Week 33

What up family?

This week was pretty great, especially because it was Easter and General Conference. Easter is kind of a big deal here and they have a parade where they march through the streets way late at night with big statues that look like Jesus and the apostles and stuff. It's pretty apostate but it was fun to watch and they have a marching band too. It was kind of like the 4th of July but without the fireworks and the freedom.

We were fasting this week to have a lot of investigators at general conference and we had a lot of people marked to come who said they would come. Little did we know they were liars haha. We didn't have as many people as we would have liked but I realized that this fast helped the quality of investigators, not quantity. We only had 2 but one of them is named Keily and she has never been to church but she LOVED conference and she wants us to come talk to her more. She has a cute family and her husband is in France right now. She is the one who asked me why God lets children suffer, but she seems like she wants to know. Hopefully we can dunk her soon!

I loved watching conference and we got to watch it in English, which was good. I really loved Holland's talk as usual and during the story I thought of Jon and me and was crying but I pretended like I had allergies like a man! I also liked the one after Holland's about being taught the dance of the gospel and not being able to hear the music and after a while becoming uncomfortable with the dance. It applied a lot to me because I could not fully hear the music or understand the importance of it until I got out here on my mission but now I can hear it all the time and I am so grateful for it! I love this gospel and I am so grateful for living prophets. Did you guys hear those people in the Saturday session who said, "We oppose the first presidency?" I am surprised that they didn't get struck by lightning haha. Well I hope you guys enjoyed conference as much as I did! Love you guys.

Love,

Elder Ruggles

Week 32

Ola Family,

This week was pretty good. On Tuesday I planned and directed my first district meeting. I was a little nervous at first but I feel like I did pretty good. It wasn't as boring as they usually are because I made it fun, and I did half of it in English because we have 2 new missionaries in our district. Then, we got on a bus to go to an area called Mangualde that is pretty far away but we have a couple people out there to talk to.

Later in the week we talked to Wilson, our main investigator who is kinda at a stand still because he hasn't been to church. He keeps making excuses but he wants to come, I think. He has a lot of questions and sometimes they are hard to answer. Like the other day, he was reading in the Book of Mormon and the Lord spared a prophet from being killed by the Lamenites and Wilson thinks that the Lord took away their agency. I tried to explain that the Lord blessed the prophet but the Lamenites were still CHOOSING to try to kill him. I gave many examples and finally he understood a little more but he likes to ask hard questions. We are really good friends because he is our age and it's hard not to just hang out when I go over there because he is so much like my friends, he always wants to show me funny Youtube videos and stuff. He understands the importance, he just has a lot of doubts and I really hope he will be baptized this transfer!

We have been passing by this investigator named Keily lately and she is from Brasil and has been taught in the past but she is really cool and nice. Brazilians always are haha. She wants to come to church and her husband lives in France and wants the talk to the missionaries there. She has questions too like, "Why does God let children starve and stuff?" and I am just like ....."Read the Book of Mormon to find out".....all these investigators trying to stump me is pretty annoying but oh well. We talked to Carla and tried to mark her to be baptized in a couple weeks and she said it's too early but we'll see if we can change her mind.

This week an old investigator called one of our members to ask if the missionaries could teach him again and so we went to meet with him and he has a pretty strong testimony about the church. He said he feels something different there and he wants to be baptized. We are going to teach him all the lessons again and hopefully have a baptism in a few weeks! sorry I wrote so much. A lot happened this week! Today we are going to play soccer with all the youth in our ward and a couple investigators will be there like Wilson and his brother so it should be awesome! Thanks for all the support! Love you guys.

Love, 

Elder Ruggles

Week 31 - It's a Boy!

Hey everyone,

This week was pretty good, I spent most of it outside of my area because I was chilling in Coimbra waiting for my new comp. They got here Thursday instead of Wednesday because the MTC changed their flight without telling them so they missed it haha.

My new comp's name is Elder Reni and he is way sick. He is from California and he played football in high school so he is super fun to talk to. He plays the guitar really well so the first thing he wanted to do this morning for P day was go to the music store and buy a guitar to take around with him on the mission. We got a cheap one and he plays really well! He was playing a ton of sick songs I knew and we just jam so I guess you can say it will be a sick transfer! My kid is super dope!

This week we got Carla to come to church. Well, I would say the spirit did more than I did. We told her to read the BoM and pray about it and the next day we passed she said that her heart is telling her not to miss church! I was so happy when she said that.

We have also been teaching this kid named Wilson, he is 20 and his mom is an inactive member but we want to get the whole family completed and back to church. He is a lot like me in respect to his humor and I showed him my pranks on Youtube and he loves them. He always invites us over and we are really good friends and he listens very closely in the lessons. He has a lot of doubts especially about the BoM and the story of it. He wants to know where the gold plates are and he said it was convenient that I said an angel took them. I was trying to explain all this stuff in Portuguese and he had more and more questions and then Elder Reni said, "We don't know everything but God does so ask him." Wilson said he would and I know that Elder Reni was inspired to say that. While I was relying on my ability to speak Portuguese, he was relying on the spirit because that is all he can do! I am very grateful to have Elder Reni as my comp and I am grateful for the spirit in my life! D&C 100:5 "Therefore, verily I say unto you, lift up your voices unto this people; speak the thoughts that I shall put into your hearts, and you shall not be confounded before men!" Have a great week everyone! I love you and thanks for the support!

Love,

Elder Ruggles 

Week 30 - Baby on the Way

Dear family,

This week was pretty long, we had some bad numbers and no one showed up for church, not even Carla. She said she wants to wait to go to church until she finishes the Book of Mormon which I told her makes no sense but for now she is not progressing.

This Sunday was transfer day and we were in the church and normally you don't get transfer calls until that night unless someone is going to the islands so they can go to the office to catch their plane. Don't worry, I am not going to the islands but Elder Poston went to the Azores haha. They called us after church and told him to pack his bags and then they told me that I will be staying with the zone leaders while I wait to get my new comp. I will be going to Lisbon on Wednesday to pick up a brand new missionary and I will train and have a kid of my very own haha... and I am also the district leader.

I don't know if I am ready for all of this responsibility but it doesn't matter now I guess. I only have 6 months in the mission and I am training, I hope I don't screw this kid up haha! 

In the mean time, I am with the zone leaders and the Coimbra district and Elder Fox, one of my really good friends from the MTC who just got here and will be serving in the Coimbra zone with me so we are just chilling and telling mission stories! It is way cool to see him. I am super excited and super nervous for this next week but it will go well. I will let you guys know but the kid's name is Elder Reni. I know that the Lord will provide and help me to fulfill my calling but I am still a little nervous haha! That is all for now, thanks for all the love and support! I love and miss you guys!

Love,

Elder Ruggles

Week 29 - Dunking Them Pretos

Hey family,
This week was good but it was super long, we had to do a lot of stuff to prepare for the baptism and then at the last minute, everyone bailed on us. The Portuguese members don't understand that we need them so they flake out a lot and just get super lazy haha. This week our numbers kinda sucked because we were super stressed about the baptism but we went and taught that lady Carla a couple times and she is still reading everything that we leave her. She said she wants to be baptized but she wants to see how church is first, so we got her to church on Sunday and she liked it. She also went to the baptism so that was good! This week was super warm so we wore short sleeves. It was the first time I have worn a short sleeve shirt since Oeiras so it has been super nice. It was way nice walking around without a sweater and all, so hopefully it continues to be nice weather.
On Friday I did a division with one of the zone leaders in Coimbra so I went over there to sleep over and it was super fun. I was with Elder Cabral from Cape Verde and his comp went to Viseu! We had a ton of fun and Elder Cabral goes home in a week. He is way good at contacting people and one thing I learned from him is to talk to everyone like they are your best friend. We had a ton of fun and he tries to speak English with me but all he can say is "Blacks" and stuff and he calls our zone "Black Nation" he is super funny!!! On Sunday we had a baptism and it went pretty well despite everyone pulling out last minute but we got her dunked. The ward was there and she had a good experience! It was a blessing to see her baptized because she has been investigating for a long time and finally took the plunge. Transfers are next week so I will let you know if my comp and I stay here together. Love you guys, thanks for everything!
Love,
Elder Ruggles

Week 28

Hey everyone!

This week was super awesome! First, we had Zone Conference and that was super awesome! Everyone in my zone is super cool and I would love to serve with some of them at one point in my mission. The zone meeting was in Coimbra and that city is super cool. It has on of the oldest universities in the world and it is the school that JK Rowling based Harry Potter off of but we didn't get to go see it. It is still a beautiful city and I would love to serve there! 

I am super excited for this Saturday. We will be baptizing one of our investigators named Gracia and she is from Cape Verde! She is super cool and has been investigating for a long time. She went to stake conference and afterward told us she wants to better her life by being baptized this Saturday!

I have been seeing a lot of miracles lately and I would like to share one of the biggest ones. The other day we were knocking doors and having no success and so we just kept knocking. We were on the last floor of a building and we knocked a door and a lady named Carla came out. She was nice and we talked for a long time. We asked her if she needed any help and she started to tear up. She invited us back and before we left she asked if we wanted her number (which never happens). She also told us that she will never go to another church because she is faithful to hers. We came back another day and she had read all of the pamphlet we left her and told us her life story and how her kids don't want to talk to her after she divorced her husband and she feels like she has no one. She told us that before when the missionaries knocked her door she would always shut it but when we came she said she couldn't shut it and after we left the pamphlet she thought to herself, "Could this be the path I am supposed to take?" She told us the other night that she will come to church this Sunday so we are pretty excited!

This work is full of miracles, keep faith and keep praying because Heavenly Father is ALWAYS listening. I have a very strong testimony about families and it is getting strengthened because many times the people here don't have families or don't talk to them. I love you guys! 

Love, 

Elder Ruggles

Week 27 - 6 Months

Hey family,

As I have been informed by many of you, this Friday I hit my 6 month mark so I guess I am 1/4th done with the mission but who is counting? This week was long and exhausting haha but it was good. We had Stake conference in our chapel and so we had to go and help set up. They didn't have enough chairs in our chapel so they had to get some from Porto. We heard a lot of cool people speak and someone from the Quorum of the Seventy came and he gave a great talk on how the members can work with the missionaries. Hopefully people start helping out a lot now. Then, our mission president and his wife spoke and they did a really good job. We had a couple investigators there and they both loved it. Whatever one of the speakers said really worked because after stake conference was over, one of our investigators who has been investigating for a long time said she wants to get baptized and make her life better so that is super exciting.

Earlier this week we got a call from the zone leaders and they asked if we could go to Castelo Branco to do a baptismal interview which doesn't make sense because they are not in our district and we are pretty far away from them, but we went. It was a 2 1/2 hour bus ride there and their district leader is only an hour away but we don't know what's going on over there, we think they are having some difficulties. We got there and Poston did the interview then we had dinner with a member there and it was way good food. The Elders in Castelo Branco are super sick and it makes me miss 4 elder houses. After dinner we went to the castle on the top of the hill and took some sick pictures. We slept over there and in the morning we got on a bus and went back to our area. 

Yesterday after conference we had lunch with the bishop and his family and they are super sick. Bishop is pretty young and he loves playing Playstation so we just talked about cool video games and stuff. Then, we got invited over for dinner by Miguel Silva and he is super sick! He is so funny and they had pancakes and we just joked around about my comp having 3 girlfriends but a lot of the conversation went over his head so I had to translate quite a bit haha. We did some card tricks with them because their daughter loves doing magic and then we went home. I hope we keep having member meals because the members here are super dope. And I am super excited because it looks like we will have 2 baptisms this transfer! Well, that is all for this week guys. Thanks for writing, love you!

Love,

Elder Ruggles