Elder Lindquist 1/28/09

Ok hello everyone this last week was a good week. And I have been feeling better about my language capabilities. Last night we were on divisions here in Beja and some old guys that own a bird shop around the corner from our house asked if we could help them this morning. So this morning at eight six of us, (the elders from Évora and our zone leaders from Setúbal) went over there and helped unload half of a semi full of bird seed bags that weighed like 15 or 20 pounds each. It was awesome! I was beginning to think that we'd never be able to find a service opportunity here because everyone refuses our help. Even if we want to help a ninety year old lady carry her 30 grocery bags up a huge hill they always shut us down. They're pretty stubborn here, but this morning was really fun. One of our zone leaders that’s been out for a year and a half said that that was the best service he's been able to do here. So it was good to have that opportunity because service opens so many doors in missionary work. The work is going good here, Pedros baptismal interview was last night and he's getting baptized this Saturday. Edson and Rose were not able to get married in time so I think that we're going to try and do their baptism on the same day as our other person we have marked for the 14th of Feb. But everything is good, we have a new investigator that is Brazilian and last night while on divisions three of us taught a Brazilian guy here that is a missionary for another church. It was a lot of fun Brazilians are so easy to teach and so willing to listen to anything you have to share. I'll tell you a story that happened a couple of days ago. The other night Elder Rissi and I were headed to talk to a referral we'd received, (the first one we've gotten since I've been here! but that's another story for another day) and on our way there we saw this guy that was drunk out of his mind. I was like let’s go talk to this guy, Elder Rissi said but he's wasted. I said lets go anyway. We crossed the street and started talking to him and joking with him a bit and after a few minutes I had a feeling to tell him something. I said António I want to share a message with you, God loves you. He stopped swaying back and forth and mumbling and he looked down at me. He put his hand on my shoulder and started to cry. He continued to cry for a minute or two as I put my hand on his shoulder and I felt for that minute he was not drunk, he was feeling the spirit. I think one of the greatest if not the greatest messages we can share with people here is that we are Gods children and he loves us. I don't know why I told him that I just felt I should. I don't know what is going on in his life but I know he needed to hear that. And even though he was wasted he is still a child of God, and he needed to know that his father in heaven loves him. He gave us a hug and we left. I know that God loves us, and knows us individually and if you do not know that I would encourage you to ask him in prayer if he does or not. I'm so blessed to be here at this time and share the message of the gospel with these people. I hope all is well with everyone, thank you for your letters and support.-Elder Lindquist

Elder Lindquist 1/21/09

So this last week was good. We had zone conference in Meiratejo and holy cow! I've never received so many packages and letters in my life! I came out of the room with the mail in there and as I walked with my gigantic heap of mail in my arms people were drooling with jealousy. I think I had more mail than my zone and the other zone that was there combined. So thanks everyone who has sent me stuff it was great. This was an interesting week as far as visits go. On Sunday an awesome guy named Hélio was here, he's from Brazil and lived here for a few years and everyone loves him. Yesterday he drove us out to a little city called Aljastrélo that is about 40 minutes away but it's still in our area. We have a few members there and lots of inactive members. One of which was a good friend of Hélios so we went by her house and she was very bitter about the church here, (people get offended very easily here. If you look at someone wrong they'll leave the church.) So she was nice to her friend but not to us. She said if he wasn't there she wouldn't have had us over. The whole time we were there she was ragging on our branch and the leaders in our branch. I was sick of hearing this, just because she was offended by a leader of our branch that doesn't mean that the missionaries are bad too. I told her it doesn't matter who the branch president is Christ is the leader of this church and this thing that happened shouldn't keep her from coming to church because the sacrament is more important. (No she didn't break down crying and say she'll come back every week) but she did say I realize I'm the one losing. She said I know it's not enough to just read the scriptures here at home and try and light up my family with a candle. I hope she eventually comes back because she knows the church is true, it just breaks my heart to see these people losing out on the blessings of the church because of their pride. But when we left she did say that we would be welcome back in her house if we wanted to come back. That was just one layer of many that we need to break in order to get her back to church. Now we just need to do that with the other 300 inactive members of our branch. Well that was a long story so I'll keep the rest of this short, at the first of the week I thought the language was coming along ok but honestly right now I feel like I'm horrible. Two people this last week were trying to talk to me and when I wouldn't understand something they'd be like he doesn't understand anything! Then they'd talk to me like I was a three year old. This has been discouraging. My confidence has dropped quite a bit since last week but I'm still trying to communicate to the best of my ability. I know the Lord will help me learn. I hope all is well with you, continue to pray for the missionaries. We need all the help we can get! Love Elder Lindquist

Elder Lindquist 1/14/09

Hello all,
This last week was good. We are working really hard with our Brazilian investigators to make sure they can get baptized on the marked date. Oh and this week we marked another for baptism in Feb. before Elder Rissi gets transferred. (At least we think he is; he's been here in Beja for decades.) Her mom is a member and her brother is too but her dad isn't so hopefully we can work on getting him baptized soon too. Even though the work is going good here in Beja it always feels like we can do more. It is hard not to compare the success of areas to areas or missions to missions because we've compared things our whole lives. That is probably what was hardest for me in the MTC was not comparing my speaking to other missionaries. But we're doing really well here. We have zone conference in a couple days and I'm excited to see my old colleagues from the MTC. I gave my first talk in sacrament meeting on Sunday about the restoration. I probably would have had to do it sooner but we had Christmas programs and other things going on. It went good though. I hope all of you are doing well and working on your New Year’s resolutions.
Love, Elder Lindquist

Elder Lindquist 1/7/09

So this last week was great. We started off the New Year on a good foot. We have three people marked for baptism! I couldn't be more excited. So the first person we marked was Pedro, the gypsy kid. We challenged him on New Year’s Day to be baptized on the 31st of this month. It was amazing because we always just shared spiritual thoughts and scriptures with him before but this time we taught him the first lesson, the restoration. After the lesson we invited him to pray about the things we had taught him, if the Book of Mormon is true and if Joseph Smith was a prophet. The spirit was SO strong during that lesson. When Pedro prays he usually speeds through it so he can unpause his video game and continue playing. But this time was different, he asked God if the Book of Mormon was true and instead of rushing through the rest of the prayer he stopped and there was about ten seconds of silence. He then said Heavenly Father is the things the missionaries told me true; and after a second he finished his prayer. With a huge smile he said he answered me! I was so happy; this strengthened my testimony so much that WE are not the ones that convince people of the truth, the spirit is. We don't convert anyone. I get chills every time I think of that experience. I know that what we're sharing with people is the true gospel of Jesus Christ but in order for other people to know they have to ask God and he will give them knowledge of the truth as it talks about in Moroni's promise. A couple days later we had fast Sunday. And some Brazilian investigators we have bore their testimonies for the first time, and their five year old son, (instead of bearing his testimony he got up to the pulpit and said a prayer. It was so funny.) They've been investigators since before their son was even born. They also have a thirteen year old daughter that has already been baptized. Edson and Rose, the parents; just need to get married then they can be baptized, this can easily be done by the end of the month so we felt the time was right to challenge them. I am excited needless to say. I am going to be doing the confirmation for Pedro; I am very excited for this opportunity I have to give someone the Holy Ghost. The members here are so nice, I love this place. The work here in Beja has been kind of slow over the past couple years but hopefully these baptisms will get people fired up about sharing the gospel. I'm getting a haircut today, I'm excited. Ok have a nice week. Elder Lindquist

Elder Lindquist 12/31

It was great to talk to you all on Christmas day! We had a good time visiting with members and opening a few presents. This last week was pretty crazy but it has been fun. Yesterday was transfers and the only person leaving our district will be Elder Flint. He's going to be a district leader up north so I'm stuck with Elder Rissi for at least one more transfer. Ha I'm kidding he's a great missionary. The work has picked up in the last week which makes me happy because sometimes I wish there was more members and more people to teach but we're trying to make it happen. We have two new Brazilian investigators and I think we're going to try and mark Pedro, (the gypsy kid) for baptism this week. So I'll let you know how that goes. A couple days ago we were at their house and Paula Cristina fed us a wild hogs head or something. I'm not sure what it was exactly but it was way good, the teeth on that thing were huge. I think they cooked it in the ground or in a stone oven or something. I had some neck meat and half of the nose, which was crunchy but good. I had a funny experience this last week, we were walking to visit an old member of our branch and on our way there I saw an old man sitting on a bus bench and decided to talk to him. When I started talking to him he said "Eu sou um testimunho de jahova" I thought he said I have a testimony of Jesus so I said oh! Me too! (What he really said was I'm a Jehovah witness...) and then he was like "não nós accretitamos o opposto de vocês." (No we believe the opposite of you all) and I thought he said no we believe in apostles. So I was like "oh apostles we have those too! Twelve of them." at this point in time Elder Rissi was laughing uncontrollably and sat down next to him on the other side of the bench and saved me from further humiliation. I love this language but sometimes it doesn't love me. I hope one day I will be able to have a conversation with someone without telling them I'm a Jehovah witness. I love it here in Portugal and thank you all for your prayers and support. I hope you all had a good Christmas and hope you have a happy new years eve tonight.Love Elder Lindquist

Elder Lindquist 12/24

So it's Christmas Eve today. I hope all is well with you today and tomorrow and I hope you all have a great Christmas holiday. Christmas is my favorite holiday but it's a lot different here. The Christmas trees are only like three or four feet tall and there's no lights on the buildings because they're just big apartment buildings so how can you decorate one of those? Of course there is no snow but that was expected. Today we have a lunch and dinner appt. and tomorrow we have lunch with the president of our Branch but other than that we don't have too much going on; which is kind of sad but oh well. We had an excellent zone/Christmas conference this last week. There were a couple zones there so I got to see and visit my MTC district. Not too much has happened this week. We have a new investigator which is a friend of our Branch President’s son. He's eleven and they're pretty good buddies so hopefully we can get all the lessons taught here pretty soon, he seemed to like the first one. Elder Rissi says he thinks he's getting transferred next week, (this transfer is a week shorter and the next one will be a week longer.) so I might be getting a new companion next week. Elder Rissi has already been here for five months or so. This last week we had a lot of encounters with drunken people for some reason. The other night we were walking home and a bunch of them yelled our name so we went to talk to them for a second. They were trying to get us to drink their beer and coffee and smoke their cigarettes. Elder Rissi started messing with them and they started freaking out! We got two or three presents from branch members! So we're pretty much loaded. Just think of us as you're opening your piles and heaps of presents. Actually no think of Our Savior Jesus Christ instead. Oh I just remembered the gas ran out in our apartment a couple days ago and the guy was supposed to bring it yesterday but he didn't and he still hasn't come today. We've been taking freezing cold showers for like a week. I can't wait to start Christmas day tomorrow morning with an ice cold shower. Feliz Natal!De Elder Lindquist

Elder Lindquist 12/17

Olá meu amigos Feliz natal e boas festas!This last week was interesting. We had our Christmas party for our branch and there were almost 50 people there! At church the next day we had almost 50 people again! It was amazing. Wherever there is food here people come. Whatever the incentive may be we were glad to see so many people there. We were able to get some investigators there and a couple less active people showed up so it was a success. We watched the Joy to the world DVD and had a play preformed by a couple of the young adults and then had a feast. There was quite a bit of food left over (which Elder Rissi and I got to take home with us) I've never seen our fridge so full. The language is coming along ok. People in my area have a strange accent, (kind of a red-neck version of Portuguese) so it's hard to understand people sometimes but it will come eventually I guess. Today we are in Setubal, a large city across the Teigo River from Lisbon. We did divisions with our zone leaders here yesterday; divisions are always interesting I love them. Last night a man told us if we knock on his door one more time he will hit us in the head as he shook his fist at us. So we are spending our p-day here today and we have our annual Christmas conference tomorrow in Mira Teigo and then we will head back to Beja. I'm excited to see my MTC district tomorrow we had a good time at zone conference a week or so ago talking about our first areas. We also had training from one of the first presidency from the seventy. I can't remember his name but he's from France and he spoke in conference back in October. It was a good training. Well that’s about all I can remember from this last week. We have a few potential baptisms so I'll let you all know how things go with that. I love being a missionary I couldn’t ask for a better opportunity than I have to serve here in Portugal and to see the work here progress. This place will eventually be baptizing at the rate Brazil is, it may be another 20 years but it will happen. I'm excited to see that day. I hope you all have a great Christmas holiday and remember the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. -Love, Elder Lindquist