I hope everything is well with all of you and that you are ready for Christmas next week! It has been an interesting week here...
I left Utah Tuesday morning, and after three flights (all delayed due to weather) I eventually made it to Lisboa! President and Sister Torgan met me at the airport and I spent the night at the mission home (I am the only new missionary here). The next day all the assisants and secretaries had a training for just me ( lots of attention!). It was kind of funny, because President Torgan doesn´t speak english very well, and some of the missionaries are Brazilian and don´t speak a lot, so the training in english was...an adventure! But, my trainer (Irma Barroso) picked me up and President and Sister Torgan drove us to my first area.
I am serving in Oeiras; right now there are four sisters here. Irma Barroso, my trainer, is from Brazil. The other sister are Irma Nkutxi (from Angola) and Irma White (from the US). Irma White is going home next week, so then I will be in a triplet with two natives! It´s actually pretty fun being with natives, even though it can also be very confusing! But I always have to speak Portugues, which is good for me. I can usually at least have the gist of a conversation (at least if it is related to the gospel so I know the vocab!) My first day here, I talked to a lady on the bus while my companeira was on the phone. I really had no idea of what she was saying, I would just catch a word that I knew and ask another question about that! So, I´m not really sure what happened, but I hope that it went okay!
This is a really nice area that has a ward and a real chapel. Yesterday in sacrament meeting the Primary put on a program, and it was so cute! They had many families from the ward have some theme and talk about how the gospel blesses their family. Then they and the primary would sing a song. I loved it! Little kids and families are so amazing.
Missionary work is coming along here, but we can and need to do a lot more. Hopefully we will be having a baptism this weekend for a wife of member (she is from Cabo Verde). I really enjoy talking to and teaching the people here! (well...I can´t really talk to them yet, but I´ll get there!) Life may be a little different here, but we all essentially struggle with the same things. The gospel and the atonement of Jesus Christ can bless the lives of everyone, even if they don´t want to hear it yet!
This morning I was reading in Mosias 7, and thinking about how we are all put in a kind of bondage when we stray from the things we should be doing. I love verse 33 (? the last one) that says if we will return to the Lord with all our heart, trusting in him and giving our mind in all diligence, we will be freed from our bondage. If we just turn to Him and follow Him, we will be freed and find more happiness than we can imagine!
The theme of our mission is to ´seek the will of the Lord and fulfill the will of the Lord´. In everything we do, we seek to do what He would do, and to walk in His path. This is such a great goal!