Monday, February 6, 2017

I've Been Serving for Six Months!

Hello!!!

We had a great week and saw lots of miracles here in Seixal!!

 It started off like a normal week working hard and finding people to teach. We were kinda in a post baptism slump because we focused on Mayara so much the past few weeks, and realized we don’t have many other investigators this week. But we have been working hard and finding new people here in Seixal!

We had a lesson with a reference. She was 15, but has a family who is incredible. She is the only one interested, but her family is so sweet and supportive. They are from France so they only speak French at home. We had dinner with them one night and I literally felt like I was at the beginning of my mission all over again when I couldn’t understand anything, I am SO grateful I will never have to relive those first few weeks in Portugal hahahaha. But is was a really good lesson and she came to church yesterday and really liked it! Our ward here is awesome and takes all of our investigators under their wings right away!!

The primary is really big here! I really like the ward here! It works like our ward back at home basically. Of course it is a little less organized and everyone is a convert so isn’t the same structure, but its really rare for Portugal here to have a ward like this. Its good. 

We have also been praying a lot for the opportunity to teach the mom of Mayara. She came to the baptism and felt the spirit really strong there. Mayara said that after the baptism the only thing she said was "I’m next for baptism". We have been trying really hard to teach her, but she has a really busy schedule and wasn’t that willing to let us teach her. But then on Sunday she just showed up to church! And we talked afterward and she let us come over and teach her. She is really interested and wants to be baptized! We marked her for 19 of February so it should be a day really special!

 Also yesterday we were walking to an appointment, but we saw a mom and daughter struggling with their grocery bags. So we stopped and asked to help, they let us help (which rarely happens) and we started talking. Turns out that they were baptized 4 years ago in Mem Martins and were really active, but then they moved here about a year ago and didn’t know where the church was so they just stopped going. They let us in their house, and we talked to them, ate a cute little brunch, and they said they want to return to church!! They said they have been looking for the church for awhile but then just gave up after some time. This was such a humbling experience to see how Heavenly Father will put people in our paths, and that is why it is so important to talk to everyone we see in the street!! They are so sweet and I am excited to work with them!

Also we had lunch with the Bishop and their family yesterday. I really like the Bishop here and he is available to help us whenever we need it! He helped us figure out which less actives we should work with and where to start with our huge ward list that we have. I also bonded with his wife a lot because she loves Grey´s Anatomy. There house was so cute and they just have the cutest little family. I am really grateful for them!

 Also this week our fridge broke. I am convinced I have the worst luck in the world, I am always having problems here in the field. I don’t really know what happened, but we called the financial elders and they told us to unplug it, let everything melt, and then try again. We did this during the day and then returned at night to find weird brown liquid all over our fridge. It was so gross, and we had no idea what to do. SO naturally I decided we should just mop our fridge.. so that’s what we did. I will attach a photo to show you the life of missionaries.

 Also this week we literally ran a mile trying to figure out what bus stop was right, ended up missing our bus. And then sprinted to catch the other one. My track and field skills are coming in handy... man these are the adventures that no one can prepare you for. hahahha we slept really good that night for sure.

 And then last night our district leader decided to play a joke on us and sent a text that it was Pday of consagração. Basically Pday would end at 3 and then we would just have a normal day of work. We started planning out when we will grocery shop and do email and getting everything sorted out when he called and said he was just joking and we have a normal Pday. SO lets just say we are appreciating this day A LOT more hahah. Sometimes you don’t know what you got until you (almost) lose it.

The Produce here is basically the same. They have the same fruits. They also have others that are more tropical! They are good, but we don’t really buy them because some of them are hard to eat and I like our basic oranges and bananas like at home. But with members and stuff I have tried others... they’re good. The veggies are basically the same I think. 

I am reading the war chapters in Alma right now. I am reading in Portuguese and really surprised I have gotten so far and could understand everything, or mostly everything. It’s been good. We have to read about 25 pages a day to stay on track. It’s hard when we don’t have much time during the day, and have to study PMG during personal study, but we have been making it work. 

Also this week my body has been doing some weird things. On Wednesday we have interviews with President so we went to Lisboa. I was completely fine. We return eat lunch, and then have 1 hour of studies. After that we were preparing to leave and I started feeling way sick. It was so weird.. right before leaving I ran to the bathroom and threw everything up. But then I felt fine so I just brushed my teeth and we left. I didn’t want to miss our appointments that night. But then the rest of the week I haven’t been feeling 100 percent and have the worst heartburn everyday. I don’t know what it is, but I have just continued and not said anything about it because its not bad enough to stop our work.. so yea its been weird. But I hope this week I start feeling better. 

 OHHH also this week was 6 months!! Our day was so crazy that I didn’t even realize it was 6 months as a missionary!! It’s defiantly been the longest/hardest/most tiring/most rewarding/happiest 6 months of my life. I am so excited to still have a year to do this amazing work here in Portugal!!

 Have a great week!! Thanks for all the support!

Sister Jones!



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