolate recipe and tell her I already got spoiled by you. 
But in all honesty, I still haven’t gotten the package. Anything in it that would be detrimental to lose?
Remote control airplanes work but they could be in danger of breaking pretty easy unless it is a nicer one, so I don’t know. I did order some highlighters to the house. I bought some highlighters in the MTC, they are a special kind and really good for marking scriptures, but the green one ran out halfway through the book of Mormon. I really have a good system of marking, color coded, so I needed it so it didn’t change halfway through the book of Mormon. If you could send those, you can take them out of the package and just send them in an envelope, that would be great. 

Famlee,

How are you all!? I am pretty excellent. I am really relieved you got my twelve days of pictures! The envelope I used was a priority mail envelope that you were only supposed to be able to put 20 grams in, and it was quite a bit heavier than that... but hey! It got there! And on time to! That must be a first...

You guys are all finishing up school, aren't you! Luckies! You don't have snow yet over there, do you? I was just down by the beach this morning, and it is a lovely day. A bit chilly, but really only a bit. It's great. I might include a picture.  

This last week was good. We got lost, actually twice this last week, looking for a couple of references we received from other areas. Our area is huge, it really needs another pair of missionaries, but our mission is actually a little bit low on missionaries at the moment because we have a lot of newer missionaries, and a lot of older missionaries, but not much in-between, so we have been losing a lot of missionaries lately. Anyways, we were walking out to find one, and we ended up having to walk along the motorway, er, haha, freeway (darn English companion... hahaha) for a couple miles in the dark, just on the overgrown hills on the side of the freeway. It was pouring rain too, but I think that helped because the investigator felt like we were super heroes coming to her rescue, which in all reality isn't all that far off. The other one we were trying to find somebody who lived really far away, in the outskirts, or kind of what you could call 'out in the country', also during the night time, and it was a bit scary in all honesty. But we are going to baptize the investigator that we finally found out there. She is from Cabo Verde. Her name is Natalina, and she is awesome. She already has a desire to be baptized, and we will help her get there hopefully. 

We have a lot of work to do this week. We haven't had a very good showing of investigators at church, which is sad. They know what they need to do to get an answer. It is hard to see them not do it. Ernesto especially. He came so close to baptism, but then hesitated and stopped doing the things that he needed to do to be comfortable about baptism. He still has a shot, but he is regressing a little. Pray for him, he needs it. 

I hope you are all having a great Christmas time. I definitely am. I picture what Jesus would be doing if he was here during Christmas time, and I am sure it would involve a lot of service, so I feel pretty close to him because of that. I am loving this Christmas.

Well, that's it for this time around. I love you all, have a great week!

Love,


Elder Lee



Week 29 Letter

Monday, December 9, 2013
Famlee!

How are you all?! How was the week? You guys start getting out of school soon, don't you? I always loved this time of year, getting a good few weeks off from school is the best. Is it snowing over there yet? It is getting pretty cold here at night now, a bit colder than usual for Portugal. It was raining a bit a couple weeks ago, but is has actually been really nice lately. Really enjoyable. Cascais is beautiful right now. It is one of the wealthiest areas in Portugal, so they keep it looking good. 

Well, we killed off another six weeks, and last transfer is over. We finished it with a baptism yesterday of a super nice lady named Leonice, or Leo for short. She was a miracle baptism. She has depression pretty bad, a lot of really bad things have happened to her throughout her life. However, she became friends with a member, and the member introduced her to us (a testimony of how effective member work can be). We had met with her once or twice before this week, but this week we met with her, taught her all of the lessons, marked her, and baptized her yesterday. It was so cool! She is already finding so much relief through the church, and the members here are doing a really good job of integrating her into the branch. It has been really good for her. 

As you probably have already heard from mom, I am staying here in Cascais for at least another transfer. My great friend, Elder Zaccaria from the MTC is also staying, so he will stay in my district through Christmas. I was really happy to hear that. We got to do a division together this last week and it was super awesome. We never thought we were going to get to serve together out here in Portugal, but we got really blessed. 

You are all growing up! Danny, you look so big! And Cam, how tall are you now? I am really excited to talk to you all on Christmas. I sent a couple letters in the mail, so hopefully those get to you in good time. I think I am going to have to go and buy a cheap webcam to Skype, because we don’t have somebody with a decent computer and decent internet in our branch. The church computers will work though, we just need to go get an 8 euro camera. 

Man, time goes fast. But at the same time I look back to when I was in the MTC and it seems like years ago. The only thing you can do is make the best use of all of your time so you can look back without any regrets. 

I have one of the packages you sent at home underneath our Christmas tree. It feels soft and fuzzy and I can't wait to open it =) Thanks for sending that to me! I hope I get the other one soon so I can put it down under the tree with its friend. 

By the way, that tree in the living room looks huge! It is so cool! I miss our natural trees, especially the smell. A fake one just isn’t the same. It works for missionaries though, we are lucky just to have one. 

Do you all have Christmas partners yet? I want to hear about that from you guys. Keep me in the loop =) 

Well, that's all I have for today. I love you all so much. Have fun this week; make sure to get in the right Christmas spirit!

Hugs and Kisses!!

Elder Lee




Hey mom!

Just to answer questions before I forget, I am still here in Cascais, no moving for me =) We had a baptism yesterday and it was really good, now we just need to get some more investigators progressing. I got my (or what I hope and assume are) PJs! But still no other package. You get anything from me? The weather is good during the day freezing during the night. Or you know, freezing for here. I just got a haircut from a couple of really cool Brazilians, and they say I am a little less ugly now. They even styled it for me; I will take a pic and send it to you. It is pretty short on the sides, but I like it. 



Sunday, December 8, 2013

Week 28 Letter

Monday, December 2, 2013
Famlee!

Well, this one is going to be a quick one. Things are going great. The cold has hit, but maybe because of that people are starting to take some pity on us because we have been getting a lot of new investigators recently. We have some new investigators we are really excited about, so hopefully we can get them progressing. 

I hope you all had a great thanksgiving. I enjoyed mine. Of course they don't have it hear, but still, it was good =) Christmas is in the air, I might start trying to apply Christmas into some of our contacts to see if people will be willing to listen a bit more if we involve Christmas a bit. I'll let you all know. 

I hope you all have a great week; I loved reading your letters. Keep doing great, and keep being awesome!

With lots of love,

Elder Lee

Hey Mom,
Yeah. I am good. Our baptism fell again. It sucks, but hey, no one said it would be easy. He will get baptized eventually; he is just really scared to make the decision. I gave it to him straight and told him if he wanted more certainty he would have to do more. Read the Book of Mormon and pray earnestly every day, and attend church every week. I think he will get on it, but if not, there is no guarantee on whether or not he will get the answer. He'll get there. 


Let me see if I can find an Amharic Book of Mormon.  Go to the link I send you.  I am short on time today.  Love you and have a great week!

Sunday, December 1, 2013

Week 27 Letter

Monday, November 25, 2013
Famlee,

How are you everybody? Enjoying the cold? 

I can't believe this week is Thanksgiving! I am going to miss being with all of you, and I don't even want to mention the footba... woah, I almost said it... I am really trying hard not to think about the you-know-what game. I thought that maybe we might get invited to dinner Thursday night by our American Branch President because his wife had mentioned it before, but it turns out they are going somewhere for Thanksgiving, so I guess we will just have to find some elect investigators that night instead =)

Well, Ernesto still wasn't baptized this week. He just needs to make the decision and follow through with it. He is ready, he just keeps un-committing himself. He is letting fear get in the way of his faith, and it is really disappointing. All of our investigators skipped out on church yesterday, we were supposed to have 7 but rather had 0, so it was a sad Sunday for us. We are going to do a lot of work to get them all there next Sunday.

I don't even know what to say. We are just working hard, talking to a ton of people. We knock a lot of Predios and lately we have been finding a lot of good potential investigators. 

We got stuck in an elevator for a while yesterday which was pretty fun. The elevators here are really cheap and a little bit sketchy, and this one stopped moving right in mid descent. We couldn't get it to move for a really long time and then finally got it to take us to the top floor. But once we got there the door wouldn't open, so we were still stuck. Luckily we were able to get out eventually and still make our goals for the night =)

We would like to have 4 more baptisms before the end of the transfer, but it will be close. We have some investigators with real potential. If they will just keep the commitments and come to church they can definitely be well prepared before the end of the transfer. So pray extra hard for Marcia, Leo, Rafaela, and Ernesto. 

Well, I need to get going. I still haven't gotten you guys pictures, so I apologize. I hope I can get some on soon, but we really just don't have much time for anything. 

I love you all, and hope you have a really great Thanksgiving. I am so thankful for each one of you, and will have that gratitude especially present in my mind all this week. 

Hugs and kisses,

Elder Lee

Hey Mom,

How are you?

 I read the money email. This transfer I had to use 60 dollars of personal money because we ran out of MSF (mission money) because we had to buy an iron and a heater plus gas, and we still haven’t gotten the reimbursement. So I will pay myself back for that soon hopefully. Also I loaned my comp 35 bucks because his card isn't working, but I know I will get that back as well. I saw there was some money taken out from the island too, but I can’t even remember spending any money on the island so I am a bit confused about that. Some things I did buy though, I bought Shane a really nice perfume (men’s perfume but I can’t remember what that is in English, it is just perfume here) but only for 12.50. It is a really nice name brand (Lacoste) perfume I got from the gypsies (thus it might be stolen but I think they buy the defects for cheap and sell them). I also bought Cameron a sick Ferrari watch. Don’t tell Shane or cam. I bought you a nativity, but it is a really small one. I think that’s it. Anyways, I already sent Shane's perfume home. I will send cams watch and your nativity soon hopefully. I am sending them in kind of an interesting way; I hope they all get there. They should. Just let me know as soon as you get Shane's perfume.
The nativity is a gift =) I am doing great. Our baptism fell through again. It is frustrating because we know he is ready and he knows he is ready but he just won't commit. Also we didn't have a single person at church yesterday and that was hard because we were supposed to have a bunch there. Blah. It’s good though we keep finding good people.  I haven’t bought shoes. I will. I am using a pair right now that will get me a little bit more mileage I hope. We don’t walk near as much here as we did on the island, so that is good. Yup, I have a coat, and I wear both it and a sweater almost every day, with a scarf at night. It is only down to 55 degrees during the day, but during the night it is a bit colder, and it is a really humid cold. But it is good, I have a good coat.

I had a cool dream last night that instead of just letting us Skype home for Christmas they flew us home for Christmas day. Everybody was there, it was cool. That would probably be pretty distracting though, so I guess Skype will be enough =)
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/images/cleardot.gif
 I wonder how long it will take for the stuff I am sending to get home. I am using an envelope that says you can send up to 2 kilograms in it to do it. Just an envelope, so I hope all goes well. The stuff I got Shane was pretty nice. I saw it in a real perfume shop and it cost just under 100 euros. Have you heard of the brand Lacoste? It has the little alligator logo? I hope he likes the stuff. If you could save it for me until Christmas comes around that would be cool. Unless it comes while he is at home, in which case just let him have it then.

Love you, bye! Have a great thanksgiving! I am thankful to you!!!!


Elder Lee