6/26/17 - Wiser than Dumbledore, Gandolf, & Yoda!

Well this week was another great "learning experience".  Our investigator, Catia, was progressing really well and was super excited to be baptized.  We taught her all of the lessons and once again, on the dreadful Friday, she sent a text saying she doesn’t want anything to do with us. She’s in Lisbon for a week or two so we can’t reach her and don’t know what happened. We got pretty down on our selves because we have had 6 people who could’ve been baptized this transfer but somehow they all slipped away. That day we bought a coke and sat down and watched the ocean for about 10 minutes and then said, "Well let’s get back to the grind!" We started up again with fire and we have been searching and have found a man who we are now teaching. We just have to keep going with a smile on our faces knowing that we are doing everything we can!! 

We had zone conference this week and it was so good! President Tavares is a wizard, wiser than Dumbledore, Gandolf, and Yoda combined (I’m nerding out here). He talked to us about how we only grow when we are out of our comfort zone, and that when things are going well we get prideful and slip back into our comfort zone. We talked about the pride cycle in the Book of Mormon and it’s so true how we get blessed by the Lord and then we totally forget about him when things are going well, we forget our prayers, we forget to read our scriptures, we forget the little things that got us blessed in the first place. I love learning from the Book of Mormon, especially how to not make the same mistakes they made.

After the conference we had a blitz. A 'blitz' is were all the missionaries in the zone work in one area for the day to find a bunch of people for those missionaries to teach. We did the blitz here in Ponta Delgada and Elder Mitton and I were together.  We were trying to follow the Spirit and make contacts more meaningful and more direct. We contacted these two middle aged women and for some reason the Spirit told me to go kind of "Elder Holland” on them and be bold and direct. I told them we were here because their salvation was at stake and we needed them to find the right path and it was only through our message.  Surprisingly they changed their attitude and were really excited and said they would go to church on Sunday! AND THEY ACTUALLY WENT!!!! I know when we follow the Lord he will bless us with what we need to say.

I am focusing on loving the people of the Açores more. At times I get really annoyed and stressed out so I know I need to pray more for patience.  The temporal thing I learned this week is that when you run in the morning you have a lot more energy for the day! The spiritual thing that I learned is that attitude is everything! The Savior showed the way with his amazing attitude.  If you have a good attitude in life everything will be so much easier.

Então isso é tudo que eu queria escrever..... boa semana!

-Elder Herrmann

6/19/17 - Elder Herrmann Version 1.9!!!!

I want to say THANK YOU to everyone for all the birthday wishes!! My birthday was amazing! I woke up and did the normal routine but then at 8:30 am we got a knock on the door and a member named Bruno had baked me a cake and was standing at the front door with it, singing Happy Birthday! He also bought me a sweet ukulele case. It was a great birthday and now I am 19! 

Well this week was really good! We started off doing a split/division here in Ponta Delgada and everything went smoothly.  We found some really cool people who are interested in hearing our message!!!  Since Natlia and João don’t want anything to do with us, we are just looking for more people to teach.  We went to the outskirts of the island and found this girl who is 18 years old and lives with her mom. Her name is Catia and is really cool. She has a bunch of tattoos and is having a hard time right now and we went there and taught the first lesson and it was so powerful. She said she knew our church is true and she wants to get baptized...but the problem is that she can’t quit smoking.  She started smoking when she was 9 years old which may seem super young but here in the Açores it is just the culture and everyone is constantly smoking.  I always see little kids smoking and it’s so sad. So we are working with her to stop smoking.  It might take a while but we know with God’s help she can quit.

Something I’ve learned about the Açores is that they love parties--especially Holy Ghost parties.  They worship the Holy Ghost and we are in Espirito Santo season were they have a new party every day on a different street.  So that means a lot of drunks and a lot of iniquity!!!

We have zone conference tomorrow and I am so excited! The AP’s flew over last night and we spent p-day with them today by going to 7 Cidades and going to an abandoned hotel! We will do splits/divisions tonight. I am loving the mission and am loving my time here, time is going by way too fast.

The spiritual thing I learned this week is that when we show love for people they will notice or feel that love we have for them and will be open to our message more often. The temporal thing I learned is NOT to play around with pit bulls--THEY WILL BITE YOU!

Love you guys! Have a great week!

-Elder Herrmann

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6/12/17 - He knows best!

First off, I would like to give a big birthday shout out to my mom and my grandma who have the same birthday as me—Thursday the 15th! I can’t believe I will be turning 19 this week!! I kind of want to stay 18 here on my mission since I have had so many amazing experiences, but excited to see what 19 has to offer!!! 

This week we’ve had some hard stuff happen.  We’ve been teaching this little girl, Ines, but her father has not been going to church so he hasn’t received the priesthood to baptize her. Also before she gets baptized she wants to do the first communion (a catholic rite where they take the sacrament for the first time at 10 years of age). It’s a cultural thing here and if you don’t you’re an outcast. So now we have a long wait before she can get baptized. Also, our investigator Rodrigo is progressing like crazy! He is ready for it all except he doesn’t know about living the law of chastity and is scared to get baptized in case he isn’t able to follow through... so we have some work to do!  And our "golden investigators" were doing great.  We met with Natalia 3 times this week and she brought a friend to one of our lessons, already doing missionary work! She and her son were making such great progress and wanted to be baptized until Friday....Friday we were knocking on doors in the rain and it was like a movie scene, I felt this ring in my pocket and looked at my phone and it was Natalia and João saying that they didn’t want anything to do with us or our religion. We called right away and she kept saying, "But I know the name of God is Jehovah so your church can’t be true."  We think the Jehovah Witnesses were talking to them and tried to explain but she wouldn’t listen. She said that we can talk today with her, but she already said that we won’t convince her. It’s sad when things happen like this. But it’s all great, we trust the will of God. We fasted this week on Friday and our theme was accepting the will of God and then this happened. So right now we will just walk in faith knowing that what happens really is the will of God.  This understanding has helped me so much on my mission. Many times we can’t control things in our lives.... things just happen and we need to have faith and follow the will of God because really HE KNOWS BETTER!!! I wish I would have known this before my mission--it would have saved me a lot of frustration.

I had a split with the elders on the other side of the island.  Elder van Wagenen went with my comp and I went with a relatively new Elder McKee.  He is a great missionary and we were working really hard and at the end of the day he looked at me and said, “Elder, how are you having so much fun when we work? How do you find happiness when you are getting rejected 24/7?” I told him that if you are not having fun on the mission then you are doing something wrong. We can have happiness when we focus on the things we can control and not worry about the things we can’t control.  Also, it is important to be able to laugh at yourself!  That day we had a lot of success and a great time! I love this island...there are days we are knocking doors and I am just like woahhhhhh this is so sick!!! And I have to take a picture because this place is paradise!

The spiritual thing I studied and learned this week was the importance of taking on the name of Christ! It’s so much more then when we get baptized.  Every week when we take the sacrament we promise our Father that we will be an example to everyone just like Christ was and that we will do what Christ would do. I am so grateful for the covenants I made on the day of my baptism and those I make every week when I take the sacrament—taking on the name of Christ. The temporal thing I learned was--if you want to lose a lot of weight just move to a humid place.  This island is so humid I feel like I am swimming everyday just by walking!

I love you all and the next time you hear from me I’ll be Elder Herrmann Version 1.9!!!!

-Elder Herrmann

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