I hope that this week passed well for you all! Spring has almost officially arrived here, and the weather is beautiful!! It always makes me happy to leave the house when the sun is shining with a bright blue sky.

This last week went by really fast, I can´t really remember all that happened. We worked a lot, talked with a lot of people, and did a lot of procura. It was a good week :)

This week I´ve been reading in Alma in the Book of Mormon. It is really interesting to read about the missionaries in the Book of Mormon; I never noticed how much of the Book of Mormon talks about missionary work until I got to the mission! Alma and Amuleque are such a great example of how to preach with power and authority, and how to work in a companionship. I love the scriptures Alma 7:15-16, when Alma exhorts the people of Gideon to `come and fear not´, to leave the sins that easily ensnare us, and to show God that we have a desire to repent.Really, it is this desire that is the most important thing that we need...our desires are what motivate us to action and determine what we will do. Our desires and goals will determine the shape that our lives will take.

This last Sunday Luis, a recent convert, gave his first talk, about honesty. We talked with him during the week to give support and help him prepare. IT was really interesting to talk with him about honesty- honesty with others, ourselves, and the Lord. Something that he said reminded me of repentance. The first step of repentance is to recognize that we have done something wrong, or that we need to begin to do something good that we are lacking. In this first step of repentance, honesty with ourselves is essencial. Without honesty, we can never change our behaviors, repent, and change our lives. Sometimes we are blinded by ourselves, and it is only with the help of the Lord that we can honestly evaluate ourselves and our lives.

Also about honesty, I shared with him the story of Ananias and Safira (? not sure of the name in english) in Acts chapter 4 or 5. They kept back a portion of what they gave to the church, and then lied to the apostles about it. They both died on the same spot. While this may seem like an extreme example, it represents what happens to us when we lie. When we try to decieve the Lord or others, we distance or remove ourselves from the Lord. This is a spiritual death. So although we may not die physically on the spot, we are doing the same thing to our spirits that happened to them... Just some thoughts I had from talking with him.

This week was great! I am so grateful for the blessings that the Lord gives us and the miracles we see every day (when we´re looking for them!). My greenie, Irmã de Almeida, arrived on Tuesday. We had to return her to the mission office on Wednesday, and pick her up again on Friday, so we spent a lot of time in transport this week! But Lisboa is cool, so it was neat to get to spend a little time in the city.

This week was so good :) I don´t know if I can really pinpoint or explain why, but becuase we had a lot less time to work (becuase of traveling), it felt like the Lord was blessing us to be really productive in the time that we had. We found some incredible new investigators this week: one is a 50yr old lady that lives and takes care of a senhora with 95 yrs; she is incredible and is ready to accept the gospel. The only challenge with her is that she cannot leave the senhora alone to be able to go to church...so this week we need to find someone or someway that she can go to church...But she is amazing- when we invited her to be baptized on May 1, she didn´t say yes or no, but just asked, á que horas? (at what time?); the other is a man from São Tomé, Luzú, that is really neat. I am really excited to keep working with them.

Training has been really fun and really good for me (all 6 days already :P ) Minha filha is incrível, and is already an example to me. I always heard about the ´greenie fire´, and it is neat to get to see and work with fogo! When President Torgan was talking to the treinadors, he talked about the importance of teaching by example. The quote ´´your actions speak so loud that I can´t hear your words´´ definately applies. So as I have been trying to teach by example, I have become better as well...I am definately already learning a lot.

I was reading in D&C this morning in section 95, and there was a verse that I really like. The Lord is talking about how the saints sinned because they were not building. He says that it is His will that they build a temple, and that if they keep the commandments they will have the force or power necessary to do so. Here in the mission we are always seeking the will of God, to know what we should do. But, we also have to be keeping the commandments and living worthily to be able to receive his help to be able to accomplish His will. We know that He always fulfills His part, we just need to do our part to be able to do milagres!

I am so thankful and happy to be here...I gave a talk this last Sunday about the two great commandments, to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves. I know that God loves us and that we are here because of this love. Have we not reason to rejoice because of the goodness of our God?!