Elder Lindquist 7/29/09

Hey how's it going all? I had a good week things are going well. We’re doing email later because the site was down and we spent all day buying ties. I splurged and got about 5 but don't worry they're way sweet (not just grey and brown like all my other ones) but yeah I hope you like the picture I sent they are really cool. We had our first interviews with President Torgan a couple days ago which went well. The rules haven't changed all that much other than the number of times investigators have to go to church in order to be baptized and we can't play soccer anymore. So I'm pretty much sick of fleas by now, we're catching them weekly and I have about 7 taped in my journal, the biggest is about the size of a piece of rice or something. But yeah they drive me crazy! Well I don't have a lot to say. We're working hard and quite a few people are progressing but they have busy schedules so it's very difficult to keep up during the week and then the weekend is way busy usually. Elder Wheeler's feet are exploding with blisters. He also scared the crap out of me with two pan lids which luckily he got on film. We also made ribs last Friday that was probably the best meal I've had in my life. Well everyone have a great week and stay well I'll be expecting over 100 letters for my birthday this year (Only in my dreams) I know this church is true and has a living prophet that has authority as restored through the prophet Joseph Smith. God is our Heavenly Father and he loves us. And I know Jesus Christ is our Savior. I love being a representative of him and trying to do what he would do if he were here. com muito amor, Elder Lindqüist

Elder Lindquist 7/22/09

Hey! Sounds like you guys had a good week, congrats on the Home run Dallan that's awesome. It has been pretty hot here as well, (it's ok though because we gain hot wife points for having to be in the heat all day, getting blisters, getting shot in the head by an airsoft gun, etc...) So this week was great, last P-day we went to the driving range as a district and with our zone leaders so that was a blast. Elder Wheeler and I decided if I stay next transfer were going to play a full game of golf the p-day before my birthday, (on the 19th). So we didn't find as many people this week but some of the people we've found in the past couple weeks have been progressing really well. We had a meeting with Cristina and her daughter Vanessa last night and Vanessa has been reading the Book of Mormon and highlighting things in the pamphlets we leave them so that's exciting. She also brought her Book of Mormon to work the other day and was explaining everything to her colleagues and also her family members so that is awesome. The only problem is she doesn't like churches and she likes to sleep in so it's hard to get her to come to church but we'll get her there. That's one of the difficulties we're having, almost everyone we teach loves the Book of Mormon but they're too lazy to come to church, (due to the early hour) or they have to work. It's sad but I know God is preparing people to accept completely the gospel, (including the early hour of church). We found this middle aged couple that is way cool, (she's Brazilian and he's Portuguese) and initially he didn't really want anything to do with us because he's "not a religious person" but now he loves us and has started reading the Book of Mormon. They asked if they could feed us lunch or dinner and it was funny because they were all shy and scared to ask but then we were like of course you can! We’ll bring the desert! So yeah this week was great we had plans to go to Santa Cruz today to write letters on the cliffs overlooking the beach but it's raining right now :( But we'll probably go next week the view there is amazing! I want to stay here I love Torres Vedras, I know we can get some baptisms going this place has so much potential and things are going really good. I hope you all have a good week keep on being awesome!-Elder Linguiça.

Elder Lindquist 7/15/09

So this week was crazy awesome, like some of the coolest stuff has happened. So a few weeks ago we found an African family and were able to teach about the restoration and the other day we went back to talk more about the Book of Mormon. The cousin was there so we had one of the daughters explain the restoration to her cousin; she taught it way better than I could ever do. Then we taught and testified about the power that the Book of Mormon contains, and bore testimony of how we can receive an answer. The daughter and cousin were both like "I want to receive an answer like that"! They were talking to each other like lets read it tonight together and all this stuff it was sick because usually it's like pulling teeth to have people fulfill the invites we extend but they were way excited about it, it was cool. Then the other morning on Saturday we went to teach Maria Regina and her sister/sisters husband and remarked them for baptism. On the way home (we were really close to our house) I saw a Brazilian lady walking with her daughter, both of them was carrying tons of grocery bags so I stopped and asked the mother if we could help them. The daughter saw us and ran away, but the mother looked at me and saw me holding the Book of Mormon, she was like OH! Is this a book of Mormon? My friend gave me one of these books ten years ago! She explained that a colleague from work moved to France but before she left she gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon with her testimony written on the cover. So of course I jumped all over that and we invited her to church, (both her kids are baptized in the Assembly of God church and she's preparing to be baptized there but said she would LOVE to come to church). So we took her bags and walked with her to the bus station and talked about church. She lives in a little village on the way to the chapel so we stopped to get her on the way. Her and her daughter walked out wearing dresses and her son walked out wearing a shirt tie and slacks. My jaw just about dropped, investigators never wear that stuff the first visit at church. Ha so on the way to the chapel she was like I hope you don't mind that we invited a friend from our church to come as well, I was like of course we don't mind. So then in second hour the gospel principles teacher told the story of how the Elders found him and then after that Rosária, (the woman) starts basically bearing her testimony of how we found her and when we talked to her the day before she felt that we were men of God and that she felt like we were lead to her. It was sick! So yesterday we had district meeting and then divisions with the zone leaders and Elder Marriot, (the stud muffin) and I went to visit them. Her daughter sang a gospel song for us then Elder Marriot and I sang "I Need Thee Every Hour" and we taught them about prophets and authority. Near the end of the lesson the Uncle dropped by, (who happens to be the vice president of their church) and we had a great conversation and explained how the mission goes for these two years and everything then we all ate some Brazilian food it was awesome. So that was just a little bit of my week. How are things going for you guys? Sounds like things are pretty busy for it being summer time. Well Elder Wheeler is awesome, he's from Glendora California. We like to quote Nacho libre a lot and I got him hooked on a lot of fattening foods here.. Descula la familia wheeler mas o seu filho vai ser um gordinho quando ele voltar..So yeah basically my message for this week (as you can see in the pattern of my stories) is that the Book of Mormon is awesome. If you aren't reading it every day, do it (I'll try and apply this invite too) but it really does have a huge impact on peoples conversion process, as it was with yours right dad? Didn't a colleague give one to Grandma Lindquist before the missionaries passed by? Well my invite is to talk to someone about the Book of Mormon this week because you don't know if the impact will be made that night, or ten years down the road, but an impact will be made. ~Have a great week, Elder Lindquist

Elder Lindquist 7/8/09

Hey how's it going all! We had a great week, well I should say an awesome week and it sounds like yours was great also. Hey dad you misunderstood my last email we didn't get 10 investigators for the week that was only in one day. We continued working hard throughout the week and by the end of the week we had 23 new investigators. It was amazing. It's awesome what you can accomplish with the help of the Lord. We broke the record and we were really excited. Elder Wheeler is a stud I love serving with him we have a lot of fun. His personality is a lot like that of Jake's, so I feel like I'm serving with Jake haha. We had our first zone conference the other day with our new mission president, President Moroni Torgan. He's a great man, and really funny too. You should read about him on Google or something he's done a lot of cool stuff for Brazil as well as for the church. He came into the church because Elder Faust baptized his great-grandmother, cool huh? Well we've continued teaching some great people and things are going really good. Elder Wheeler and I made a goal that we will have 10 baptisms by the end of August and we just ended our fast for that so I have a feeling things will continue moving forward with great leaps and bounds. The other day we were working in São pedro da cadeira until later in the day and our bus, (the last one that passed through that small town) didn't show up, so we ended up spending the night sleeping on the floor in the chapel. This was not the most comfortable night of my life but at least I wasn't bit by any fleas. We recently watched a "presidents of the church" documentary on Joseph Smith and it made me realize that one night on the floor didn't compare to the several months he spent in the jail floor so I appreciated his sacrifice more after that. I don't know when father’s day was because it's different here but happy father’s day Dad I love ya. I never remember when holidays are in America. In fact we forgot about the fourth of July the other day.. It wasn't until we saw an American food sale at a grocery store here that we remembered. Oh and yes we heard about the death of Michael Jackson all the drunks here were freaking out about that. I thought oh man uncle Kyle must be tearing up right now. Well we're in Mofra today doing a sick P-day as a district and after this we're going to go to the big convent. (I'm the only one in the district who's already been there) and next week we're doing another joint P-day as a district as well as with our zone leaders and I think we might go golfing in Torres Vedras so we're excited for next week. But yeah everything is going great here the area is exploding and Elder Wheeler speaks great (like as well as I did in my second or third transfer). So yeah have a great week everyone. Love Elder Jordão Lindquist

Hey all how's it going? This week was pretty sweet I got my new companion on Thursday his name is Elder Wheeler and he's from the LA area in California. We have the same taste in music and movies and he's really into extreme sports. I'll send a picture of us on Thursday. We've been tearing it up this week we found ten new investigators on Monday. All of which were Brazilians, (note: we didn't find ten investigators my whole stay in Beja) so things are going really good in this area. We're setting up kind of a schedule where we are visiting the little cities and villages outside of Torres Vedras and that is going very well. Our branch president has felt very strongly that we need to do that and it's working very well. So on Sunday President and Sister Terry came to visit our branch and after we all ate at a member’s house. This was their last Sunday so that was cool to spend it with them. President Torgan arrived last night and we have our first zone conference with him on Monday so we're all pretty excited. I really like training its fun, Elder Wheeler speaks really well so it isn't extremely difficult. But yeah a lot of cool stuff happened this last week. The other day we passed by some people during the afternoon and no one was home, I had a feeling we needed to go to the park. I thought why the park that's clear on the other side of town, but we went there not knowing why. We got there and it was full of people, I was kind of thinking ok heavenly father help us find the person we need to talk to. I looked to my right and saw a man sitting on a bench alone, I felt that we should talk to him so we went over and asked if we could sit by him to talk about Jesus Christ. He quickly welcomed us to sit down. As we talked to him he explained that he knew the elders ten years ago when they were in Torres Vedras and that he came close to being baptized. This surprised me a lot. So yeah we got his information it'll be hard to meet with him because he lives in a place where I don't think we have transport to but that was a cool experience. So many things happen like that throughout the week I can't even tell you all of them. But I do know that Christ is leading us to his elect by way of his spirit. And not everyone progress but we still feel good that we did the best we could do. Like in the story in 1st Nephi chapter 3 and 4. It took them several attempts to obtain the plates and even when they brought their best (the second attempt when they brought all the gold and silver) their attempt still failed. But the Lord eventually provided a way for them to fulfill the commandment that was given to them by their father Lehi. Sometimes we bring our best to the lessons and things still go bad, but I know that eventually the Lord will open up a way for these people to accept the truth. Whether it's tomorrow or five years from now. Hope y'all have a good week we're doing fine here in Torres. Com muito muito amor..Elder Lindquist