Week 40 - Be of good cheer!

Hey family!!

This week was better, last P-day was awesome at that waterfall. It felt like I was back in Utah hiking with my friends again, even though this district is all sisters, I do enjoy hanging out with them on occasion haha. This week started out kind of rough and we still didn't have contact with our investigator who was marked for baptism.

We did a division with the zone leaders on Wednesday and I stayed here and did a division with Elder McColley which was way fun. Elder Reni went to Coimbra with Elder Neilson. Elder McColley and I had a lot of fun with some funny contacts including one where we were talking to a lady who was really nice and we asked her what she does for work. She said that she used to own a restaurant and then sold it then it went out of business and so she bought it back to remake it into a bar. Elder McColley gave me a big smile and starts talking to the lady about her old restaurant and he said, "Much like the gospel of Jesus Christ, your restaurant was perfect until it fell into the wrong hands but now it will be restored into a bar." We both busted up laughing because it was too perfect. We couldn't stop laughing and then the lady started laughing and she had no idea why. It was one of the funniest contacts of my mission.

During the division, Keily texted us and said we could pass by finally so we went and talked to her and turns out that her husband had told her before he left to France that he did not want their children being baptized and Keily took offence to that because it made it sound like he cares more about the kids than her but that is not what he meant. Needless to say, she doesn't want to be baptized anymore and she doesn't want to come to church. She is kind of giving up. We have talked to her more since then and she seems a little more open to keep trying but she just seems sad and stressed. You can really see a difference that the gospel makes in peoples' lives.

The week was kind of focused on Keily and we didn't have very many lessons. We had some pretty bad numbers this week and no investigators in church but this week we have some new people to talk to and hopefully they will be ready for the gospel. In good news, the sisters in the district have baptisms this week and I am super excited for them. One of the investigators is named Andre and we have gotten pretty close with him over the past couple weeks and he really likes us. Reni will be doing the baptism and Andre wants to serve a mission and be like us. 

Even though these past couple of weeks have been hard, I have been very blessed with the spirit of comfort and I know that the Lord is pleased with me. "Let us not forget that 'be of good cheer' was a commandment too" (I think some apostle said that or something). Love you guys, thanks for all the support!

Love,

Elder Ruggles

Week 39

Dear family,

This was a hard week, let me tell ya, probably one of the hardest of my mission. It started off awesome. We were preparing Keily for baptism and I have never had an investigator as prepared as she was. We were teaching her every day and she was reading every night in the Book of Mormon and then she would send us a text about what she learned and she was stoked to be dunked. We had the Zone Leaders come down for a night on Friday and they interviewed her and she passed and we kinda just had a little party that night and didn't get much sleep so that was fun.

Saturday got here and we were way excited for the baptism and during morning studies we got a text message from Keily that said her husband's uncle died and that there would be no baptism. Elder Reni and I called her but she wouldn't answer or text back so we ran to her house which is like a 2 or 3 mile run....in our suits. We told her we were at her house but she said she already left. We waited at her house for her to come back or call or something but nothing happened so we went back to the church. We called her a ton and texted her but then she said that she would call us later. We called everyone and cancelled the baptism and walked to her house 3 more times that day. We haven't heard from her until this morning and she said she would call us on Wednesday... we were pretty sad and the ward was upset as well. In the end, we did all we could do and it still fell through. We are hoping to mark her again but if she won't talk to us then there is not much we can do. 

At least we had dinner with the Silvas on Sunday to cheer us up and we had pancakes like we always do. Then after dinner we went out to work but it turns out that on Sunday night Bemfica (one of the big teams here in Portugal) won the Portuguese championship and so the Bemfica fans raged the streets and started fires and threw alcohol! They drove around and honked their horns and behaved in a way I thought only wild animals could. I thought the human mind has too much of a conscience for this kind of behavior but people were taking clothes off and making so much noise... They are nutz here.

But, on Sunday night Miguel invited us to go to a waterfall for P-day so this morning we woke up and skipped studies (YOLO) and drove an hour to go on a hike! It was beautiful and so much fun! The whole district went and Miguel is my favorite person in the world. He just makes jokes about sisters like I do and he thinks I am super funny. One of the sisters tried to sit shotgun and he said, "Nope, Elder Ruggles sits there." It made the week a lot better and it shows me that the Lord will never let me feel alone even at the worst of times. I can still see his hand in my life. I love the work and even though this week was hard to keep working, all of your support means so much and you may think, "He is on a mission and is busy" but the letters really make the week a lot better so thank you for all those that write me. I love you guys and miss you.

Love,

Elder Ruggles

Week 38 - Mother's Day!

Hey Family,

How is it going? I hope you had a great Mother's Day Mom! This week we were really looking for new investigators because we lost half our area to the sisters. We were walking on a road we had walked on a thousand times and we stopped and had an impression to knock on a small house in an alley. We knocked on it and it was the house of some Brazilian students, they were super cool and let us in. They liked the message and said they would read the BoM if we brought one so we brought 2 and the next day they were fighting over who got to read it first so we dropped another one off! They are super cool and hopefully they will come to church this week!

In other news, we marked a baptismal date for Keily this Saturday and she is super excited. She is a little nervous and doesn't want too many people there but we are inviting the whole ward so she can just deal with it haha. Her birthday was this week so we stopped by her party and had a ton of food and awesome cake. They had alcohol but she was not drinking. They played Just Dance and went crazy. Brazilians are crazy especially when they are drunk but it was funny. They sang happy birthday to her and brought out champagne and she said, "I am not drinking" which was way cool!

As you know, on Sunday we got to Skype and it was really good seeing you guys! It was awesome that we had the Grovers and the Armstrongs in on the Skype call and we will have to do that for Christmas as well! After that, we had a pancake dinner with the Silva family which is always a blast but the sisters came so it wasn't as fun haha. Just kidding, I like sisters...I just love being a district leader over a district of only sisters...

Well that is all for this week, I love you guys and it was awesome seeing you. Christmas will come super fast and we will be Skyping again and we will wonder where the time went! 

Love,

Elder Ruggles

Week 37

Hey Family,

This week was pretty good. It was really hectic because we had a zone meeting and we had to help the new sisters open up a new area. We got 2 new sisters in the district, Sister Johnson (who came in with me) and Sister Smith (a greenie). They are cool but they stole half of our area and half of our investigators so now we have even less people to teach. Don't worry, we made sure that we will still be teaching Keily!

This week our numbers weren't awesome but we had some things to do like I said, but that is still not a good excuse. Our mission had the worst week for baptisms and I think president is really mad. We had 7 baptisms in the mission with over 100 duplas...pretty bad. President's letter is usually 2-3 pages long but this time it was 1 page with just the baptismal stats on it. We taught Keily a couple times and tried to pass Carla but she was never home. I think we might drop her because she is not progressing anymore, won't come to church and thinks she doesn't need baptism. 

We finished all the lessons with Keily, and finally got her the 4th lesson which is commandments. We have a rule in our mission where you have to teach that one with a member of the bishopric because people here don't pay tithing. It's hard for us to do that because our bishop lives super far away and he only has one counselor who works a lot. At the beginning of the week we talked about the Word of Wisdom and we had taught it a while ago but she thought that a little bit of wine and coffee wasn't bad so she did not stop. The other day while we were talking about it she gave us her coffee but already had a bottle of wine open and said, "last bottle." We tried to take it but she said no. The next day she said she tried to drink some but could not swallow the wine and spit it out in the sink. Then, she poured out the bottle in front of us and hasn't had coffee or wine in a week now!!!

Keily's husband, Ezikiel, has been working in France for the past year and only gets to visit every so often. He came home this week and we had dinner with them and he is awesome. He is the nicest Portuguese guy I have ever met. We taught him a lesson on families because he has an awesome one. He said he is annoyed with God because he is missing his kids growing up. He said the only reason he is in France is so that they can have food and if there was another way, he would do it. Keily has been trying to go down there for a while but she is from Brazil and can't travel whenever she wants to like Ezekiel. We invited him to church and he said he would be sleeping because of his long trip but he and Keily showed up to church with their 2 kids! We are going to try to mark a baptismal date with Keily for this week so Ezekiel can be here! Hopefully next week she will be baptized! 

Love you guys,

Elder Ruggles 

Week 36 - Sticking Around

Hey Family,
This week was a long one, our numbers were actually pretty good but the last week before transfers is always hard because you are worried about leaving and the Zone Leaders just want the best numbers possible so they pushed baptisms like crazy. The sisters had someone marked for baptism this week and the bishop of their ward thought it wasn't a good idea to baptize him so early so he was telling the sisters no. The ZLs were calling the sisters telling them to baptize so the pressure just made the sisters cry and I had no idea what to do so we met them at the church and I told them to say a prayer to see if he should be baptized and they didn't end up baptizing him.

The other day we were teaching Keily and we told her that transfers were coming up, BIG MISTAKE. She was really upset at us and was sure that both of us were leaving which almost never happens. She said that she does not agree with transfers and said she doesn't want new elders. When we stuck around she was so relieved but we better baptize her before one of us does leave haha. 

As you can tell by the title, I am not leaving Viseu quite yet. The Lord still has some work for me to do here and I am pretty sure that work is baptizing Keily and Carla! On Sunday we got invited over to the Silva's house for pancakes after church. Every Sunday they eat pancakes and they usually invite us. I ate 10 pancakes because I was so nervous for transfers and everyone was running around being loud then the phone rang and everyone was quiet to hear transfers. My ZL was playing a joke and told me I was going to Madeira (islands) and then he said just kidding you guys are staying and everyone in the room started cheering haha it was way funny. The sisters ended up staying too. Plus our ward will be getting 2 new sisters so Elder Reni and I had to split the area to share with some sisters...I wasn't too happy about it. 

Today we didn't do much, we just goofed around, slept a little and played ping pong. I haven't played ping pong since I left home and I was a little rusty but it didn't stop me from destroying Elder Reni. In the beginning he was kinda close to my skill level but after warming up he did not stand a chance. I beat him 8 times in a row but it was way fun! Well that is all for this week, hopefully next week we have a baptism with Keily but I will let you know! Love you guys!

Love,

Elder Ruggles

Week 35 - B-Day Surprises

Hey Family,

Well this week was a lot better than last week that is for sure! Bishop invited us to his house for dinner which was awesome! We had some good turkey and he loves snails so we ate quite a few of those.

I did miss all of you on my birthday but the people here made up for it. Being a Ruggles, I did not want many people to know it was my birthday so I only told my comp... I had told my investigator Keily a few weeks before but only because she asked and I did not think she would remember. We went to her house on my birthday and we taught her like everything was normal but at the end of the lesson her 5 year old son took me into another room to show me something and there was cake and treats in there and they sang me happy birthday haha it was embarrassing. Then, we went to ward council meeting and my comp had told bishop that it was my birthday during our family night with him the night before so he brought out a cake and they sang to me. I was embarrassed yet again but he said, "We don't forget anyone here" which was nice.

I got your guys' package the other day and I loved it. I especially loved the Dr. Pepper because that doesn't exist here unless your area has an American store which mine does not. The night before my birthday I got a call from a very special friend. That's right, Elder Bianucci got permission to call me and we talked forever! It was so cool and it was like I was at home talking to him like the good old days. The night of my birthday I got a call from a member in my first area, Oeiras which I thought was weird cause I didn't speak to anyone in my first area and I said, "I thought you forgot about me" and he said, "I never forget my elders." He went through a lot of trouble to call and get my number and area so it meant a lot.

We didn't have any investigators at church this week which sucked but Keily is almost ready to be baptized. She still doesn't have a date but she should soon. She is trying to give up coffee and wine which shouldn't be too hard! I did a division this week with the Zone Leaders which was awesome. I went with Elder Neilson and he is way cool and hilarious. Pretty great week! Love you guys thanks for the birthday wishes and all the support and especially the package! 

Love,

Elder Ruggles

Week 34

Hey Family,

This week kinda sucked haha. It started off bad because every p-day we like to go out to eat at a restaurant and last week was no different. We decided to go to Burger King because they are the only restaurant that offers free refills. After p day was over we had a lesson with Wilson and during the lesson I was burping a lot. We got home and I didn't feel good and I went to the bathroom and lost all the Burger King. I was throwing up every hour that night and didn't get any sleep. I lost stuff I ate 2 weeks ago haha and after that I couldn't sleep. I had to miss the zone conference the next day which I was sad about because a ton of my buds were there. There is one upside to the story. I lost some weight and now I look like the Hollywood movie stars. I think I will do this more often haha just kidding it was awful. Never thought BK would betray me like that. President called to see if I was still alive but all is well now.

We had a couple good lessons with Carla and I wasn't feeling good and I was tired of her excuses so I was bold and just said, "You know you need to get baptized" and we marked her for this Saturday but she called the other night and she said she can't quit smoking and she will never be a Mormon because of all of our rules. We tried talking to her and she said we could pass by and she knows the church is true but she doesn't like the "rules"...or the commandments. We decided to give her some time to think and so we will pass by next week but it sucked.

We taught Wilson a little this week but he still isn't reading so I don't know what to do with him. We had a good lesson with him on the importance of the BoM but he still has trouble reading and believing without seeing the gold plates. Keily came to church again and she is really liking it. She is probably our closest to baptism and her kids are adorable. Her daughter kept yelling during sacrament and said the cutest things.

We had a family night with the Silvas last night which makes everything better always. They are my favorite family and they always make us pancakes. We have a family night with the bishop tonight so I will let you know how that goes and try to take more pictures haha, I kinda spaced it this week. Thanks for all the birthday wishes. I love you guys!

Love,

Elder Ruggles