Transferred!

Yo! This week was a little crazy! Monday night, we taught one of those families in Beja but they weren’t as interested as we were hoping. SO many people just love saying they are religious, but really don’t see a purpose in going to church and stuff. 

Then Tuesday is where it gets interesting! We had a district meeting just in our house, and then we got a call from The executives saying the I was being transfered to Sacavém! What the heck? I was thinking 'is this a joke?' hahah The told me "no its what the president wants!" I didn´t know what to think. We had a good last week in Beja and I was excited for this week to come. We had some good ideas. BUt anyway, I had about and hour and half to pack up all my stuff and take the 2 hour bus to to Lisboa! Edson picked me up at the house (our recent convert that I sent you pics of!) and I enjoyed talking to him right before I left. He is SO strong! He was showing me all these messages he has been having with less actives, his written plans of trying to grow the missionary work amongst the members there in Beja, and all that stuff! He is such a boss! I love the guy and am going to miss him. I gave him one of my BYU shirts and told him to stay strong. He´ll be the president or bishop one day.

Anyways, it was so weird leaving Beja, but even weirder getting to Lisboa, meeting my new comp Elder Leung (good missionary, chinese). This place is SO much different than Beja! Literally a ton of people are letting us in, and I think I taught more this week than I taught in Beja all together. DIfferent as well though because with the people here it’s hard to get them to have real intencion. Our area is a ton of Angolans or Cape verdianos. Pretty much everyone is black. It’s also the area that the temple will be built on. But that is Sacravém!  Anyways the ramo seems pretty strong! I liked the presdeint a lot and the counselors that we got to go do visits with and ate dinner at one of their houses yesterday, as well.

Probably the funniest night of the week, but the weirdest as well, was saturday. Lapas, a ward in lisboa, held a halloween party for all the people in lisboa, but pretty much majority to grow the ward of lapas. All the missionaries were invited from lisboa, so we had like 30 missionaries or so, a ton of food, costumes, music, bunch of members, non members and investigators, and just totally different than my misison experience. I never dreamed last Monday while I was in Beja, that I would be teaching all these lessons and having this huge halloween party (which by the way, I made those oreo cookies and they were eaten faster than you can say boo! haha Literally they were like the treasure of the night! Everyone was asking me how to make them). Not going to lie though, this week has been kinda a culture shock, and weird, kinda hard at the same time. Right when I was getting the feel of Beja, im transferred. I come here and am teaching all these lessons, but it’s so different. All I can say to myself is that I did my best in Beja, and my Heavenly Father is Content with me. I think he knows I learned everything I needed to learn and now it’s time for a new journey. Anyways the halloween party was fun. The president was there with his wife and daughter. He talked to me more there.

Wednesday we had a zone conference with president Tavarez and when we were leaving, he somehow caught me and told me why he transferred me. Apparetnly, Elder Leungs companion has been really sick, so they transfered him to Benfica to be closer to the hospital and with the executives. He told me how Elder Leung is a great missionary, and how he wanted him to have a great missionary companion as well.

This week, we taught an awesome lesson to this Ulysses guy about when Christ came to America, and the first example he shared with us was how he was obedient to the Father, and how we too, using christ as our example, need to be obedient. He accepted to be baptized on the 15th, and seemed super excited. We even had a member there who bore his testimony about his baptism and how special and clean he felt, and the spirit was so strong! Going to teach him tonight hopefully and see what happens.

Anyways, I could write a book what happpend this week, Today we also went to Alvarca, had a buffet with a bunch of elders there at a chinese restaurant! We actually did something on my pday for once! There wasn´t much to do in Beja! I feel like I’m in a completely different mission now! Anyways, so much is on my mind, i´m doing well but just a little flustered with the week. I liked the week, I like the new area, just getting used to the new things, seeing all these elders, hearing all these new things I never heard in Beja, and just seeing how other elders act. It’s all very interesting!  Anyways, I’m excited for this area and ready to give it my best!

I love you all.  

Elder Holmes