Hey Y'all

Hey my Family, whatś going on?

So I want to say that my last 2 p-days were super crazy and that i am sorry i didn't write more. So two weeks ago was transfers and i was with the office elders trying to help get everyone where they needed to go, so i didn't have time to write. They said i could email but it was already a little after the time so i decided to just write a little letter thinking that next week would be better and i could write more. But then last week i had to go to Santarém and oh ya i don't have the car here because i had some complications getting my license because i just renewed my residency and have not received the new card yet and in order to get my license i have to have my residency card. But that should hopefully get here this week also one more thing with that. I need like 30 euros to pay for the license here. I had that much but had to spend it on transport. And that was all of my personal money that i had. Because things are much more expensive here without a car ha ha. And ya i have had to get a medical test done and then had to pay for that driving record to be able to switch out my license. But hopefully it should be taken care of soon! Ya they say that we have to pay like the first chunk of our license with personal money that is why i am asking for a bit. Sorry i don't like having to ask for it. But if you could put in some money i would really appreciate it.

Other than that my comp is Elder Bishop still don't have a photo but I'll send one next week. he is from Manti and is from a family of 12 kids. He is pretty cool and we are working good together. If you have any other questions about him feel free to ask. 

As with other news we are getting more people in church which is great because i found out that in order to have a branch we need 4 priesthood members and also 20 in sacrament meeting. We have 2 priesthood holders right now with a 3rd on the way here soon and 13 people in sacrament meeting. So we are pretty close to getting a branch. The hardest is getting enough people in church. We have also marked the husband of Florbela for baptism! He is marked for the 25th of May Britt's birthday! So it will be awesome. He is already super ready for it. He has made changes all on his own and really understands what this will mean for him! He is an incredible guy and it will be awesome to see that family even more united! Other than him we have a few investigators that are progressing and I'm excited to see what happens with them. Our recent converts are doing great and are helping this area grow and become stronger. We are working with Carlos to get the priesthood which will be really cool! Things here are pretty good at this moment! 

The Weather is still crazy and has been pretty rainy until yesterday and the sun came out and is still out today which is very nice! So we are going to play some basketball after we get done here! It's going to be fun. Oh ya i have to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO BRODY!!!!!!!!!!! I love you buddy and hope you had a great birthday! Also a big congrats to Tiff and Jamie! Charlotte looks super cute and i hope that all is going good with her and with Tiff. I am glad to know her name now, because before i had to just say baby but now i know her name which is pretty cute! Can't wait to meet her and also Kapri and Jake! 

Well i think that is about everything that i can think of right now to say. But I love you all and hope you all have a great week and know that i love you all! 

Love Elder Bascom

P.S. Hopefully this letter makes up for the 2 short letters i sent ha ha!

Hey Hey how y'all doing?‏

So this week especially the weekend was great! First off the baptisms happened! Carlos and Florbela were baptized! It was awesome. Thanks to all of you who prayed for them! It helped a lot. I am sending a few pictures with this as well so you can see how it all looked. So it wasn't very good weather yesterday and it was really foggy and raining a little bit, but as we left and were on the way to the reservoir i thought hey we should pray and ask for good weather because we didn't want to have it be raining during the actual baptisms. So my comp said ya go ahead. So i started to pray and the moment i started to pray it started to get sunny and stopped raining! It was incredible. They sky before was just gray, but when i prayed with my comp in the car a hole started to open up in the clouds and get bigger and bigger! By the time we got there the hole in the clouds was huge. It didn't stay sunny during the whole baptism but it was super cool and didn't rain until we ended and were heading back to the cars! So it was a pretty cool experience and showed me that God really doesn't hear and answer our prayers! It was great and was just awesome! So ya i had to tell you all about that.

Dad i don't know a Sister Gutierrez. I haven't heard of her before. Or at least i don't think i have. So it sounds like life is going good for all of you and that every one's happy. I am loving the mission and so happy to be out here and serving. The area is still a little hard and we are just working to do better and finding the leadership for the Group. We need 4 Melchizedek priesthood members and right now we have 2. With one more that was baptized yesterday. So hopefully here is a few months we can baptize another and get him the priesthood and then we will have a branch out here in Portalegre! But we have the husband of Florbela that is super close to getting baptized as well and with him we can have the forth that we would need! Other than that things are going good out here.

The weather out here is still pretty bad and raining like crazy. Today is has been raining a lot! But I am hoping it gets better because we want to play some basketball here and it's not as fun in the rain ha ha. i think it's crazy that Tiff is getting so close to having the baby and that mom and dad are going out there so soon! It will be super cool and i know that it will be great for you all. Well i am trying to think of anything else to say but can't really think of what else i should say right now and so i think that i will let ya all go. So i love you all and have a great day and week! Thanks for the emails and i pray for you all everyday!

Love Elder Bascom

 

HEY Y'ALL HOW'S IT GOING???

So this week was great!! For one i finally finished Jesus the Christ and i can tell you that really Jesus is our Savior and i am so grateful for him. I have no idea how many times that i received a stronger testimony about him and a greater desire to serve and give it my all out here in the mission. If you all need a book to help you get your priorities in order or just want an incredible book to read Jesus the Christ is it. I know that this is his Church established on the earth today! I am grateful for this knowledge and hope you all enjoy it as well.

I want to thank you all for the prayers sent this way for Stoyan! The baptism went through and it was awesome! I am so happy for him. The water was pretty cold but it was a great experience to get to baptize him. The weather was great for the baptism and then like an hour after it started to rain. And it was a big miracle that the weather was good because recently it has been not very good. But ya Stoyan is 8 and this next week will be the first official member of his family! He is a smart kid that really knows his stuff. And has a big desire to learn and will be as great member here in Portalegre. We are still working with a few other right now on baptism and trying to teach and find more people to teach. But we had a big blessing and got to find a few more people and they seem really cool and interested in the gospel. But ya the high light of the week was definitely the baptism that we had. It was great and i am just super happy right now.

Other than that i can't really think of anything else that is worth telling you all about. I miss having an area where we walked everywhere. The mission is a lot easier that way. But y ai love being here adn want to make sure i give it all i got for the rest of the mission. Glad to hear that life is going good for all of you and it seems like you're all happy and have a busy schedule. Oh ya i didn't know that Riley is going on a mission or if you already told me i forgot. But where is she going to? Tell Kayce good luck for me if you see him before he goes in and that i know he'll do great on the mission.

Well i love you all hope you all have a great week and know that i love you all a lot and hope you're all happy and enjoying life! Até proximo semana.

Amo-vos Elder Bascom

 

 Geez.... This kid has some serious spelling errors. Some things never change! Gotta love him!

Hey Hey My Family!!!

So I feel like all the best stuff has happened this week. Well in good news anyways. Jaren decides to get married, got some good news from other missionaries and MY LITTLE SISTER GOT HER MISSION CALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Still can't believe that Brittany is going to be a missionary. And speaking Spanish. That part i had guessed would happen. But i was not thinking New Jersey. Well the states are going to get the best Sister Missionary in the World! I am so excited for you Britt. I don't think that you can really tell that. ha ha. Well ya it was really cool to hear about everything today.

Well i am doing good. My address is

Rua Beatriz Rente

22   2º ESQ.

Atalaião

Portalegre 7300-015

But you can also send it to

Rua Jorge Barradas

N 14C

Lisboa 1500-370

That is the mission office and so either one will or should get to me this way. So this week was a good week. We had some really good lessons and found some cool people to teach. It is a little harder here to find people because there is not a lot of people and the missionaries have talked to almost all of them. So ya i am going to ask you all for an idea of how we can try to find more people here in a small town. but ya other than that it is really cool here. The weather is starting to get better now and we are actually having some sun again!! Stoyan the kid that we have marked for baptism this weekend is still firm and seems excited to get baptized. We don't have a font to baptize him though. So are going to a lake. Kinda like Deer Creak. but it seems a lot cleaner. It is cold though. We are going to pray for good weather and also that he doesn't feel the cold water too much ha ha. But it will be great. This last week we had 5 people in church including my comp and i. That was a little different because i am used to being in a ward or a pretty good sized branch. Well ya we aer working with all of the members to try and get them active and also with our investigators to get some more members here. Which we need. But there is a lot of potential here. We just have to find it. But it's here and waiting for us. I want to thank you all for the prayers because i can feel it everyday and i am very grateful for them. I can't really think about anything else right now.

So i love you all and i hope that you all have a great week and know that i pray for you all and hope your all doing great.

Love Elder Bascom

HEY YOU GUYS!!!

So what is this about Brittany getting her mission call?! She isn't old enough that's all I can say. But hey that is crazy to think that it is on it's way and will be here in 2 days!! I can still remember getting my call it seemed like yesterday haha. But i am guessing that she is getting called to the best mission in the world. The Portugal Lisbon Mission!!! That is my guess. So i will be excited to see her here in the next while. But ya crazy and still can't beleive it.

Well i am doing great and loving Portalegre. It is a hard area but we are starting to have some success in this area right now and we have some awesome news!... Stoyan one of our investigators is marked for baptism on the 23rd of this month!!! I am so excited and hope that everything works out. He is a very cool kid and has a lot of potential he is super smart and is super prepared already to be baptized. So ya that is the exciting news on my side right now. I am happy for all the blessings that Elder Soutas and i are recieving. It is awesome!

Well i am happy today because i finally got to take a nap and i am going to take another when i get done sending this to you all. Best thing to do on a Pday. Well I unfortunately don't have a lot of time the people here need this computer, but it's ok because not much more to say right now. But ya i am doing great. the weather is still bad here and rains almost every day. But today we actually have some sun. But i heard that it might rain this week as well. Glad to hear from you all and hope that you are all having a great daty and week. Know that i love you all and hope you're all enjoying life right now. If you can send me the video of Britt opening her call. I would love to see that before i hear it from any one else. Or just make sure that nobody puts it as their heading for the emails. Except Brittany if she wants to. Well ya i think thats about all i can think of right now. I will try to send some pictures of me and the comp and the area this next week. So you can all see what it's like here in Portalegre. But it actually looks a lot like the Azores. Well untill next week and congrats Britt i am so proud and excited for you!!!

Love Elder Bascom

Oh Hey My Family!

Hey all you people!

So how are all the people doing that i love so much?! Great i hope. So i have to say that i am very tired right now. Who ever said that life would be easier with a car in absolutely crazy ha ha. I wish that i didn't have one. But hey whatcha gonna do ha ha. So this past week we had maybe 2 and half 3 days at the most in our area. The rest of it was all meetings ha ha. Not very fun. And since we live in Spain almost we have at least a 2 hour drive if not longer to get to most of our meetings. So ya i am excited that this week we will be in our area more and out of the car! But ya good times.

So right now in Portalegre we had a rough week this past week but then again we didn't have a lot of time there. But we still have some really cool investigators that are progressing pretty well. We have a young boy named Stoyan that is a Bulgarian and we are working with him on a baptism date and he is very close to that right now. we have plans on marking him for the end of the month. The real challenge with him is that we need his parents, who aren't members, to really support him and stay active. We want to baptize the parents as well but they need documents from Bulgaria to be able to get married. But we have a big hope for them that everything will work out for them. But they are really good with us and want their son to get baptized!  The other investigators that we have right now are Florbela and Geraldo. They are the parents of the recent convert here. Who actually just got the Melchizedek priesthood last week. but ya they are super close to accepting a date and we are working hard to get them ready. But they are our main investigators right now and we are trying to find new ones which is proving to be the hard part right now. But that's ok because it will all work out and be great.

So the weather here in Portalegre is super cold, well windy and always foggy. But i like it a lot here and am learning a lot with Elder Soutas. He is a great Elder and really knows why he is here. But ya that's about it with all the news from me. In other news though Happy Anniversary Devin and Kirsten. I am super happy for you both! And also Brittany i am stoked that your papers are in and that you'll get your call here soon!

But it sounded like you all had a great week and that you're all doing good. I feel like this super bowl was a crazy good one to see. Well i love you all and i am super happy to be out here right now. I learn that again and again everyday that i am out here. This is a sacred work. We are studying the Doctrine and Covenants right now and there is a part in Section 3 verses 1-3 that i think you all should read. the last verse says that God's work can not be frustrated but only man's can be frustrated. Or in other words what we try to do alone doesn't always work. But God's work always does and is always going forward. Hope that makes sense. Well hey i am just about running out of time but i love you all and i hope that you all have a great week and know that i love you all and pray for you all everyday! Until next week!

Love Elder Bascom

Hey all you people.

So hey everyone how you doing? I am doing great here in Portalegre. This place is like nothing i have ever known. We have a car but it is honestly a little annoying having a car and i would rather walk. But it does help with some things so ya... But this area is about 4-5 and a half hours of travel from Porto. so it took a while to get here but at the same time we took a wrong turn getting here. It is in the middle of Portugal but very close to the border of Spain. We have signs all around us saying that it's like 20-30 kilometers from Spain. So ya it's fun. But my Comp is the other elder in the Picture. He is a way cool elder and so far i am loving this area. He has a year and a half or so on the mission. he trained one of the Elders that came in with me. But ya he is way cool and i am loving this chance to work with him.

So Portalegre is a super small town. And when i say small town i mean small town. Our group has about 10 people that come every week. This is including us missionaries and any investigators that show up there. But it's fun. I have to sing really loud with Elder Soutas because not very many people there know the hymns or can follow them. So ya it's hard because i am not the best singer as you all know. But it is fun all the same. We had a great week here our first week. We had higher numbers here than Elder Soutas had in all the rest of the time that he was has here. So that made me happy and they were a lot higher that what we both thought that they should be but i won't complain because we worked very hard. the work here is very different and a little bit harder. But we're excited and up to the challenge. It is actually very cold here and that is saying something because i have not been col in other areas.

The pictures are of a hair cut and me and Elder Soutas. Sorry can't write more the Internet went down and so i am only able to write this. but love you all and hope you all have a great week. 

Love Elder Bascom

 

just a side note... I (Brittany) am turning my mission papers in tomorrow and can not be more excited about it!!! can't wait to join this lovely elder in the work! hoorah for isreal! God speed the right!!

Hey Hey Guys what's going on?

 

So mom to answer your question no the package were not opened. They didn't look opened and it looked like the original tape that you all put on it. So ya we are all good there!. So Mim HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just a few days late but hey this happy birthday is sent from Portugal! That is pretty cool. Glad to hear that everyone is doing good though.

So life here is going good. We had a good week and also a not so good week. But all in all it was great because it's the mission! Nothing better than that. Well the weather here has been rain! Lots and lots of rain. But thats ok and we are excited when it rains. So right now we have a few investigators that are really cool that we are working with. Helena is one we have had for a while and we have been teaching her for a while but now she is really understanding what the church is offering for her and her family. She is very cool and really has a ton of potential! Also we have a man named Carlos that has been looking into a lot of churches and has started to talk with us alot more and it was really cool to see the way he started to talk with us and how he is right now. He is getting a ight into his eyes and is really liking what we are sharing with him. We have a few moer aswell but still have some work tro do with them. But ya it's great here and i love it!

So this morning we went and played basketball. thte game 21. And my comp is a baller and won 2 of the 4 games! I won the 3rd game and Elder Hartman one of the other elders in our house won the 4th. But it was a blast. But man are we all out of shape. We are all walking a little slower right now and it's just funny. But it was an absolute blast and made this day start off great. So we have transfers this next week and i have no idea what is going to happen. Because Elder Davis and i both have 2 transfers here in Porto together so most likely one of us will leave but who knows. I haven't stayed in the same area for more than 2 transfers so i think that i might be leaving. But ya sorry just thoughts going through my mind right now. Fun stuff.

Well i just want to say that i love you all alot and hope you all have a great week. And enjoy the pictures.

1. The Back of the Jerseys that Elder Hartman and i have. 

2. The front of the Jerseys. They are rivals

3 and 4. Pictures of the huge amount of rootbeer that we made!!!!!!! It was really good adn we still have like 4 bottles! Great stuff.

Well love you all!

Love Elder Bascom

 

 

 

 

 

i'll never understand this kid's obsession with his rootbeer. gotta love him though.