So we had an exciting week. We got a house inspection, oh dear! Luckily, I was the only one home with my division companion, because the others probably would have yelled at the couple, they were so mad to find their note. We got told to clean up a lot because there is stuff from missionaries before us still in our house. They basically gave me the confidence to have a proper talk with my housemates about cleaning and tidying. We almost lost our PDAY, but managed to convince them we would sort it out. Then part way through the week they felt really bad because they had written a fairly disappointed letter to us and said they were looking for new apartments for us because beside the mess there are a million safety problems and broken things. So in the end it’s all good.
Also, I don’t know what kind of conversations my companion was having with our Mission President, but he asked to see our marked investigator to help her out. So, after our lesson with her last Tuesday she agreed to travel the almost 2 hour journey to Porto with us right there and then. After getting fairly lost trying to find the mission office (I need to stop trusting my companion has a hold on the situation) we find a pretty hostile Mission President. After a conversation between him and our investigator, which was more like an interrogation, it transpires that she hasn’t actually stopped her “breaking the law of chastity job” as I had thought, so wasn’t really as repentant as I had been lead to believe. It was fairly embarrassing and I don’t know how we even got into that situation. Still, I have really learnt to trust my own impressions more and need to remember that although my companion knows the language and has been out for a year, she is still a lot younger and pretty naive. We talked a lot about finding a balance between my realism and her faith on our way home from divisions.
Anyway, the adventure continues because the bus we thought we were catching back to Viseu actually only ran at the weekend so we had no way of getting home. Clearly calling President for help was not an option. So after a lot of praying, and asking a thousand people where the train station was, we got a train to the other Porto train station only to find that there was no train all the way to Viseu. After a bit of frantic working things out and not being able to get tickets, we eventually got two separate tickets to a town near ours and worked out a lift home. There was a moment where I thought we would get no train and the three of us would be stranded in Porto. It was fairly horrific at the time. I just remembered how mum wouldn’t even like me going into London too late and even then I would have always had people to call willing to pick me up. It was just awful feeling that you couldn’t really call anyone in the event that no trains were running. Luckily, we arrived in Viseu at one in the morning and our trip included a sleeper train. So, interesting, very interesting. Never doing that again! Needless to say, we did not have our baptism this week.
However, we have taught some good lessons. We taught a man called Alberto, who was really nice and agreed to start reading the Book of Mormon again. We also taught Joao with his father who is very catholic with the elders in our ward, which was interesting. You could feel the spirit guiding people, though.
Oh! I almost forgot we had lesson practice at our last district meeting. Basically you have to give one of the lessons to one of the missionaries who pretends to be an investigator and all the others give you scores for different areas like correct Portuguese, promising blessings, clear invitation. I had to do the restoration lesson and got some pretty good scores. Elder Barlett said it was the best Portuguese for a first transfer he had heard. So I think I’m doing good, I just need to speak up more.
Also, I don’t know what kind of conversations my companion was having with our Mission President, but he asked to see our marked investigator to help her out. So, after our lesson with her last Tuesday she agreed to travel the almost 2 hour journey to Porto with us right there and then. After getting fairly lost trying to find the mission office (I need to stop trusting my companion has a hold on the situation) we find a pretty hostile Mission President. After a conversation between him and our investigator, which was more like an interrogation, it transpires that she hasn’t actually stopped her “breaking the law of chastity job” as I had thought, so wasn’t really as repentant as I had been lead to believe. It was fairly embarrassing and I don’t know how we even got into that situation. Still, I have really learnt to trust my own impressions more and need to remember that although my companion knows the language and has been out for a year, she is still a lot younger and pretty naive. We talked a lot about finding a balance between my realism and her faith on our way home from divisions.
Anyway, the adventure continues because the bus we thought we were catching back to Viseu actually only ran at the weekend so we had no way of getting home. Clearly calling President for help was not an option. So after a lot of praying, and asking a thousand people where the train station was, we got a train to the other Porto train station only to find that there was no train all the way to Viseu. After a bit of frantic working things out and not being able to get tickets, we eventually got two separate tickets to a town near ours and worked out a lift home. There was a moment where I thought we would get no train and the three of us would be stranded in Porto. It was fairly horrific at the time. I just remembered how mum wouldn’t even like me going into London too late and even then I would have always had people to call willing to pick me up. It was just awful feeling that you couldn’t really call anyone in the event that no trains were running. Luckily, we arrived in Viseu at one in the morning and our trip included a sleeper train. So, interesting, very interesting. Never doing that again! Needless to say, we did not have our baptism this week.
However, we have taught some good lessons. We taught a man called Alberto, who was really nice and agreed to start reading the Book of Mormon again. We also taught Joao with his father who is very catholic with the elders in our ward, which was interesting. You could feel the spirit guiding people, though.
Oh! I almost forgot we had lesson practice at our last district meeting. Basically you have to give one of the lessons to one of the missionaries who pretends to be an investigator and all the others give you scores for different areas like correct Portuguese, promising blessings, clear invitation. I had to do the restoration lesson and got some pretty good scores. Elder Barlett said it was the best Portuguese for a first transfer he had heard. So I think I’m doing good, I just need to speak up more.