A Week of Miracles!

Hello!! 

Hope you guys all had a great week! Our week was HOT! In the words of my companion "I actually like it when I sweat, because then when a breeze comes along it gets a little refreshing" That’s a sad representation of our lives right now hahah. BUT I think fall is arriving here and it should start cooling down here in a few weeks! 

Other that that, our week has been amazing! We had to travel a bunch, to Lisboa and back and then to a few workshops and meetings, but it was a good week! 

Lets start off with our sad Pday adventures last week. There is this place in Lisboa that will make covers for scriptures so cool! We decided that we wanted to go there and get them done for our scriptures. So we travel like one and a half ours to get there and have to walk kinda far. It is way hot and we have our scriptures in our hands. We get there to see that the shop was closed for holidays (like every other thing in Portugal) until September! So basically we traveled there for nothing, but decided to take advantage of our time there. The only bummer? We had to walk everywhere with our scriptures in our hands (And they were our English quads so they were big and everyone stared haha) BUT we found an American store and bought Butterfinger and Dr Pepper and Reese’s (its been a looong time without these things) and so it was a good day. This is a beautiful country. 

But this week was SO good! The Maria Alice that we found last week and came to church is continuing to progress and its SO cute! We taught her this week and she LOVED church! She even told her daughter in England about the church and told her to find a branch to go too! She said that the Spirit testified that the Book of Mormon is true and she wants to continue learning more! She wants to be baptized, but has a few problems with the Word of Wisdom, but we taught it and she said she will live it. So we are helping her stop smoking and she will be baptized! She is so elect and ready to receive the gospel is amazing! The spirit is always so strong in our lessons. She came to church again yesterday and she is just SO cute! 

Also the girlfriend of a member has been investigating the church for a few years. She said she never knew for certain if the church was true, and her dad didn’t approve that much. But she went to EFY this week and came home and said she has never been more sure of something in her life and that she wants to get baptized! She is 18 years old so she said she is old enough to make the decision for herself, and she is going to be baptized no matter what! I am telling you, EFY is the best things for youth! So we are going to teach her all the lessons and baptize her in 2 weeks I think! She has already been to church like 20 times and she is so ready! And so cute!!! 

With this week of miracles, something we have been doing is saying a prayer of gratitude together every night when we get home. The first thing we do after entering our doors is kneel together and thank Heavenly Father for the day that we had and all the miracles we saw. It has helped us recognize how blessed we are and be happier!! 

SO yea, this week was great!!! Hope you all have a great next week! 

MOM NOTE:  she sent me a note in Portuguese on accident so I asked her who she normally writes in Portuguese.  Here is her answer:  “About who I write in Portuguese... our mission president. Also sent an email to my MTC teacher and decided to prove to them that I learned Portuguese and write all in Portuguese. other than that I prefer English. With sister Conrad and Aiono when I write them its a good mix of the 2. Its great because I always forget English words and its so much easier to talk about the work in Portuguese because that’s how I always talk about it hahah “

FOTOS:

1. SETUBAL!! 

2. Sad faces with our scriptures and a closed store

3. First Dr Pepper in over a year (and it was good man)

4. LISOBA. You cant see the bridge that well, but its identical to the Golden Gate Bridge, and we have to pass it to get to Lisboa from Setubal. Its so cool! 

 

Sad faces with our scriptures and a closed store

First Dr Pepper in over a year (and it was good man)

The exact same bridge as the Golden Gate bridge in the distance.  We take it to get to Lisboa.

Setubal!

Sacrifice Brings Forth the Blessings of Heaven

Hello! 

I feel like I say the same things every week, that we had a good week. But this week it’s true! We have seen so many blessings and miracles this week! 

First off, let me just say congrats to my sister who decided to get married without me! She looked so pretty and like the perfect day. So sad to miss it but we are both doing the right thing at the right time :) 

This week I didn’t want to get distracted because of the wedding and everything going on at home, so I took down all my pictures of family and decided to not talk about my family at all, it was a sacrifice because I love them, but it was so worth it! We had a great week of work and were really focused on our purpose here in Setubal. 

We also were focused on being as obedient as possible this week, and everyday it just gets a little easier and better. We had interviews’ with President on Saturday. I love president! We spent about 30 minutes together just laughing and talking and learning together. He really is an inspired man and helped SO much! He gave me some great advice to help the work in our area. SO we returned to our area that day and I applied it and we have seen miracles! We found a lady named Maria Alice, taught her the first lesson. She said it all makes sense; she came to church yesterday and loved it! It was so good! This week we have also been doing challenges with our zone leaders. One day we decide what we have to do, and the next they decide. One day we had to talk about baptism during street contacts and with everyone we passed by, the next day was testify about the Book of Mormon. We had a lot of success actually! Then on Saturday it was about eternal marriage. I was really scared to go up to people and start talking about marriage because I am 20 and know nothing about marriage, but I started talking to this woman named Daniela. She invited me to sit down with her (we were at a park) and we talked for almost an hour. She said it makes sense that our relationships don’t end with death and that we should live with our family forever. The spirit was so strong! I learned about the power of a testimony. When we bear testimony to everyone, and not just explain who we are and get to know people, they can feel the power and want to learn more!! 

The work is going good and I am happy out here in Setubal!! Also I am terrible at taking pictures so there aren’t any this week (I am sorry, I know its the best part of emails) 

Love you all!!! 

One Year Down!

Sorry everyone I have like 5 minutes right now!! 

But we had a good week here in Setubal and this week I hit ONE YEAR!!! It’s so crazy for me to think of that. It has been the longest and also shortest year of my life. Every transfer passes even faster and it scares me so much. There are so many things I miss from home, but also so many things that I know I will miss here.  SO many ups and so many downs. Man if I knew what this year would be full of, I am not quite sure I would of left so easily. But I have never been more grateful for my decision to serve. I am learning so much out here and I know I will take these things with me for the rest of my life. I just want to enjoy all the time I have here and work my hardest these next 6 months because there are still so many things I need to learn, and be, and see, and do and teach before I will be ready to go home. I am ready to make these last 6 months count and work harder than I ever have in my life!!! 

About the language, I don’t think it will ever be mastered. Like of course I am fluent and English is long gone for me right now, but there are so many grammar principles and everything I still need to learn. Its like English, we are all fluent, but there is a reason we still have to take English classes in school because there are so many rules and things to always master. But yea I am comfortable in Portuguese. Its actually really hard to speak English right now.

Here are pictures from Pday in Lisboa and other things this week!! 

Have a great week!

 Love you all!