Hey Hey everyone!
Well, week one of my new area is accomplished! I am loving it here! It is one of the prettiest areas that I´ve had on my mission so far! My comp is super funny and I am getting along super well with him! He is another Utah boy from the city of Mapleton. We are tearin´up these streets of Tavira!
I got to the Algarve on tuesday night after a three and a half hour bus ride from Lisbon. It was fun chatting it up with Elder Puertas and Hilton who both came down with me too! We were laughng it up and talking about all the fun times and experiences we had together. You find your best friends here on the mission!
This week was basically a week of starting over in this area. I was trying to get my bearings down and we basically are starting new trying to find investigators. We talked to a whole lot of tourists and most of them speak english. It was pretty funny because we say "Olá" to people in Portuguese then they look at us funny, so we say "Hello", then "Bonjour" then "Guten Dag" and if they don´t understand any of that we just awkwardly wave and walk away, haha. Elder Mitton is great at contacts and can get anyone laughing so it´s great.
I have met few members so far this past week! Our Branch President is a stud! We have about 16 members that come to church on a regular basis in Tavira so it is back to reality coming from Seixal of 100+ weekly! But we are going to help this place grow!
Saturday there was a huge Algarve district youth activity here in our chapel and they asked us missionaries to help with the activities. We took some kids out and did street contacts with them and it was fun getting to know them. We had a ton of kids here who have lived in the states and are just here for vacation or family work though! It was awesome speaking english to them and hanging out.
This sunday I gave a talk and I literally had to wing it from nothing. I was assigned to speak on Idleness but I had literally no time to prepare a talk and just spoke by the spirit. It´s pretty interesting how I´ve gotten so comfortable to just talk and testify and how easy the words just come to my mind! I wasn´t even nervous to get up there either so I am growing here on the mission!
We have a couple of people we are focusing on too. One is named Rian.. he´s brasilian, 14 years old, does kickboxing and is super cool! He looks like he is 21 years old though! Its super weird! He is the most ripped 14 year old that I have ever seen! He was going to be baptized in the past but he didn´t feel prepared so he decided to wait and hopefully we can help prepare him here soon! He wants to roll ju-jitsu with me at the chapel really bad. I´m actually scared of him though because he is like 6´2" and a total beast, hahaha! He is hoping to fight in the UFC in the future. I told him if I tap him he has to get baptized so we will see what happens :P I already challenged him to an arm wrestling contest and I miraculously won luckily!!!
We have also been helping a recent convert named Vasco help stop his bad habit of smoking. We made some plans with him and are going to talk to him daily to help him stop. We made a plan with the branch president that he will excercise with us every morning and that by the time I leave this area he will weigh 15 kilograms more than he does now. We are going to try to bulk him up! It´s going to be fun and we are going to help him receive the Melchisedek priesthood hopefully in November.
All in all, I am loving this new area! It has definately cooled down weather wise too! The Algarve is one of the hottest places in Portugal during the summer and it seems like I just missed the heat! 75 Degree Paradise!
I love you all! Hope this week will be great! Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father love you and live! They are waiting to help you and are just a prayer away :)
Com Amor,
Élder Brandon Haroldsen
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