7/24/17 - We are farmers planting seeds

BOM DIA MUNDO!!! what a week of craziness. We started off the week going to the other island to do some divisions with the other elders and as usual our flight got delayed a couple of hours. We did our first division with the elders of Angra and I was with Elder Burke who is a newer missionary from Hawaii and played on the BYU rugby team. We really clicked and got along great! Sometimes here in the Azores you can get really sad or feel unmotivated because it can be really hard at times. We wanted to help change it all up and help them feel motivated and hopeful! We divided into teams  and set up a little game to see who can get the most lessons and new investigators. The losers had to buy ice cream for the winners at the end of the night. So Elder Burke and I were running all around the city, talking to everyone, trying to teach someone. We taught this guy named Bruno who didn't believe in God and by the end of the lesson was considering baptism!! What a miracle! At the end of the day we needed to find at least one more person so we started running up this big hill knocking on every door before 9:00 pm--our deadline!  I am not joking we were RUNNING, way too competitive and not wanting to lose! We got to the top of the hill and not one person wanted to hear our message. The other elders WON we were so mad hahaha but we were good sports...and Angra has 2 baptisms coming up because of that day! 

We then returned to our island and had a 4 hour lay over in the airport-- so yeah that was fun.  Graça and Samira said that they are ready to be baptized but want to push it off. We know satan is working on them.  We haven't been able to talk since Thursday so we'll have to see what happens.  We will do everything we can to help them. Our other Graça has had a lot of work so she couldn't meet with us or go to church so we needed to postpone her baptism. But we are still planning to baptize Inês this week! We need to focus on the things we can control and have faith about the things we can't--that everything will work out. 

So a weird story, we had a member call us and tell us that he spoke to the second councilor in the mission who said that we can bless a union of this couple who are this member's friends. We went and talked to this couple that was going to get married to see what they wanted us to do...but they weren't getting married legally they were just "getting married without the commitment by the law." So they asked us if we could bless their relationship. I felt pretty sketchy about it but the member kept assuring us.  We ended up calling the mission and they said absolutely NO!  It was super stressful!

The temporal thing I learned this week was to always bring something that you can do at an airport because your flight may be 4 hours late.

The spiritual thing is that as missionaries we aren't here to just baptize.  We are here to help people come unto Christ in anyway they can.  Yes, that means baptism if they want to follow his commandments, but sometimes it is in the little every day ways.  We are like farmers--planting seeds and one day, hopefully, a lot of the seeds we planted some other missionaries will find have grown into plants that are ready for harvesting (baptism). I am happy to be here helping the kingdom of God grow.  It truly is the best thing I have ever done in my life!

Love you all!

-Elder Herrmann

7/17/17 - Graça

It’s been another great week here in paradise! We’ve accomplished a lot!  We’ve been teaching Graça almost every day and also invited her 10 year old daughter, Samira, to join in. She loves it and wants to be baptized with her mom!! They are so amazing and love the gospel so much.  We have seen such a great difference in their lives already! Graça quit smoking and Samira helped her through making a contract for her mom!! I am so excited for their progress!  The only downer with them this week was that they couldn’t go to church because her ex-husband showed up and broke in the house with alcohol.  They were able to escape and called the police.  They had to wait for the police so they couldn’t come to Church.  We moved the baptismal date back one more week.  They are safe so it’s all good and that’s the important thing.

We taught our other investigator, also named Graça, and she came to Church and is saying that she wants to be baptized! So yeah, we are blessed with a lot of "Graça" right now! It is great!

We spent a lot of time looking for people to teach and knocking doors.  To make it fun and keep us on our toes, my comp and I would give each other a contact topic to use as we approached a door.  For example, I knocked on a door and Elder Richards said, “The First Vision!”  I then proceeded to talk about Joseph Smith and testify of his role in the restoration.

Even after being here 4 months I still can’t get over how beautiful this island is.  It is literally the prettiest place on earth!

The thing I learned this week is that the Spirit is everything!  Missionaries don’t convert people--the Spirit does. I have seen time and time again in my mission how the gospel and the Church can change people’s lives. It is a privilege to bring the message and the Spirit into investigators homes. We have to do everything we can to be worthy of that sacred Spirit by always obeying the promptings of the “sweet small voice”.

I love you guys all so much!

-Elder Herrmann

7/10/17 - Just so happy!

WHAT A WEEK!  HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!! I have always loved 4th of July so much so I knew I needed to do something special that day. So Elder Richards, Elder van Wagenen and Elder Furtado (new elder here on the island) did a split/division that day and then we all went to the American store and bought a bunch of American stuff like ROOTBEER!! Then we went to the Carter’s house were they fixed us an American lunch with BBQ’d chicken. Elder Carter told us stories from when he was in the army and served in Vietnam. I’M PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!!

This week Elder Richards and I went to the mission council in Lisbon.  We felt so legit going on an airplane to a meeting.  Wow, I got a punch in the face with the Spirit during that council! We talked about a lot of things but I loved when we discussed the "whys".  Why do we do all this?  The answer is real simple...love. We love our Heavenly Father and his son and we want to share the good news of his gospel and infinite atonement with everyone! 

Well, we have some great news--Graça (the miracle from the door approach I talked about last week) is going to get baptized! We have been teaching her a lot and she cries and says, “I am feeling this peace. I need to go to church!” She came to church and was crying the whole time... especially in the end when we sang the hymn, “Where Can I Turn for Peace”.  The spirit was so strong and it was a great experience. She has so much love for everyone. Graça really is a special person, we love her and will do everything to try and help her get baptized!

The temporal thing I learned this week is that there is a reason they always say to get to the airport 2 hours early.  If you don’t you will be running and feel really stressed and be tempted to cut in front of people in line to get to the plane!

A funny story, we woke up one morning and there was a cat in our house and wouldn’t leave or maybe didn’t want to leave.  Every time we would get close to him/her it would scratch us like crazy. This cat was from Satan!  We spent 30 minutes trying to get him out of our house.  We were finally successful after we got all bundled up in coats and gloves to corner him, pick him up and take him outside.  It was so funny!

I LOVE THE MISSION!!! Easily the best decision I have ever made. I am so happy, that’s the simple way to put it... just so happy!  I love you all. Have a great week!

-Elder Herrmann

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7/3/17 - Call me Johnny Lingo!

WELL looks like I am Johnny Lingo because I am staying on this island for another transfer! I will be staying with Elder Richards again this transfer. I am really excited because I know that I was sent here for a reason and I can’t leave until I’ve done my work/purpose here... so excited to stay in these islands for at least 6 more weeks. Also, I want to give a S/O to Elder Tester who will be serving with my old comp Elder Santiago, GO GET EM!!!

Well as far as the work goes we’ve had some downers...Rodrigo (our investigator who we’ve been teaching for 3 months) told us some confidential stuff and he doesn’t want to continue studying with us. I was pretty bummed out. Later that same day we had 2 other investigators say they were done as well...so right now we are back to the drawing board trying to find an area we haven’t worked in because the other areas we’ve worked know us and our names and are NOT interested. So this last week near the end we did some exploring trying to find a new area to work.

We were in this new area and it was about 90 minutes walking from our house.  It is a little way up in the mountains and we got lost...having no idea where we were I said to Elder Richards “Should we take the right road or the left?”  He said, “Left.”  I knocked the first door and Elder Richards was a couple of doors ahead of me. This lady about 40 years old with a bunch of tattoos opened it and said that she was really busy and didn’t have time.  So I decided to just give her a card, and actually it was my last card. She shut the door and I was walking away and after 3 steps I got this really strong impression, "GO BACK AND KNOCK ON THAT DOOR NOW!" Not knowing why I just turned really quickly and knocked on it again.  She opened the door really fast and was crying. I just said, "I don’t know why but I feel I need to help you right now." She looked at me with sad eyes and just said, "Come on in." We entered the house and she told us that she and her husband were going to separate.  This has been really hard for her because she loves him and doesn’t want to separate. She said that she had said a prayer earlier that day saying, "God where are you?" She said that she thought that she was losing her faith in Christ... so when she saw the card that I gave her was a picture of Christ that says, "Hope brings faith," she knew it was an answer from God. We taught her about the Book of Mormon and will go back and teach her.  Even if she eventually doesn’t want to hear our message I am so grateful I was part of this experience.  God really does answer prayers!

The rest of the week was pretty normal—getting yelled at by old drunk people in the streets and having people speak gibberish to us--you know the same old same old. The temporal thing I learned this week was to NOT do a leg day work out before walking the whole day—you look like a grandpa! The spiritual thing I learned this week is that God uses us to help other people. That’s why it is so important to always be prepared by living so we always have the Spirit with us.  As missionaries trying to share the gospel there is a reason we spend so much time studying scriptures and praying!

Today for p-day we went to a cave!!! How cool is this place?!?!  Love you all! Boa semana.

--Elder Herrmann