Batismoooo!!

Hello everyone!! Hope you are all having a great week! We had a really good week this past week! Passed by way too fast! 

We had conference on Thursday, which was so good! We learned a lot about making goals, eliminating distractions, waking up (figuratively of course), doing more, and being baptizing missionaries. It was very spiritual and gave me that boost that conferences always give! Then we got to work and applied these things into our work! 

On Saturday was the baptism on Joana! It was SO good! Before the baptism, we always warn our friends about the "Law of Opposition" and prepare them for all the bad things that can happen that day to make it hard to get baptized. We prepared her for everything (sharing personal experiences about waking up with the flu and everything), but in the end, it was us as missionaries who faced the opposition! 

We started filling up the baptism font at 12 because we knew it took a few hours to get it all full and ready. BUT after it had been filling up for like 30 minutes we went to look at the font, only to find out that a member decided to cut his hair in the font that morning, and not clean it all up. The problem? We found out a little too late. We didn’t have time to drain the font and clean it. The solution? We ran to a cheap Chinese store to find a strainer kitchen tool, and used to go fishing for hair. It was quite the adventure. I wanted to vomit, but hey it had to be done. After the font was basically all clean, we ran to our home, and ran back (which normally would take an hour in total, but we are speedy and it took like 40 minutes) to get the cookies we made for the baptism, and got there right before Joana. In the end, the water didn’t get the hot (still not quite sure why..) but Joana toughed it out and was baptized! 

The program ran smoothly and the spirit was very present! It bore testimony that Joana was doing the right thing at the right time. She is already looking forward to when she can go to the temple! Her boyfriend, a member from our ward, baptized her and it all ran perfectly! It was the perfect day! I made cookies and 3 of her friends who aren’t members marked appointments so I can go over to their house and teach them how to make chocolate chip cookies. Its so weird that they don’t have chocolate chip cookies here because they literally go CRAZY for the cookies when we make them. And they are so easy!!! 

In other news we found Mexican food today! And a frozen yogurt place, but it was closed. Sad. But the Mexican food was so good! Not anything close to like real Mexican food, but it was good. I am full now. 

Other than that, this week has been full of a lot of prayer and a lot of fasting for some of our other investigators. Its good to be a missionary and its good to be in Portugal! 

fotos: 

1.Batismo de Joana!

2.Sister Baker fishing for hair in the baptism font... gross.

3. Coooookies´

4. Conference this week! 

 

Setubal zone conference

Making chocolate chip cookies!

Sister Baker fishing hair out of the baptism font...yuck!

Joana's baptism

Progress on the Portugal Temple as of September 1, 2017

"Pray like everything depends on the Lord, work like everything depends on you"

Hello Everyone!! 

This week passed by way quickly I have no idea what even happened. I closed my eyes last Monday and next thing you know we are here again?? 

But we had an awesome week full of miracles! 

Okay I got a quick story that happened recently! So this past transfer was really part of my refining period as a missionary. I had to fight against many challenges and really dig deep to remember why I came on a mission, and why I stayed on a mission, and why I should continue on a mission. We entered an area kinda dead as a whitewash with a ward not that receptive to us. We had a ton of difficulties, and my first transfer here I got a little overwhelmed with everything that I wanted to be as a missionary and do with the area, and didn’t know how to start and do it all. I basically felt like I had no purpose in the area because we weren’t seeing much success. But after transfers we learned we would stay together in the same area and I decided that something had to be changed. SO I became exactly obedient, talked to everyone in the road, and prayed harder than I have in my life. And we have seen miracles lately!! Doors have been opening for us, hearts are being touched, and people are literally asking to be baptized (I know, what the heck??) We have a baptism next week and a few investigators who are progressing really well. I have really learned the truth of the statement "Pray like everything depends on the Lord, work like everything depends on you". I am happy and I love the people here in this area now. 

Maria Alice (our miracle investigator) is continuing to progress SO well! She decided she will stop smoking next week and started diminuing this week. She is here in Portugal all alone so she doesn’t have much to do during the day, and that’s when she feels the need to smoke. SO we had the brilliant idea to bring another member (who maybe is a little older) who also lives alone and is kinda lonely, named Ana come and teach with us. The problem? Ana talks SO much. We got there and tried teaching the Plan of Salvation; oh man that lesson was a WRECK. Ana just kept saying "let me explain it, I know it better" Oh my gosh all my patience was used up after that lesson. BUT it’s all good, because they became BEST friends! They have passed every day together since and even had a sleep over one day haha. Man Sister Baker and I (Or sister Joker if you put our names together) are the best matchmakers ever. Its been great because they both have things to do and Maria Alice has gotten even more excited about the church and to be baptized one day!! 

ALSO!! Joana (the girlfriend of a member) is so ready to be dunked! We taught her a few times this week, but she basically already knew everything. She already is reading the Book of Mormon and living all the commandments. We asked her about Joseph Smith and she basically said everything word for word. SO she’s getting baptized this Saturday, the 9th! It will be so good! She is so prepared and SO CUTE! Ah we love her SO much!! 

Random information: Here in Europe EFY is FSY aka For the Strength of Youth (which makes more sense to me??) But they have it every other year. One year it’s for the north of the country (Porto and the islands) and then the other its Lisbon and all the areas in our mission. All the youth came home to recharged and I wanna return to EFY man. I was jealous. 

SO yea, we are feeling really blessed here in our area. We have really been experiencing miracles recently with the so many opportunities to share the gospel with everyone. I feel so blessed. Last transfer really was my refining period of my mission. I had to humble myself, ask the Lord for help, and then work and be obedient to receive the help I needed. And I have really been able to see the Hand of the Lord in my life every moment here. We are happy, we are loving, and we are being loved. It’s a good life here in the mission. 

Love you all! Have a great week! 

I really don’t even have explanations for these pictures... haha Pretty sure only my returned missionary friends from Portugal will understand the two photos from the talhos. Welcome to Portugal aka the land of the raw meat. 

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!!!