January 29, 2011

Hola Family!

So funny story: we called Portugal and this guy answers and didn't speak English at all. It must have been a wrong phone number because the guy we talked to did speak English. Anyway he asks in Portuguese, "Who are you?!" And I bust out, "Missionaries for La Inglesia de Jesu Christo de los Santos de los Ultimas Dios." (forgive my horrible Spanish spelling) He yells something and hangs up. I was like why didn't he understand me? Oh yeah, he speaks Portuguese and I was speaking Spanish. Ok, so not that funny but I was quite proud of myself for attempting Spanish.

Anyway, so the Humanitarian Center = amazing. I love it there. The days seem really long because we are there from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m., then the Square from 4 p.m. - 9 a.m. and it is so different. At the end of the day we are always asking "Was that this morning?!" The days go by fast; it is just they don't seem connected with each other. Anyway we have the tour down and we've given it many times already. For the first few days nobody came in but yesterday it was insane. The day we had a tour every hour was the day that the senior couple had a family emergency and had to leave. Lunch is only from 11 a.m. -12:30 p.m. so we kinda had to sneak and get lunch - yes, it is that important that I am writing this in my letter to everyone. They have great food there! The people that work at the Humanitarian Center are refugees or immigrants getting job skills and learning English. So the ones cooking are hoping to work in a restaurant I think. But the food is really good and it changes everyday, so not like the MTC. Hallelujah.

Our miracle there was this mother and daughter that came in. They were not members so we explained who Joseph Smith was and the Book of Mormon during the tour - but not in great detail. At the end of the movie we show people, we give them a card to request missionaries and they checked "Temples". Um... did we talk about temples? Oh well, we will take what we can get! I am not sure how sincere she is in converting but her daughter goes to a boarding school out here so I think she just wants to know more on what Mormons do. They are from Wisconsin though, pretty cool.

This family from England living near Manchester came and they were so prepared! This would be my first British family that referred for missionaries. That story is for Drew (I am trying to get stories from all of your countries ok!) Brazil, and all South American countries. I need a Portuguese or Spanish comp; pray for me. Australia is covered; Hong Kong is covered; Canada is covered. Thailand - still working on that . Japan - still working on that one too. I did send a referral for Japan a few transfers ago! Italy - covered!

Anyway life is good for me; just working away. Oh we just took five Catholic priests around... interesting. I told them that the authority to run Christ's church was gone and waited for death to fall upon me. They just smiled like they would to a little kid who didn't understand what they were talking about. Oh well, nice guys though. I am sure they will help many people. Anyway until next week!