Week 84 Letter - well, not really

I didn't hear from him again this week.  But I did get this from the mission office...

FINAL RETURN Travel Itinerary For LEE/ANTHONY SCOTT - 28Apr - 8I366X

Probably why I din't hear from him.  He is in mourning, I'm sure.  But, yeah for me!

Week 83 Letter (Didn't get one last week) Stinker!

Monday, January 5, 2015

Famlee,

Happy New Year!!! I had just gotten used to writing 2014 on everything and now we are already in 2015! So crazy, so fast. I can't believe it. It was such a good year. I'm ready to hit this one head on as well, but I hate thinking that this year will bring the end of the greatest 2 years of my life.

This week was another traveling week. We only got to work 2 days in our own area, and one of those days half taken up by our zone meeting. I don't like leaving my area, especially as things are really slow for us here right now. I hope we can get a lot more going before the end of the transfer. 

Today we went to one of the most beautiful places on the island. It's in a part of the island called Nordeste. It is a dense forest area with a river running through it filled with tons and tons of waterfalls. It is so cool there! And it has all been conserved really well to keep such an authentic feeling to it. That's one of my favorite things about the Azores. They're not highly developed for tourism. If you want to see something amazing, you have to go, explore, and find it, and when you get there it is pretty untouched. Incredible. I hope the pictures I attach make it through. The pics can't capture the beauty at all.

This week I was on Terceira again, and it was so amazing to see how everything is going there. It really was a testimony builder of the fact that we never really know how many lives we are blessing as we just do the very best we can. So much good we do goes unnoticed by us, especially as missionaries. But the people's lives we bless most often recognize it, and are so grateful for it. Heavenly Father certainly notices as well. Moral of the story: always do good. It makes a difference whether we know it or not.

I sure love you all. Keep praying me through. Pray that we can find a family that will do everything necessary to be together forever. 

Love you all!

Élder Lee

Week 81 Letter

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Famlee,

Merry Christmas week everybody! I can't believe that Christmas came so fast. I love Christmas. I love being a missionary during Christmas. It is incredible. 

Yesterday I got to be in my favorite area again on the other island, Terceira. It was fantastic. We had our Christmas Conference there with President and Sister Fluckiger. I got to see a lot of people from the first area, and had two hours to just be with them and talk to them. It was sooo fun. I need to come back after the mission.

I heard that you guys are doing the Christmas break puzzles! That's so cool! Where did you find an Alaskan and Azorean puzzle? From what dad said, the Azorean one is definitely on the island of Pico. I want to go there really bad. I am going to have to explore all of the islands one day.

Today isn't really p-day, I'm just trying to get in an email in between doing some other things that need to be done, and so this is going to have to be short. Fortunately, we get to talk to each other in just 2 days!!!!

I love you all, and hope you all have an amazing Christmas!!

Love,

Elder Lee

Hi mom!  Answers to your questions-

I will probably skype at 7pm here, midday there. 

I will use skype. Do you have my skype info somewhere?

Didn’t buy a coat, but don’t worry, it hasn’t been very cold and now maybe I can get an after Christmas sale and get a sick coat.

Got the package. Love it =) stoked to eat spaghetti-o's and I won’t need to buy toothpaste for the rest of the mish

Send it to the mission office; I thought I’d told you. Here on out just send everything to the mission office.

Saw all of the wedding pics. Freaked me out. And Shane told me some things (nothing like, personal) about married life and that freaked me out even worse.

I am fantastic. I was in Angra yesterday on Terceira, and got to see mamãe there (she is like my mom there. She was the one that drove me to the hospital when I cut my hand open.) We had our Christmas conference there with president Fluckiger and his wife. 

The work is good, but hard too. Slower than on the continent. We are worried about the branch. President was in town and nobody wanted to get temple recommend interviews from him =/

Weather is good. Rained this morning for the first time in a long time.

When did the new pics come? 

Um, would you think I wasn't grown up if I played a little Legend of Zelda with the boys on the WII-U when I got home? 

Love you

Week 80 Letter

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi mom! How are you? I don’t have any time, so don't get too awake, but I wanted you to know that I love you sooo much. I'm sorry I couldn't write yesterday, and because of that I don't have any time today. But I love you, and hope you have an amazing birthday.

Did you get anything from me in the mail yet?

Famlee!

What a week you all must have had! Cameron is on a mission! It is so insane to me! I am so happy for him, he is such an incredible man, and he is going to be a fantastic missionary. 

I have almost no time today unfortunately, because I am having to write a day late because of computer problems yesterday. But thought I should let you all know that I am alive and happy =)

Quick question, are you all familiar with the Christmas initiative the church is doing? What are you guys doing for that in the states? 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!! I love you sooo much. Giant kiss!

Hope you all have an amazing week. I sure will. I am excited to talk to you all for Christmas!

Love,

Elder Lee

Week 79 Letter

Monday, December 8, 2014

Famlee!

This week has been rather eventful... and busy... and awesome. We flew all over. I flew at least 2500 miles this week last week... Lisbon, São Miguel, São Miguel, Terceira, São Miguel again. Crazy! I feel a lot better now though because we got to spread some fire around our zone.

We received transfer calls yesterday, and I stayed with the same companion in the same area. I was really happy for that. I was afraid I would get pulled and moved after one transfer which has happened to me a lot. I would LOVE to end my mission here, but that would mean staying in this area for a total of 4 transfers which hasn't happened to me my entire mission. We'll see though, the lord knows what needs to happen.

Sister Fluckiger somehow got ahold of the family picture and sent it to me. Mom also sent it to me, but I just don't know how sister Fluckiger got it... But this was her message to me:

Look what I have!!!
I LOVE it!!  And I love you!!
Sis F

Hahaha, my mission president and his wife love hearing about our family. One time I was in a car in Porto with sister Fluckiger and she made me tell her the entire adoption story. They think that you guys are the greatest, and I agree. 

So this transfer brought a few changes to our zone, which once again showed me how inspired our mission president is. I was feeling that all of the district leaders here in the zone needed to be changed. They were having a lot of difficulties this past zone, and I felt that to get the fire we need out here we would need fresh leadership. And guess what happened...? The areas where the district leaders are were switched so we now have all new district leaders, and they are all new to the islands. I think what happens sometimes is that a good missionary gets sent out to be leaders in the Azores excited, but then they pass a lot of difficulties in the work and lose some of their fire which in turn effects the entire district. That's at least what we were seeing this last transfer. But to see that took a lot of evaluation and study on top of lots of divisions, none of the which president can really do with all he has to do. However, he doesn’t do the transfers alone, and the results of these transfers in this zone testify to that. 

I'm having a hard time with English today; hope this is all making sense. 

Happy birthday Dad and Shane! I love you both and am so thankful for your examples! You both have had a HUGE impact on my life. 

Cameron, I am absolutely stoked for you. I am going to miss you SOOO much, but I am so proud of you. I will be honest, I was really, really scared to leave home and start the mission. I even let myself feel inadequate sometimes in the beginning. But don't let that happen to you. It will be sad leaving the family, but in a few months’ time the thoughts or longings of home with pass, and you won't mind being away. Go get them. Be humble, be teachable, and love everyone. Especially your companion and mission president. Be good in the MTC. There will be a lot of people who aren't. Pray a TON. You will need it. Smile a TON. Others will need it. Know that I couldn't be more proud of you. I love you SO SO much. I am making a goal to write you a lot during your mission. I will stick to it. Go get them. You might feel uneasy, maybe even sick leaving, but put those feelings aside, and lose yourself early in the work.

I love you all so much. Cameron, I really can't get over the fact that you are leaving. I will continue to always pray for you. And all the rest of you as well =)  Big hugs for everyone!

Elder Lee

Week 78 Letter

Monday, December 1, 2014

Famlee! 

Hey everybody! This week is going to be crazy, but it will be an amazing week as well for sure. I have almost no time to write because today my comp and I will fly to Lisbon for mission council. We will return from mission council tomorrow night. Wednesday morning we will have a zone meeting here on the island of São Miguel. Wednesday night we will fly to the island of Terceira! We will do a division with the elders in Angra (my starting area of the mission!) and then Friday morning we will do the zone meeting with the missionaries on that island. The rest of Friday and Saturday we will do a division with the elders in the area of Praia, also on Terceira, and we won't fly back until Saturday night. So basically we won't be in our area at all this week =/ But we will have a lot of good training and teaching opportunities with all the missionaries in our zone. We really need it right now. This last week was a really rough one for our zone. I would like to have had an awesome week going into mission council where we report how things are going, to all of the leaders of the mission, but sometimes it just doesn’t work out that way. Oh well. 

Congratulations to Shane and the entire family for the wedding on Saturday. Little Shane is all grown up ='(   Bem feito mano!

Well, I am going to have to close the letter up already, but I love you all. I hope you have a most excellent week, and I hope to hear from you all next week!

Love,

Elder Lee

PS Hands in the air if you are SUPER EXCITED for Christmas

Week 77 Letter

Monday, November 24, 2014

Famlee!

How are you all doing?! I hear that things are super busy back home... don't forget to breathe! Things have been pretty busy for us too out here. I'm trying not to let all the responsibilities that I have right now slow us down in our own work. 

Things are going well. Out here on the Azores I would estimate that we have to contact 3 or 4 times more people to get one that listens than on the continent, but we aren't letting that get to us. If that's what we need to do, that's what we'll do. Honestly right now we only have 1 solid progressing investigator, named Lionardo. He is doing great. He came to church yesterday and saw the primary program. The primary here only has 6 kids. Imagine a program like that. In the end though Lionardo was really touched. He shared with me that he has a large goal in his life to have a family, and that seeing those kids being raised like that in the gospel really impacted him. Lionardo's mom passed away recently, and he is originally from the island of Terceira but studying here in São Miguel, so he has been pretty lonely. However, yesterday after church he said that if people in the church kept treating him like they did that day he would very soon consider the church another family. 

Unfortunately I have arrived in the Azores just in time for winter, so we are getting a lot of rain and some cold. But the island is still beautiful. 

This is the city that I work in, the capital of the Azores.  It is really great.

Our zone unfortunately is really struggling right now, and I am worried about it. We are trying to come up with good ideas to motivate the missionaries, trying to work through the district leaders, but things are pretty slow. We will do a division with the Elders in Ribeira Grande this week though, and I will go to their area, so hopefully we can find them some investigators with good potencial. Not this week but next I will fly to Lisbon for mission council, and then fly back to Sao Miguel to have a zone meeting here, and then fly to Terciera to do divisions and another zone meeting there. I will get to do a division in my first area, Angra do Heroísmo! I am super stoked. 

Well, I love you all and can't believe that I will miss another turkey bowl and my brother's wedding all in one week =( Mostly the turkey bowl... XD jk

Hugs and kisses!

Elder Lee 

PS – My companion is Elder Harris from CA and I am Zone Leader over all missionaries on all the Islands. (which are only the 2 main islands)