Oct 12, 2015 - Povoa de Varzim!!

Well hello there once again!

Today was transfers! I left Covilhã after being 3 transfers there and I got moved way up north to Povoa de Varzim! Its basically like 10 minutes from the ocean and it has a ward! Which is probably the best part having been in a branch of about 17 people. So yeah I'm excited! My new comp, Elder Cox is from Tooele and is starting his 5th transfer. Its should be quite the adventure!!

It was hard saying bye to everyone at church though. I was really glad we had fast sunday yesterday so I could bear my final testimony and profess my love for my branch! haha but this past week was pretty fun! We had a branch activity and watched the Testaments! We had 3 families that said they would come and we were pumped! So we had a ton of food and everything and of course on saturday a huge rain storm hit and no investigators showed up. It was sad. BUT we still had a party with our awesome faithful branch! And the elders got to take home the extra food! Score. 

It was especially sad to say bye to the one and only Maria Jose. She didn't come to church yesterday but we did end up going over there last night to say bye. 

We were knocking some doors on thursday and at the same time a door to door salesman was knocking the same building so we stopped to talk to him. He was about 25 and he was so confused at what the heck we were doin! He kept asking How old are? Why are you here? Youre not being paid? Why? Why would you do this same hard work I'm doing but for free? And he kept asking why? And it was weird I had this moment of sudden deep thought. Why? Why am I here? And yeah "because I know the church is true" But that is just the sunday school answer. 

But no I really do know this church is true! And only through this church and the ordinances in the temple can families be together forever and I just want that for everyone! I know Joseph Smith saw God and and His Son and I want this people to know it! My mission has brought so much Joy and Hardship and I have grown so much from it and I wouldnt want to be anywhere else. So thats why :D

Love you guys and hope you have a marvelous week. This is Maria Jose who for some reason didnt want to smile in this picture. I promise shes cool haha

Oct 5, 2015 - Don't Focus on your Restrictions, but on Your Possibilities - Pres. Amorim

Happy October! 

I hope you all had a marvelous conference weekend and are all on a spiritual high! Super cool to sustain Elders Rasband, Stevenson and Renlund to the quorum of the 12. Their testimonies were super powerful! We actually got a part member family to come to conference for the Sunday morning session so that was cool! We found them knocking doors and the 2 sons were baptized in England but came back and are living with their parents who aren't members and they all showed up which was actually a big surprise because their kinda old and sick and live far away but milagres acontecem! 

But this week we spent 3 days in Coimbra! I keep talking about Coimbra because that's the HQ for our zone. Its like the 4th biggest city in Portugal with 2 huge wards and 6 duplas of missionaries working it. And on Friday we had our zone conference with president! But on Thursday we did a division with the zone leaders so we were there a day early and it was really cool to spend 24 hours with our Angolan ZL elder João! He's 24 and his girlfriend converted him and he was baptized in October of 2012! And hes a zone leader in 2015! Hes going places in life.

Then on Friday we had our zone conference and president is always so inspired! We got a new mission hymn, some new rules added to the white handbook and so much more. But all I can say is that President is SO inspired. He is truly called of God and with his vision and ideas, this country is going to explode!

Then we had interviews on Saturday. But since we live so far away we had to spend the rest of Friday in Coimbra. So we did another division with one of the other duplas and this time I was with Elder Earhardt! He's a Brazilian kid on his 3rd transfer and we actually taught a professional soccer player so that was cool! 

So after our interview we finally got back home by about 5 pm on Saturday. It was a pretty fun weekend hanging out with a ton of different Elders in the zone! 

We then watched conference with our faithful branch president and his family! Haha we were all kinda crammed into his office because that is the only place with good enough WiFi haha we had a party!

Amo-vos e espero que tenham uma semana cheio de milagres!

Sep 28, 2015 - Walnuts, Pomegranates, and Octopus

Welcome my friends to this weeks edition of "A Week in the Life of an Elder"

So Maria Jose, one of our only progressing investigators has a garden\farm. And she has this huge walnut tree! And some pomegranate trees! So we got some free walnuts and pomegranates. And they were delicious! She didnt come to church but theres always next week!

The other dupla in my district had a batismo!! Being DL I had to  interview him and it was a really cool experience. Really cool to see the change and the humility in him. He then fed all 4 of us elders dinner and it was fun to chill with other elders for a little bit!

On friday we went to the house of Christina and Fernando! We had found them about a month ago but then they went to Lisbon to look for a house and now theyre back! Unfortunately they are moving away this week but theyre obsessed with us. We visited their house just to say hi and talk about the Book of Mormon but they ended up feeding us and everything! Then they wanted us to come back the next day for dinner again! We obviously didnt decline and they made Octopus! And it was delicious! It was like this stew with fried up pieces of tentacles and potatoes and this cream sauce and it was yummy! Then we helped them move their stuff into their basement in preparation for their move of thursday. In the process of moving we found this huge box of all these random paintings of abstract randomness. turns out, christina is a professional artist and she sells these painting for 300£ or more! Whoa. As we're leaving we keep talking about the paintings and she says we can choose one to take home! Too cool! Heres the one I chose with the artist herself:D It was a fun day!

We also went to a soup festival. And we found this huge churro just stuffed with this oreo creme filling. We ate a lot this week.... Hahah every story is about food:D

We had a really cool lesson in priesthood about how we have to be spiritually strong with a good testimony before we can help anyone else. And we talked about how in planes we have to put on our own oxygen masks before we even help children. Then the stake secretary who was there said its interesting how in the scriptures it uses the word "vir" instead of "ir" or in English come instead of go. We say come unto Christ, not Go over there to Christ while I'm still over here. We have to be with Christ in order for us to say come to me, come to Him. Really cool reminder of sometimes we have to worry about our own testimony and make sure we're still doing those small and simple things every day. 

Well Love you all! Hope you have a crazy spiritual weekend with conference and find some questions to your answers! 

P.s. I dont know who the new apostles will be but I bet that Elder Rasband will be at least one of them...