Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Week 58 - Back in Abrantes

Hey everybody!
This last week was pretty good, we didn't have great numbers but I am getting used to that haha. Last p-day I went to get a hair cut and the lady cut it way too short on the sides so now I look like the hipster Europeans here but it all grows back eventually. 
We have been working pretty hard with our buddy Lucio, he is really cool and starting to open up to us a little more each day we go to visit him. He is a little lonely so he really appreciates us coming by and being his friends. We taught him the other day and he told us that he wanted to come to church even though he told us he would never come to church! We were way excited and he came at 9:30. Because I am group leader and we have such a small group, my comp and I have to teach the classes and give the talks in church. Lucio stayed for Toblers class but during my class about the life of Christ he left. Apparently it wasn't good enough for him haha.
In other news, our hunt for all the graffiti of Herbal is going well and we are pretty sure we have found them all. Every once in a while we will find a new one or a hidden one and rejoice and take a picture but it will probably slow down this week. 
Today the whole district decided to come to Abrantes to do a district p-day! It is super cool being back in my old area, it brings back a lot of memories of when I was a greenie learning the ropes! Shout out to Elder Riggs my trainer who is in Lisbon being Zone Leader and my other trainer Elder Cluff who is at home married! We all live so far away so it was a little planning but we are all here in my old area emailing and we are planning on going go carting! It should be a fun time but that means that I can't send any pics today and I won't have a lot of time to email. Love you guys lots
Love,
Elder Ruggles




Week 57 - Herbal

Hey family,
This week has been pretty good. We have been working really hard to help this group get bigger. We have been contacting a ton, good thing my comp is a contacting machine and his contacts are always super funny, maybe I can learn something from him. We have been finding some new people but they have been dropping us as fast as we can find them. Not only have we been trying to find new people but old ones too. We bought a map and found all the inactive people and we are going to start visiting them this week.
It's weird to think that half of this transfer is already over. I feel like I just got here and that we are just starting to work. It is weird being group leader, when usually you are just focusing on investigators, as group leader you have to plan church and seminary so it feels like you have less time. The group needs a lot of help so me and my comp are working really hard to help them be self sufficient so they don't need so much missionary support. 
We have been teaching this guy named Lucio who is really cool, He is a little slower and weird but who isn't? He really likes us because we are his friends and he doesn't have a lot of company. He is Buddhist and he wants to read the BOM but he told us he won't change. We will see, he asked for a little bit of time and he says he doesn't want to waste our time but what he doesn't know is that our missionary purpose is to hang out with him haha. He came to 10 minutes of church and then just walked out which was weird but we will talk to him again this week. 
Church was alright but we only had 3 of our own members there but we did have a missionary couple come from the Abrantes ward. It was nice to have them teach one of the classes. Usually we have more than 3 members but like I said, the group needs some help. 
In other news, my comp and I have noticed that there is a reoccurring tag of graffiti in this city. On almost every other street there is the word "HERBAL" and so we have made it a companionship challenge to find and take a picture with every herbal tag in the city. We have made some significant progress! 
That is all for now! Thank you so much for your prayers and your support! Love all of you, talk to you next week!
Love,
Elder Ruggles






Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Week 56 - Old Friends and Old Memories

Dear Family,
This week was pretty dry, we did some driving, some proselyting and them some more driving. Every Tuesday we have to drive for an hour and a half to get to the other Elders' area for District meeting which is the worst but we just jam out in the car to church songs and General Conference talks. So if anyone has any favorite churchy songs or conference talks shoot them my way.
On Wednesday and Thursday we stayed in the house almost all day because I wasn't feeling good but Tobler was a real champ about it. We sat at home and ate ice cream and jammed on the guitar which was a nice break from things. 
On Friday after weekly planning we went to Santarem which is a 2 and a half hour drive so that we could do some baptismal interviews. This is the smallest zone in the mission and it only has 3 Districts which means 3 district leaders, 1 of which is also the zone leader. I am the only one with a car and the capability to go to any area I need to so I have a feeling I will be doing a lot of baptismal interviews. It wasn't all bad because we got to hang out in the mall a little bit after the interviews. The best part was on the way back we had to stop by Abrantes so I could talk to the branch president about the group and give him the tithing. He was so excited to see me. If you guys forgot, I served in Abrantes 7 months ago. After that, I went to visit some other families in the branch. I went to Diamentino's house and the whole family freaked out when they saw me and they all remembered my name which is impressive here.
We reminisced about Elder Cluff and Riggs and Abrantes for a good hour. They want me to come back for a family night so I will see what I can swing but I will definitely come back to Abrantes because I have to talk to the branch president quite often! 
Nothing else really happened, this transfer will get way better though. Elder Tobler is super dope and this area is pretty cool we just need to get these people baptized. Thanks for everything, see you next week. The title of this email makes me sound like an old man thinking about his war buddies... oh well. Love you guys.
Love,
Elder Ruggles

Week 55 - Roundabouts

Well Family,
I am sure you are all dying to know where I turned up and how I am doing. My new area is called Portalegre and if that area sounds familiar to you it is because I did a division here 7 months ago which is pretty uncommon. It is the area that is in the same district as Abrantes and is close to Spain. Elder Jones, my last comp, went to Abrantes so he is still in my district which he was not too excited about haha. It's like one big circle, like a roundabout. My new comp is Elder Tobler and he is super cool, he is from South Jordan and he went to Bingham high school. He even went to the tech center for engineering so I am pretty sure I have seen him at least once in my life.
I spent most of this week in Porto in the office getting my license and then we had to drive all the way down to Lisbon, which is leaving the mission, to get the license. I spent a night in Lisbon with the office elders and one of the elders serving there is Elder Simpson, who was my first trainer and I thought I wouldn't see him until after the mission which was so cool. At first I was excited to drive but now I realize how wrong I was... The roads here are super small, roundabouts suck and the drivers are so bad it makes Utah look like Formula 1 drivers. We finally got to the area on Thursday, then we had zone meeting the next day so I have already used a lot of our monthly gas and kilometers. 
The congregation here is really small and they don't have enough priesthood leaders to run it so I am the group leader which is like being branch president but smaller. I am also district leader so at this rate I will be Mission President in no time. Just kidding, I am not a huge fan of leadership and was looking forward to being a junior comp again but oh well the group here is sick. This Sunday we had the District president come to church who is pretty much the stake president but of smaller groups. He pulled me aside after church and said if the group doesn't grow it will have to be shut down. It was pretty much one of my favorite conversations, I love being told, "baptize or else." We will see how it goes. We will work hard and we will baptize. Gotta love leadership..........not.
I didn't end up getting to go to the baptism of Leticia unfortunately which really bummed me out especially because I had a car and could have made it there. Viseu is like a 3 hour drive to get there and I tried calling president but he didn't answer so I will have to call the family later and say congrats. That is all for this week. Make sure you keep writing, and I did not end up getting the package but don't worry about it. It might turn up eventually. Love you all!
Love,
Elder Ruggles


Me and my trainer in Lisbon
Elder Tobler

Saturday, September 5, 2015

Week 54 - White Wash

Well family,
If you have read the title of this email you now know that I am finally leaving Viseu. We are going to be whitewashed and after 7 long months I am really going to miss this place. This ward really became my family and I was informed that not only my ward but the ward of Viseu 1 that meets in the same building as us have been reading my blog, so I better watch what I say haha. We usually have to wait until the night before transfers but seeing as how it is a whitewash we need time to prepare so we got the call today.
This week we did some more teaching and we were able to talk to Marcos again and he is really liking the church and the BoM. We were unsuccessful in teaching his friend Helder but Marcos is progressing a little better than Helder. He came to church this past week and he liked everything except the end which happened to be a training given by the first counselor in the bishopric on emergency preparedness. He said it was a little boring but you know me, I love emergency preparedness haha. Hopefully bishop doesn't read this one haha just kidding. 
We have been trying to work with less active members lately and we have been successful in talking to a couple less actives and we are trying to figure out how we can help them. The problem is a lot of them have some complicated problems and we keep trying to tell them that things will get better if they come to church but they never come. We will keep working with them though.
I still don't know where I am going or who I am going to serve with but I hope I go and serve with Elder Bianucci. I have been praying to serve with him for the last couple weeks. Today we went with the sisters and had lunch at a Brazilian Rodizio like Tucanos and it was really good and that is when we got the whitewash call but now I can go say goodbye to all my friends. We are having a family night with the Silva family and making pizza so that should be super fun. Hopefully I go to Madeira with Bianucci and we can drink Pina Coladas on the beach haha! Well thanks for everything! Love you guys! I'll let you know where I am at next week!
Love,
Elder Ruggles
(Los Frijoles) 






Week 53

Hey Fam,
Well this week was pretty much the same, we are still looking really hard for people to teach and we do contacts for most of the day but we did find 2 cool guys last week named Helder and Marcos. They seem pretty interested and they are really cool, and they are from Angola. One of them is Catholic and the other is from a weird church called Mana. They have been reading the BOM and they say they believe it is the word of God. We invited Helder to be baptized and he said he already was baptized into his church and we explained authority and he says he believes that there are multiple churches of Christ... wrong. We will work a little more with him this week.
In other news, one of the sisters in our district broke her foot and is spending some time in the mission home and then her comp got the flu. At this rate, all my sisters will be out of here pretty soon and President will never make me district leader again. 2 down 2 to go haha just kidding, but if you could pray for them that would be cool. 
This week we tried going to a little town out of the city and you have to take a bus there. The town is called "Fail"... and it is rightfully named that. The town is so small, I wouldn't be surprised if it had less than 200 people living there. Jones and I made some jokes about the name and got to work. We knocked almost every door in the town only to find out it has been worked hard by the Jehovah's Witnesses. Every person we talked to asked if we were a J-dub and we always had to specify who we were. Many of them wouldn't talk to us because they either didn't like the J-dubs, were waiting for a J-dub to come teach them or were J-dubs themselves. I don't know if we will go back to J-dub land any time soon but we do really understand why they call it Fail now. In my personal studies last week I finished Jesus the Christ which was awesome. It is one of my favorite books and I learned so much about the nature of Christ. Besides the BOM, it is probably the best book to read and it is no small feat, 7 hundred something pages but I loved every page. Now to finish the Bible... maybe, we will see, I would like to know it a little better.  Another thing I did this week was I made Mom's cinnamon rolls and they turned our really good for my first time. The dough was really sticky and annoying to work with but I shared them with the sisters and they loved them. They were not as good as Mom's though, maybe some day. Well that is all for now, make sure you are all saying your prayers and reading the Book of Mormon daily so that the devil will have no power over you! Love you guys!
Love,
Elder Ruggles