This last week (as usual!) flew by...nothing major happened, but a lot of little things and miracles, né, that show the hand of God. We finally managed to find one of our new investigators at home a couple times this week...she is Brazilian, a mom with two (and 8\9ths) kids. (the 8\9 means that she is extremely pregnant!). The other sisters met her a few months ago, but never managed to meet with her. We passed by and finally found her in the beginning of this week. She said that the night before, she had prayed to God to give her a sign, or help her to know how to help her family (they are having some struggles). Then the next day we unexpectedly appeared! She is so open, and likes to read the Book of Mormon. The only difficulty is that she is 9 months pregnant (I think she may have given birth this weekend!), so there are things a little more pressing in her life :) But I really feel that we can help this whole family, so I hope things continue to go well with them.

We also randomly met an inactive member in the street; he contacted us and said he had been baptized 20 years ago, but wandered long from the church. He said that when he was studying to be a catholic priest, he found a BoM on the ground and started teaching the doctrines in it. The other catholics wanted him to destroy the book, but he refused. (Does this sound familiar?) I´m not sure exactly what is his story, but I can tell that he has a sincere testimony of the restoration, Joseph Smith, and the Book of Mormon. We met with him a couple times and he came to church this week! Something that has really brought me joy that I didn´t expect (because I didn´t really think about it) is working with less-active members, helping them to rekindle their testimonies and receive the blessings from the gospel. Seeing them change their lives again brings the same measure of happiness as seeing others come for the first time.

Every other week we have an activity in our ward (put on by the missionaries, basically- there´s no activity committee!!). This last week we had a ´´Pancake Night´´ where I used my pancake making skills. All the pancake breakfasts that I did in our Relief Society at BYU came in handy! I think that all that came enjoyed the night, and one of our investigators even brought her sister ,so it was good :) Unfortunately I was so busy making pancakes that I didn´t get to eat any :\ But that´s alright.

I know that I usually preach a lot in my emails, but really, a lot of interesting and random things happen in missionary life. I wanted to just share a couple things that happened yesterday to give an idea of what happens in our day-to-day life.

Well, after church and lunch at a members house, we went to pass a less-active family that hadn´t come to church. While we were ringing the bell, a pigeon dropped a bomb on my companions head! Later, when we were on the bus, we started talking to one lady, who (speaking english) said that she prays every night for peace, and starting ``uhmm``ing there on the bus. When I told that we know that God restored His church and that we have a living prophet, she asked his name and I told her. She got really mad, started saying that we were crazy and wasting our time, swore in English, and got off the bus (all within 3 minutes). It was a little abrupt and shocking, but these things do happen.

Later, we were in a square and contacted a man who lives in France, but had been in Angola for a year and was stuck here in Portugal for a few days. Before he had left for Angola, he had talked to missionaries, so we talked with him for a while. While we were talking to him (and he was golden!), an ex-pesquisador that we haven´t seen for months came up (drunk and high on drugs), pinched my companion, and started talking about how I had lied, that we didn´t like him, and worse things. It was so weird and random! Luckily, the guy with whom we were talking defended us and got the high-ex-pesquisador to leave. So while we were talking with a golden contact from France about baptism, we were accosted this wild man. And that was the end of our day...so, life is always interesting here! We meet the elect, not-so-elect, and very un-elect! but all the while we have the assurance of the spirit that we are on the Lord´s errand and in His hands. So everything is worth it :D