June 25, 2013

Ola familia!!!!!

I am so excited for Maria and Lara!!! We will see who pops first:) Has there already been names picked out and what not? Thanks for the letters! You guys rock!!!

Well our week seemed to go kind of slow, but I can't complain I didn't have anything fall on top of my head:) This up coming week there are going to be a few changes here in the mission and I am way pumped!!! 2 of my past companions (Elder Harper and Eckman) and a few others will be taking off this week... It is so weird to think that they are going to be leaving. They have been here for my whole mission its going to be like have a part takin out of me! ha ha They all seem so pumped. We will also be receiving our Mission President on Saturday!!!!! Really early in the morning... ha ha. He will be flying in at 4 or 5 and elder mariquele and I will be going to go and pick him up. I am so excited that he is finally getting here!!!! Man it will be so awesome to just have a mission president stay with us in the country that has all of the keys. After he gets here we will have a zone conference here in Luanda, and probably travel out to the providences to visit the missionaries out there.

This week we also had our TRANSFERS!!!! I had almost forgot to write about it:) haha so surprise surprise I am staying with elder Maruquele!!! WE are still pumped to work together, but there we quite a few transfers that were rather interesting to say the least. ha but all the missionaries seem happy and ready to get their pres.

Last monday after I had written you Elder Mariquele and I went back to our house and we had a barbecue with all the elders in our house and with a couple of others that lived near by. It was kind of a saying "goodbye" to elder Harper type thing for us missionaries. While Elder Harper and I were cookin on the grill, Elder Mariquele started yelling "look what I found!!" As we looked around to our surprise there was Elder Mariquele holding an IPad in his hands with a grin that stretched from one side of his face to the other! We asked him were he had found it. He replied that he had found it in the garden(we have a small 10 by 10 ft. patch of dirt) half buried underneath the ground.
The IPad was way dirty and who knows how long it had been there. The back of it was a little bent up and the whole thing was just covered in dirt. It appeared that it didn't work. So we all took some pictures with it and then Elder Tingey, one of our roommates, grabbed a cloth and wiped off all of the dirt. With the dirt not on it the screen looked nice, as if it might still work. So we decided to just see if it worked and put it on the charger. As soon as we put the cord in this little battery popped up and it started charging!!! ha ha Elder Mariquele freaked out!!! ha ha So ya we found an IPad in the garden. Who would have thought. On the iPad there was an email account. We gave it to one of the Couple missionaries and they sent an email to see if they could find the owner.

We also had a really cool lesson with that guy named Jose. We decided to bring our branch president with us so that they could get aquatinted and invite Jose and his wife to come to church. The lesson was amazing!!! President Kiami has such a strong testimony and at the end, Jose was just dumb founded! He was so excited to learn more and it was just what he needed. At the end he said "I really want to help you guys out! I just felt something so different and I really liked it. I would like to help pay for your taxis." Then he took off to his car before we could say a word. He came back and handed me an american 100 dollar bill. I was so surprised and kind of confused. Politely I told him that as missionaries we could not except money from other people and I handed it back to him. It was so crazy I never had anything like that happen before!!! He kind of argued about it, but in the end he took it back and gave us all some water. ha ha It was so funny!!!

Well I love you all so much and hope you all have a great week!!!

Elder Wilhelm

June 17, 2013

Ola família!!!!

Hey y'all!!! Thanks for the letters this week sounds like all going well back home and that we should be expecting a few new members of the family pretty quick here:) há há I am so excited!!!

Our week here was just great. We had quite a few meetings and some divisions going on. First we had a training on Friday with all of the zone and district leaders. We invited Elder Eckman, one of my past companions, to give a training on how to run a district meeting. Elder Eckman is such a genius!! He stinkin rocked. Then Elder Harper and Hobbs gave a training on how to work with members for effectively. After them Mariquele and I gave a small training on how to help the missionaries achieve their goal.  After, we kind of opened it up to discussion to find out some more ideas and concerns. The missionaries really opened up and got some cool ideas of what we should do to help the mission grow. The idea discussed the most was a training for the missionaries on how to contact. I was baffled that they would say that! Then after the meeting I went on a division with elder Tilley in my área. Elder Tilley is such a versatile  missionary, and has so many ideas to help the mission grow and move forward. That night he and I had a brain storm about the training and what else we could do. We came up with some pretty sweet ideas that don't just include contacting, but also receiving references and such.

Sorry I was kind of writing fast.  That's why all that ideas are all jumbled up:) haha but I love you all so much and hope you have a great week.

June 10, 2013

Ola Querida familia!!!!

Muito obrigado pelas cartas eu agradeco muito. You Rock so Much thanks so much for the letters. I love hearing from you all so much! You make my week:) Its good to hear karen is reunited with her hubby and mom and dad are almost home from their long journey with her.

So this week was for once a pretty normal week!! finally!!! On Tues. president left and we are now all left alone here in Angola to fend from ourselves, but we have a few couple missionaries that are serving here with us helping us out for the next three weeks. Man are week excited to receive president Merrill though! It will make things so much easier and there will not be any confusion as to what we are supposed to be doing.

We were able to focus on our area more during the past week, and boy did it feel good to just focus on that and not a whole lot else!! We still did have a few meetings but not like we did last week. Our area was suffering a little because of the lack of about a week, but with all the contacting and teaching this week it is getting better. We found some really cool families and hope to be able to sit with them this next week. One guy that was just driving down this dirt road suddenly halted his brakes and stopped to ask us if we were students or missionaries. When we told him we were missionaries he got excited and started to insist on us coming to his house at that instant. We told him that we didn't have a whole lot of time but he kept on persisting "It will only be a few min. I have always wanted to talk to you but never had the chance!" So we gave in and followed him back home. Wow he was so cool!! He has a wife kids and is actually married!! Who would have thought:) so we are going to be going back on Wed. to speak with him and all the family. By the way his name is Jose:)

We also had another really cool experience with on of our investigators named Rita. Rita has 5 children ranging from 20 to 10 that she raises by herself. The father decided one wife wasn't enough so he went off and got a couple more. She didn't like it so she broke it off with him. So we were in the middle of a lesson talking about how the book of mormon can help her when all of the sudden someone knocked at the door. She got up and answered it, and in walked her husband. He came to pick up the 3 youngest kids to stay with him for a few days. After he left with the kids, Rita just seemed angry so we asked what the matter was. She began to tell us about her husband and how she didn't want him to take them because he wasn't that best role model in the world. She just seemed so troubled so we pulled a few scriptures out and helped her feel better and calm down to show her how the book of mormon can even help in situations like that. it was a way spiritual lesson! We are so excited for her and her kids to be baptized! They should get baptized and the end of the month.

So Elder Mariquele and I have made a goal to help each other out with the language. He wants to learn english and I want to learn porto. So we have been focusing so much on the language that we want to learn, that we started switching places:) For example, last week while I was writing you, I was having a hard time remembering a word in english. so I turned to elder Mariquele and asked him in porto "como si diz diminuir em ingles?" he look at me and started laughing and said "well it is diminish or decrease." ha ha but while we were in a lesson the other day Elder Mariquele was explaining something to the investigator when all of the sudden he looks at and asked me what a word was in porto:) ha ha ya I love this kid!! We have some good laughs.

Well sorry I didn't have anything way cool for you all this week, but this is the best I got:) haha but I love you all so much and wish you an amazing week!!!

Elder Wilhelm

June 3, 2013

Boa Tarde Familia!!!

Hey everyone how is it going!!!! Thanks so much for your letters and such. I just love hearing from y'all every week. And sorry for not writing anymore this past week. It was just a little busy trying to get everything done, but I made it through and president Kretly will be taking off on wen. So with a little luck all of the meetings will be cut dramatically haha.  I haven’t been able to read all of your letters yet because the internet hasn’t been working for a little bit so I hope it will come back before we all have to leave.

So now that I have about to week to make up, for I better get writing!!!  On Friday of not last week, but the week before, Elder Mariquelle and I were getting ready for the trainings and had a few questions so we called up president. At the end of the conversation president kind of stopped and said “Have you already talked to Abdo (the mission secretary) about your travel plans to come with me to Huambo to give the training?” Elder Mariquelle and I kind of looked at each other like “what is he talking about.” We were both a little confused so we asked president if we were traveling with him and he said, "yes". Ha ha Ya, we were just planning on giving the training in Luanda and not the other providences.  Elder Mariquelle nearly jumped out of his skin he was so happy, ha ha, and I will admit I was pretty excited to go see another providence. So we called Elder Abdo up and got it all scheduled out.

On Thursday, President arrived here in Angola and on Friday morning at 4 am we were up and at the airport! Gotta love traveling. On the airplane ride over there Elder Mariquelle was going crazy!! Ha ha It was his 4th or 5th time on an airplane so everything that he saw or felt he would ask if it was normal or he would say in broken English, ”I love my mission!!!” When we got there it was about 7 in the morning and man it was chilly! Getting off I literally thought I landed in go ol sj!! Huambo is so pretty, and a whole lot cleaner than Luanda. For the first couple of days we were just out with all of the other elders doing a ton of divisions trying to get them pumped for the worked and for the conference. It was a ton of fun! I ended up getting to walk with a couple of my old companions during to whole trip:) Wow what a blast!!!

Huambo was actually going to be the new capital of Portugal while it was still under there rein. It used to be called Nova lizboa, but after the independence of Angola and all of the civil war that had happen here, the city had been left in pieces and until recently people hadn't really lived there. You will walk around in the roads and look at houses that are just riddled of bullet holes, or buildings with part of a side blown off. And my favorite part was to see a few of the old war tanks that are scattered along the road:) It was so cool to see this and learn a little bit more about all of the wars that had happen here.

 We also stayed with this woman named Arora along with two other men that came up to receive a couple of  trainings from pres Kretly. On sunday Huambo was officially turned into a branch and a missionary and his companion (Elder Caslton and Ferguson) became the branch presidente and the second counselor. It was so cool to be there for this all because I get to see Huambo at its very start as a branch and hopefully by the end of my mission it will have a ton more growth. The next day we had our zone conference with the Huambo elders and the Lubango elders. Everything went way good, and it was a ton of fun because it was just a small group so there was a lot of interaction between us all. Huambo was just so much fun!!! but sadly we had to return to Luanda...:) So on Tuesday, we got our plane tickets and went back off to Luanda. As soon as we landed we were off to a staff meeting in elder Abdos house. And every single day after that was just full of meetings and training to help us get ready to become our own mission. We didn't really get to work one full day in our área. On Friday we had our last zone conference with the elders of Luanda, which went pretty good. Although I didn't feel it was as good because it was just a big group of missionaries and some of them have problems. All in all though it went just fine and I hope the Elders took it all well.

But besides from all of the craziness...  On Saturday our investigator, named Jose, got baptized!!!! José is 28 or 29 year old and a kick boxer há há this guy is a giant, but he was super prepared to receive the gospel. He had already heard everything from the prior missionaries, so we really didn't have to do a whole lot:) há há but he is so cool.  I am so happy he got baptized, and next week he will be the priesthood.

We are getting super excited to become a new mission!! I cant wait for the new presidentes arrival!!! But hey I love you all so much and hope you have a wonderful week!!!!

 

Elder Wilhelm

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