6/4/18 - Leave it all out on the field!

Well the time has finally come, I'm entering into my last transfer as a missionary. I talked to President and he told me that I will end my mission as a trainer of a new missionary getting off the plane tomorrow from Italy. I am way excited to go back into the field my last transfer and have this opportunity to train again. I’m excited to be moving to a new area called Amadora, an area that has a lot of immigrants from Cape Verde and from Angola.  Also, I will have Elder Galland in the same house again. It will be a white wash because we are both new to the area so it will be fun starting from scratch. I'm just super super excited to return back to the field, to move on, and to face the next challenge!

This week was a good one, we did a lot of things to help President and Sister Tavares get ready to go home to Brazil in a couple of weeks. It's been a lot of work trying to prepare for combining the Porto and Lisbon missions to become one Portugal Mission.

Our investigator, Madalena, has decided that she will be baptized on the 19th of June. I'm super excited for her and so glad that I can make it to the baptism because my new area is close.

I had my last meeting with President Tavares planning for the mission as I’ve done every Sunday night over the past 8 and half months. At the end President Tavares thanked me for my work and it was really sweet. We had dinner with them and I just love them so much. They have really impacted my life, my perspective, and my thoughts about what I need to do with my life in the future. I am so grateful for the opportunity I've had and I will never forget them or the things they have taught me.

I don't have a lot of time to write but just want to say how grateful I am for the gospel and my mission. I don't even want to think about home so I'm just really trying to take it all in and enjoy it. I'm excited to “leave it all out on the field”!

- Elder Herrmann

FOUR missionaries from our Canyon View Stake! 

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11/6/17 - BIG CHANGES!

Wow what a week! Yesterday we got transfer calls...I got a call from President Tavares in the afternoon and he told me that I will be the new AP in the Portugal Lisbon mission. I was shocked.... I instantly felt like I was going to throw up. My comp will be Elder Egbert who is also from my MTC group so that’ll be great! The assistants to the president live in an area in Lisbon called Mem Martins. I am so excited to go there and start working! It’ll be weird having a car and a smartphone. Tonight I’m heading to Lisbon and then will start to work the next morning with meeting the new missionaries and everything. It will sure be an adventure!

Other than that my week was pretty normal. We had a district meeting in Lagos on the day of Halloween so we all dressed up.  I was Harry Potter because that’s super easy with what we wear as missionaries.

Oh, this week I got pelted with an orange.... I was just walking, then bam, someone threw an orange at me.  It was funny!! 

This week I learned a lot about prayer…it’s incredible how we have the power and opportunity to talk to God WHENEVER WE WANT!!!! I put a grand effort in my prayers this week and I really did see a difference. I am doing a "daily report" in my prayers so I report to God everything that has happened and what I could’ve done better and what help I need to accomplish my tasks. I see how the Lord is with me every step of the way every single day.  I also see that there are so many miracles! By praying with "real intent" we see how much the Lord really does bless us and how he has such a great love for us. 

I am heading to Lisbon now! Have a great week and pray for me that I can learn and serve and love!

-Elder Herrmann​

9/25/17 - Studying > Reading

Another week come and gone. I received the transfer call and I’ll be staying here in Faro for another 6 weeks with Elder Harker. We are excited and hope we will do a lot of good these next 6 weeks! I am also really happy because I love the Algarve and doing divisions in the other areas! 

SO funny story...I was doing a division in Lagos (the coolest city ever) and we passed by one of their investigators whose name is Samuel.  He is from Africa and is one of the craziest guys I’ve met. We couldn’t teach him one thing without him interrupting us. He left in the middle of the lesson and came back with a karaoke machine and started free rapping about Jesus Christ.  Then he left again and brought out a samurai sword?!?!  It was a weird lesson but in the end he felt the spirit and that’s what matters! 

This week was a lot of looking for new people to teach.  Unfortunately Marya and Rafael are not interested but maybe one day they will come back, we planted the seed and another missionary will come and harvest! We have been talking to just about everyone we see and most of the time with no luck but, hey, we will find someone!! 

We have an investigator named Cesar and his 10 year old son, Tiago.  They have been investigating the church for about 8 weeks now. They are so ready to be baptized, it’s just that he works every day in Lisbon then comes down to Faro on Sunday so we literally have no time to teach him. But we had a lesson with him during church...he always is at church so we just grabbed him during the second hour and started teaching him. He told us that he wants to get baptized and will choose a date by the end of this week. I hope we will be able to baptize him in October! 

We also taught this guy that lived in a house with 13 cats! It was so crazy! At the end of our lesson he was screaming, "NO, NO, NO, Churches are all created by man and run by man, Catholics have the pope, the Mormons have the guy in America, and the Latter-Day-Saints have the guy in Brazil!" The look on his face when we told him the "Mormon church and the Latter-Day-Saints are the same church was priceless!

Something really funny that happens a lot is that I’m stopped on the street by people who ask me if I am Brazilian.  When I tell them I’m from America they all say, “Huh?” I guess I just don’t have an American face :( 

My spiritual experience this week is nothing new. It is a simple truth we’ve heard a million times but I just want to testify that it is essential that we read our scriptures and pray every day. I see over and over again that what I read in the scriptures and learn in the beginning of my day helps me with the problems I face. It’s so simple... we have all that we need in 600 pages! I KNOW without a doubt that the Book of Mormon is another testament of Christ and that through the Book of Mormon we can know what our purpose is in life. Being a missionary has opened my eyes to a whole new world. Before my mission I "read" the scriptures, now I "study". The difference between reading and studying is our desire or intention to get something out of it. If we just read it, it is so much harder to apply the stuff we learn. But when we STUDY the Book of Mormon and apply what we learn it ultimately will change our lives. MAN, I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!  

Well, the mission is sweet, life is good, and the gospel is true!

-Elder Herrmann

8/21/17 - Faro, Portugal

Hello family and friends! Well I am here in Faro and I love it! My week has been crazy! Basically I have been running from one side of Portugal to the other. I left Ponta Delgada Tuesday morning and the airplane ride was smooth and good. Once I arrived in Lisbon I immediately left for Faro by car with the Tavira Elders. We drove for about 3 hours and finally got there late that night. My comp is really great!  His name is Elder Harker and he is a really hard worker.  The next morning we had district meeting which went well. After that we left for Lisbon AGAIN to be part of the missionary council.  It was a 3 hour train ride and we slept in the office in Lisbon that night.

The next morning we had the missionary council and it went really well! We talked about how we can always have and keep an attitude to baptize.  We also focused on how to do good follow-ups. After the meeting we were ready to go and finally work in our area, when President pulled me aside and told me that I needed to get my European driver’s license for the future in my mission. SO because of that we stayed all day Thursday and Friday morning getting my driver’s license. It was super fun but required a lot of work and documents and dealing with angry Portuguese people in the process. (So I have my European license for anyone who wants to go to Europe after my mission and needs a driver!)

Friday before we left we ate lunch with President and Sister Tavares in this Brazilian place that was really good. We finally got back to Faro but it was late and we needed to go to bed.  I was a little frustrated not to be able to get to work.  We did another meeting on Saturday morning with the leaders of the Algarve zone to try to decide on what we can do as leaders to build a stake here! It went really well and we all have the same vision to reach our goals.  I am way excited! 

From my little experience working here in Faro I’ve learned that this city is HUGE and that the people are really closed off and don’t want to meet with us. We have made about 150 contacts in 2 days with only 4 people who gave us information....you gotta love it! It’s like a challenge everyday just to have the people hear us!  We have a great branch with some Brazilians!! I love Brazilians!!! I am excited to get to work in this area--there is a bunch of potential! This week we have a bunch of meetings and divisions/splits with other areas so we won’t have a lot of time to work in our area again! It’ll be hard but worth it when we see the progress in our zone! 

Today was a really cool pday. We went to SAGRAS... it’s the farthest point west and south you can go in Europe! There were a bunch of cliffs and amazing scenery.  We went with the AP’s and then after went golfing with them! It’s always the best pdays here in the Algarve!!

The temporal thing I learned this week is that Portuguese people are crazy drivers and I am a little bit scared to drive on the roads!!

The spiritual thing I learned was that we need to be doing what Jesus wants us to do.  It’s easy to get lost in the work and forget "why" we are doing it. We need to remember that we are bringing souls unto Christ and the importance of the work.  It is not just like working for a company or a paycheck.  This is such a great work and a happy work! I don’t want the mission to end!!

-Elder Herrmann