Week one in the field

So this week has been long so far.  Last Wednesday we got on a bus at 6am.  Then we got dropped off in Sandy.  We met the President and his wife.  They are such amazing people.  I love them already. 

So the first missionary I met... was the one who's blog I followed. Weird!  Like actual first.  He thought it was cool though.    We got to go to the Draper Temple and see the view of the valley where you can see 3 temples.  It’s really beautiful.  We were told to set a goal for how many baptisms we wanted to personally convert, mine is 120 by the end of my mission.  It’s kind of a lot but I know I can do it.  I met my first companion and his name is Elder Gomes (Go-mmmm-'s not to be mistaken for Gomez).  He is from West Africa in Cape Verte.  He is funny.  It’s kind of frustrating sometimes about me not knowing things but I try my best.  Oh yeah... and I'm learning Portuguese.  He speaks it fluently and we are over a Portuguese Ward.  There is one in Taylorsville.  So when we teach lessons in Portuguese... I sit and smile and nod.  It’s kind of funny.

On Thursday we had such a good day.  This 13 year old boy names Sione (who is Tongan. See-own-ay).  He told us he wanted to be baptized!  He is being baptized on Sunday.  One down.  He reminds me of Zack, because he plays football and is tan.

On Friday we taught a less active family, we watched a movie with them and I could feel the spirit so strong with them as we talked about it after it was so neat! We also went to follow up on a referral of someone who went onto Mormon.org and asked the missionaries to stop by.  We knocked and she asked us to come in, throughout the conversation she asked when her and her daughter could be baptized!!  I am so thankful the Lord is preparing all these people for us.  It was so perfect. 

Saturday I started learning some Portuguese.  I can read it pretty well like pronouncing it and stuff it’s like a mix between a fake Spanish accent and a french one…or so I think. Elder Gomes tells me I am doing good.  We taught 3 lessons that day, we had 5 scheduled but one rescheduled and one just wasn’t home.  One of them we taught was a man named Sam.  He was very Chinese and very Catholic. He doesn’t understand about Joseph Smith or what we try to teach him about Joseph.  But we brought a member in the ward named Matt with us.  He is 16 years old and a junior in high school.  He bore his testimony, it was so cool!  2 of our 3 lessons were in Portuguese so I didn’t understand much but I smiled and nodded and played along. 

We get fed pretty well here, the first night we had soup then the next night steak and then the next night was a chicken dish thing.  It was good though.  Overall I am having fun and I do actually like my companion.  He is so funny most of the time and his accent makes me smile.

Oh yeah and since my companion is from Africa, and we have the Brazilian ward that covers most of our mission we have a car and only I am allowed to drive it!! :)  So no bike or walking for me any time soon.  That’s good and bad…but we have a Chevy truck.  It was scary at first but now it’s all good. :)  I am loving it.

My P-day is on Mondays.  Please write letters.  I love hearing from family, home and everyone.

Love Elder Willis