This week a lot of the focus was on Portuguese. We had to teach the lesson of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ on Thursday all in Portuguese, so it took a lot of work to build enough vocabulary and grammar skills to be able to communicate for 50 minutes in Portuguese! But, it actually went pretty well. Although I can get frustrated by not being able to express myself as well as I would like, when I stop and consider that I have only been learning Portuguese for 5 weeks, it's pretty miraculous! The Portuguese is coming along- I can understand fairly well when people speak slow, and can get across my general ideas. Hopefully the next four weeks will help me a lot before I actually go to Portugal. But yeah, the language is going fairly well.
I was wondering what I should write about this week, becuase it doesn't really feel like a lot has happened, just more of the same routine. But I was thinking about some of the things that have stood out to me this week, and thought I would share those with you.
First of all, God answers prayers. I've always known this growing up and had experiences of many varieties. But this last week, I have seen soo many of my prayers answered, oftentimes very quickly (which always makes me happy!). But I know that God hears and answers our prayers, and that when do the work by praying and doing as much as we can, He will make up the difference and answer our petitions. I was studying about why we pray using Jesus' name, to answer some questions from investigators. The bible dictionary says that we pray in Jesus' name when our mind is the mind of Christ, and our wishes are the wishes of Christ. Thus, in order to truly prayer in Christ's name, we can't just say the words "in the name of Jesus Christ", but the words and intents of our prayers must be His as well. That struck me as really interesting and important, and it is when we pray according to Christ's mind and wishes that our prayers are most likely to be answered.
I have also been studying love this week. Some interesting connections from the Book of Mormon- King Benjamin teaches in Mosiah 2 that we serve God by serving others, and then says in chapter 5 "how knoweth a man the master whom he had not served and who is a stranger to him and far from the thoughts and intents of his heart". We serve God by serving others, and the thoughts and intents of our hearts need to be the same as Gods to truly serve. In other words, we truly need to have charity, the pure love of Christ, for everyone that we serve, especially as missionaries and representatives of the Lord. In his talk from General Conference, President Uchtdorf taught that love should be the defining characteristic of a disciple of Christ. And that is soo true!! (a prophet would know!) Everything that we do should be centered on our love for God and our fellow-men. The only way that I can be an effective missionary and to help others feel God's love is to feel that love for them as well and share it with them. Love is the key!!
So, on that note, I love you all!!I am so grateful for all of the wonderful influences that everyone has had in my life. I am grateful for this opportunity to more deeply understand the gospel of Jesus Christ and to be able to serve my God by helping others to receive His blessings. I know that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ live, that they have a plan for us, and that as we follow the guidelines they have set through the words of prophets, we will be blessed with peace and happiness and with the opportunity to return to live with them. And I am so grateful for this knowledge!!

Sorry if this is preachy, but the only this I really have to share this week is my testimony. I hope that it strengthens yours and helps you to come a little closer to Christ. I know that His arm is ever stretched out to encircle, help, and protect us.