This week was a good week..it seems long at times, but now I can´t believe it´s already pday!

We had Zone Conference this week (which I always love!) and it was really good. Our mission president talked about Sanctification, and being honorable missionaries vs sanctified missionaries...it was interesting, and I need to study it more, but eventually I´ll share my thoughts (and His!) with you all...

On Saturday, it was a day of service with Helping Hands ? I think. But anyways, we got to leave the house early in the morning (and we wore jeans..yay!!) and we headed off to do service. We didn´t know beforehand, but our service ended up being cleaning up a beach. So we got to the to the beach! It was a rainy, windy morning, but still the beach was so beautiful! It was the first time I´ve gotten to go to the beach in Portugal, and it was amazing, even with bad weather. The service was pretty fun too, just picking up trash from the beach.

Yesterday we had a baptism of a young woman- Bela. She is amazing- she was excited for her baptism, but also sad because none of her family came to the baptism to support her. Fortunately, the members of the ward here are amazing, and really helped her. In the talk of a member during the baptismal service, she talked about the lack of Bela´s family, and how she had already told Bela that the ward would be a new family for her. It was really touching, and I am so thankful that we are all part of the Family of our Heavenly Father, and that also we can join the family of Christ through baptism. We have the opportunity and responsibility to help and nurture one another, as we covenant to do in baptism.

This week my companion is going home, in the middle of transfers. We still haven´t heard definitively whats going to happen, but for now we think that a mini-missionary will come to Almada. A mini-missionary is a member that doesn´t receive a calling to serve as a missionary, but they live and work as a missionary for a set amount of time. In this case, she would be a mini-missionary for 3 weeks until the next transfer...but we´ll see! Life is never dull here :D

I hope that all is going well with you. This week was an interesting week with lots of ups and downs, as is fairly typical. One thing out of the ordinary is that I had to go to Lisboa to renew my visa, which took up the whole morning of two days. But, we have to cross a river on a ferry to get to Lisboa, so the journey is a little fun! It took a miracle to get me visa renewed, however. On Tuesday we did the first part without any problems, it just took about 4 hours of waiting. However, on Wednesday when we got on the metro to go to Lisboa, the metro stopped working! We waited for about an hour on the metro, and eventually it got going again. However, we had an appointment for the renewal I needed to do, and if you miss the appointment they don´t let you in at another time. There is a 30 minute grace period. My appointment was at 9am, and we finally arrived at the loja at 10:15. We got in line, but when we started talking to the check-in lady at first she said there was no way that we would get in today. If it didn´t happen that day, it would mean problems with my visa! But after she said that it wouldn´t happen, she stopped, paused for a second (we could see the spirit working on her to soften her heart and change her mind!!) and then wrote my name on the list! It really was a miracle...I´m glad that Heavenly Father wants me here and that He´s helping me to stay!!

This week I was invited to give a talk in sacrament meeting, so I used a lot of my personal study time to prepare. I felt like I should talk about unity, and it was really interesting to study unity. Unity is becoming one in thoughts, desires, and purposes, first with God and then with other Saints. We know from the book of Moses that the work and purpose of God is for us to have eternal life, or, to return and live with Him. When we have unity with God, this is the purpose of our lives as well- to prepare to return to the presence of Heavenly Father and be worthy to stay with Him...this is possible through faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the holy ghost, and enduring to the end. Preparing ourselves through these principles is one way to have the same purpose as God. But, His propósito is to have ALL of His children (as many as will accept) return to live with Him. So, if we truly have unity with Him, we will have this desire and purpose as well, and will help all of His children know and receives the principles and ordinances of the gospel so that they can prepare for eternal life...in other words, Missionary Work!!! This truly is a labor of love, and as we fulfill this responsibility we are becoming one more fully with our Heavenly Father.

Last night we (the missionarys) held a fireside for our ward. Basically it was a fireside to pedir desculpa, and ask the members how we can work with them better. It went really well, and I felt such a love for the members here! I realized more fully that truly we are all children of God, we are brothers and sisters!

I love you all, and I hope that you have a great week. My convite of this week is to read Mosias 18:17-22, about Alma and his people by the waters of Mormon...they truly had unity.

How was your week? This week went by really fast and we did a lot of work here. It is always interesting to look for and find the miracles that happen every day.
This last week was transfers, and four new irmãs arrived! Another dupla of irmãs moved into our house, and it is really fun and interesting to live with other irmãs. They serve in another area and ala, so it is interesting to hear how the work is going there, and to talk about the things that we see every day. Also, it is interesting to see another irmã being trained when it wasn´t that long ago that it was me! As the transfer was ending this week I reflected on the things that have happened and that I have learned in the last three months. Life has been interesting...
Something I have seen the importance of in life is love. In sacrament meeting yesterday, Luis (who was baptized last week) bore his testimony, and he talked about how he had found a family and sincere love in the church and its members. We can help one another to feel the love that Heavenly Father has for each one of us. It is this love that drives us to obey and follow Christ and to have a desire to return to our Father in Heaven. It is love for our fellow-beings that drives us to serve them and to share what is most precious to us. It is love that can change our hearts and our minds. It was because of love that Christ made the sacrifice so that we can change, improve, and return to Him. I am grateful for love!

Pics of Luis' baptism!

Feliz Dia de Transferencias! Today is the day of ´ligações´when Presidente tells everyone where they are moving...me and my companion are staying together here in Almada (well, for the next four weeks that are left in her mission!) But, the work is going well here.
On Saturday we had the baptism of Luis Bettencourt, a Portuguese man. It has been incredible to get to know and teach Luis- in our first lesson with him he was so excited to get a Book of Mormon (after he realized that it was free!) He was full of thanks and said that he would devour the book. A couple weeks passed becuase he was ocupado with work and family problems, but the second time we went back, it was two Fridays ago. He had read a couple books of the Book of Mormon, and said that he knew it was true. We talked about the importance of oração and that he also needed to have a confirmation of the truthfulness. But he said that the Book of Mormon felt like something that he had always lacked and never knew what it was until he read the Book of Mormon. The next day (Saturday) we returned and invited him to stop smoking and to be baptized the next week. He accepted both, and we started teaching him more. We taught him every day this last week, and he really is so amazing. He is um homen that was prepared before we ever talked to him to accept the gospel. To hear him talk about the Book of Mormon, and to see how excited he was to be baptized reminded me really of how precious this gospel is. Truly there are those that are only removed from the truth because they know not where to find it!! When we were headed to the church to have his baptismal interview, he was talking about the church and he said ´nossa igreja- posso dizer nossa igreja?!´- he already feels (and is) a part of the church here.
Então, on Saturday we had his baptism...tão engracado! Our ward mission leader (WML-Irmão Almeida) baptized him..and wow. Before the baptism we were practicing and expaining to Luis how he would be baptized, and demonstrated with our WML; but, WML was putting his hand behind the head of Luis, instead of his back. We corrected him, but it was a sign of things to come. Next, we asked our WML if he knew the name of our investigator (becuase he has 6 names in his name) and WML said ´no, but he´ll help me´. No! Tens que saber antes! So, he didn´t know his name, and didn´t know how to perform the ordinance correctly. When it was time for the baptism, it took hi m three tries to get the name right. Then he started to dunk the investigator in slow motion as he was saying the ordinance. It was like the baptism of Alma in the waters of Mormon- they both went under! Both of them fell into the water, but our WML got more wet than our investigator! He lost his glasses in the water as they both floundered to get up. Needless to say, our investigator didn´t get fully immersed in the proper maneira, so they had to do it again;it took two more tries. The final time, the stake president, who was witnessing the baptism, literally helped to push all of the investigator under the water! All of the members were cracking up and it was tão engraçado, but also triste, because this should be a sacred ordinance and experience, but the atmosphere there was not what it could be. At times life sure can be interesting. Luckily, our investigator is amazing, and was still all smiles and just happy to be baptized. He really is incredible.
During the baptismal service, my camera was stolen from the chapel...so, I don´t have any pictures to send, or any pictures from the MTC until now. It´s triste and also chato that things get stolen from the capela!!
All in all, this week was really good, and I´m excited for the month of Março! Every day is a new chance to learn and grow, and I know that the Lord has plans for each of us in the coming weeks! I see miracles cada dia, and I know that His hands are always present. I am so grateful for the chance that I have to serve here, and everything that I am learning and experiencing.
I hope that you all have an amazing week

I don´t have much time to write today, and I can´t actually think of much to write about! This week was just another week of work, and it went really well this week. We taught a lot of lessons, found some new people, and worked with some different menos-ativos também. We had an event with the Stake where leaders came together one night to do divisions to make visits. It was really good, except that only 2 people from our ward came! Que vergonha! But still, a lot of good work was done.

On Sunday the other ward that shares our capela had a baptism after church, and we attended with a pesquisador. Every baptism is so special! Baptism truly is the gate to the pathway of eternal life (i love 2 Néfi 31!) and it is always a miracle to watch someone pass through that gate. We have a pesquisador that will be baptized this Saturday, and it is so amazing to see the excitement that he has in embracing the Book of Mormon and o evangelho. Truly we are so blessed to be have this knowledge and to make this covenant.

I am out of time, but I love you all! Hope this week is awesome

This week was interesting, and contained many surprises! On Monday, our p-day, Irmã Howard and I made a cake for a member that we work with a lot (it was her birthday). We went over to her house and had dinner with her. Lídia is from Cabo Verde, and cooks really well! She made a sweet curry that had apples in it...yum! It was good to get to spend the time with her, because she is amazing and works with us multiples times a week, so we were happy to get to help her celebrate her birthday.

On Tuesday we had a surpise Zone Conference! We found out at 11h in the morning that we had a conference in Setúbal, and needed to arrive ASAP. So we traveled by metro e high-speed trains to get there. The meeting was good, but it took up our whole day (we returned to Almada at 20h), which was sad to miss the time and lessons that we had planned. But, we learned more about diligencia and obediencia. It´s interesting (at least it was to me) that we can go along thinking that we´re doing a good job, but when you take the time to step back and evaluate, you see all the things that you need to improve! So, I was grateful that I had the chance to re-evaluate my work and habits and to see what needs to chance. Every day is about changing and improving! There are Always things that we need to change, but that is the great news about repentance- that we CAN! I was thinking about repentance yesterday, and how sometimes we (at least I) have the impression of repentance as a thing of condemnation (you need to repent!). But really, repentance is all about having a change of heart, and this changes our minds and perspectives of how we view everything- God, ourselves, the world and people around us. Repentance is more than just stopping from doing bad things, but changing and filling our lives with good things and habits that help us to become more like Heavenly Father! Sorry if I went off a bit, but really repentance is such an amazing gift that we have been given.

More surprises came this week...on Wednesday we received a call from President Torgan and he told Irmã Howard ´´O Senhor está a mandar-te ás Açores´´, in other words, my companion was transferred to the Açores Islands! Some irmãs went home in the middle of transfers, so things got mixed up a bit and now I have a new companion! Irmã Holtzclaw arrived on Thursday, and she is muito fixe. She has 6 weeks left in the mission, and she is determined to make the most of the time she has, so I´m really excited to work with her. She is my 5th companion already! And for sure I´ll have a new companion next transfer because she will leave in the middle. So there are always changes here, but life is good and the work continues! It has been rainy and I´ve been a little sick, but nothing can stop the work of the Lord! We just need to seek His will and follow His guidance, and everything will work out to the best.