Mar. 23, 2015 - The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for the good man to do nothing

That quote is spray painted on the path we walk down everyday. Its pretty good actually! 

Anyway this week was sweet! We have a baptism this Sunday!! Haha but the story behind it is hilarious! We have a member in our ward with a grandson who has been coming to church for years and knows everything but isn't baptized. I don't know why he isn't but he's 12 years old and so we just have to teach him some stuff and review and make sure he's ready for baptism. But the funniest thing happened because we hadn't even met him and yesterday they announced his baptism from the pulpit! haha he wasn't even a new investigator yet! hahah strange but fun!

Oh so we were eating lunch on Wednesday and we hear these two huge explosions. Like our windows kinda rattled. So we look out the window and there's this huge fire probably a mile away or so but it was intense! It was up on this hill and they put it out pretty fast it was intense. Heres a picture. 

But yeah we also have this other investigator Karen. She is elect! We only taught her the first lesson but she is so prepared and so ready! She has a 16 year old son with pretty bad autism which is making her skeptical to come to church but we also have a member in our ward with a 16 year old son with autism so guess who's going to teach with us? Its going to be awesome! Hopefully she'll have a baptism date in next weeks email!

Well love you all! If you think you can or you can't; YOU'RE RIGHT!

Mar. 9, 2015 - The ward is most important

Tudo bem!

Well this week was quite interesting. On tuesday I got a migraine so I stayed home all day and just slept in a dark room . That was fun. And at the same time my comp had some virus bug thing and the Stake missionary health lady told him to go on a 24 hour fast only drinking Coke. Haha strange but apparently the chemicals in the coke kill the virus. But it worked! Crazy stuff. 

But on saturday we did a little Mini-Mission or MTC activity with the youth in our ward. There were 8 Youth there and we paired them up as companions and we taught them about our daily schedule and how to sew and how to iron and we made lunch ad we practiced street contacting and it was a pretty fun experience for them! Then at the end we gave each dupla 2 cards and said dont come back with them. It was so awesome! The looks on their faces were priceless! Hahah so I took a dupla and my comp took a dupla adn the sisters too and we went to a park and had them do street contacts! It was so fun and they did surprisingly well. I was with a 16 year old kid Joel and he was really outgoing and gave his out way fast. We had a lot of fun.

Its been pretty hot this week and I got a taste of the Portuguese sun but the sun brings out people so our contacting pool grows with every degree it goes up haha

We made pancakes! With bananas and they were quite incredible. The sisters in our district have a baptism this week so thats really awesome and really brought up our spirits about the tough work here. 

Last night we had dinner with a member family and they have a 16 year old son with a mental handicap. His biological mom did drugs during her pregnancy and he was adopted by this family. And they told the story of when he turned 12 he could do baptisms for the dead in the temple. And when he came out he was dissapointed. They asked why and he said becasue he didn´t see Jesus. They kinda laughed about it but the next time they went they asked if he saw Jesus and he said YES. Sitting on the bench inthe baptistry.They asked what he was wearing and he said a purple robe. It was incredible. I believe it 100%. This meek innocent boy was expecting to see Jesus and when he didn´t he was dissapointed. The amount of faith he had to have had is incredible. Then when he did see him to be wearing a purple robe. Amazing. 

I dont know how to tie that in to a spiritual thought but it was just a cool story. Well love you guys! I can feel your prayers every day. The mission is awesome! Com Amor!

Mar. 2, 2015 - We're Master Chefs

Hello from cloudy rainy Braga!

Haha yup its still raining! Ok its not exactly "rain". Imagine this. Theres a really big fan with those mist sprayers, but like 30 feet away. And you just get that light\decent mist. but all the time. haha thas Braga for you. 

Well to start I just want to say that me and Elder Arnold have been cooking like wizards! haha this week we made shepherds pie! yup with homemade mashed potatoes and everything. Then on friday we made chicken cordon bleu! No joke! We sliced open some chicken breasts shoved in some cheese and ham and dipped them in flour then eggs then cracker crumbs to have the batter crust. Yeah heres a picture haha it was quite divine. 

Last P day we went to the big cathedral up on the hill over looking Braga called Bom Jesus and it was sweet! Catholics are pretty good architects! I found a 4 leaf clover too!! It was probably the luckiest thing ever (ba dum tss) but really we were just walking and passed this grass/clover patch and i just saw it! boom. 4 leaf clover. 

We helped a member tear out their bathroom this week. Well basically just the bathtub. It was this really old rusty bathtub that was extremely awkward and heavy ad we had to carry it down a flight of stairs and out to the backyard. It was intense. And i think i got rust on my pants and white shirt. Oh well. It was good to serve! 

This week has been pretty tough with teaching and finding people. We have had hardly any lessons and the one pesquisador who was gonna come to church didnt so that was unfortunate. But we´re going to keep working hard and fasting and hopefully I have better news next week but this area has been pretty rough. Pray for the people to be accepting.

And we had my first zone Conference! We took like a train for 90 minutes to Porto and met with everyone and it was pretty fun! I had to give the opening prayer so that was nerve racking. And we had our entrevistas with Presidente which was incredible. He is so loving and just an incredible leader and man. Ive only talked to him for 20 minutes in my whole life but i can already say that. Hes definitely called by divine revelation.

This week I looked in the Bible Dictionary at all the names of Christ and I knew there would be too many to count but 1 i found was really interesting. Captain. Christ is our captain. And we are his army. It was so cool! It made me look at him as this ripped powerful captain  with his hair flowing in the wind with all the power in the universe and WE are his army. Pretty sweet stuff. 

Love you guys and miss you all!