Wow, thanks for all the pics and updates of the wedding- it looks like you all had a great time! I hope you had some wonderful days together, and congrats again Dave and Liz!!

The week was good here too, though I don´t think it quite compares! Our amazing investigator Linda was baptized on Saturday and confirmed on Sunday, and everything is great with her. She really is sooo incredible; I am so glad I have the chance to know her! Her baptism was at 9am on Saturday, and we didn´t fill up the font on Friday, so we had to get up at 5am on Saturday and walk (there isn´t transport that early!) to the chapel so the font could fill up for three hours. But it was a really good service, and she was so happy. It´s amazing to see the changes that the gospel can make in peoples lives- she´s already starting to see the miracles :) So that was an awesome part of the week.

This week our mission also had a special ´´Irmãs Conference´´ just for all the Irmãs in the mission. We talked about the new curriculum for missions, and then Presidente Torgan talked for a bit. It was really good to talk about the new emphasis and to also be with the other irmãs :P

Because they flew in the Irmãs from the Açores (islands), we had some transfers early. I have a new companion- Irmã Perez. IT´s funny that I already know her from BYU- we were in the same ward freshman year. What are the chances?! We´ve already been together4 days, and I think it´s going to be a good transfer :)

I hope you´re all doing great!! This last week was good, although we actually didn´t have much time to work (at least compared to normal). My companion had to renew her visa, which took all day on Tuesday and Wednesday to do....but at least she can stay in the country!!

We were really blessed to have another baptism yesterday. A couple weeks ago we contacted a man in a bus stop that was waiting with a little girl. We´ve been teaching him ever since, and about 10 days ago we invited him to be baptized. So yesterday was his baptism! He is really incredible. He is from Sáo Tomé, which is an island off of Africa, but I honestly don´t know where exactly it is! I´ve discovered there are a lot of countries in Africa that I never even knew existed, but that have great people. He can´t read, which made it harder to include and hit hard the Book of Mormon with him, but he has a lot of faith, and is also willing to act on that faith! He accepted everything that we have taught him, and really has a testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel. It has been such a blessing to find and teach him. He also has a little girl who is sooo adorable. She has learned how to pray and sing (well, she can´t read but she makes noise!) with us...it is so awesome to see the changes in everyone in a home when they accept the gospel.

Also yesterday Vitor (who was baptized last week) was confirmed, which is always special. He already seems so different from when we found him, and is already fitting into our ward. I love that there is a power to change lives in the gospel! To see those changes makes everything worth it.

I also learned even more that God really hears and answers prayers, and when we pray for specific things, we get specific responses. In district meeting on Thursday, we were talking with our Elders about missionary work (pois!). One of them talked about specific prayers, and how we can ask for ´´rediculous´´ things in our prayers. He had known an elder in Porto who had prayed with his companion to find a ´´King Lamoni´- someone that would open the way for many more to hear the gospel. Eventually they found a radio host, who talked a lot on his program about the gospel and through whom they received many references. We also talked about the scripture Alma 29:6- that the Lord grants unto us according to our desires, whether for good or bad! So my companion and I decided to pray specifically, and we wanted to find a ´´rei Lamoni´´.

Well, yesterday we went to a big park where we like to do procura, and we´ve already had success from people there. Right when we walked in I noticed a man sitting alone on a bench. I immediately moved to go in that direction, and my companion knew exactly what I was thinking at the same time. As we approached, he got up and greeted us! (não é normal!) we didn´t know if we knew him or not (I didn´t know him!), but he said he was going to get some water. So we said chão and kept walking. About 2 minutes later my companion said, we need to go back to him now, so we went back and found him. Turns out, he went to church a lot 10 years ago (but wasn´t baptized) but then with work and other things lost contact. But he still has a Book of Mormon and reads in it regularly. He knows that the Book and the church are true, and while we were talking to him, he said that he would bring ALL his friends and everyone he knew to the church. While we were talking with him, I had to keep myself from laughing in amazement, because here was our Rei Lamoni!!!!!! We´re going to teach him tonight and invite him to be baptized...so we´ll see what happens this week!! But really, Heavenly Father is amazing. I know that he knows each of us individually, and when we pray specifically, we are opening the door to specific blessings. All we have to do is ASK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, I hope that you all have a great week! Remember I love you, and pray for miracles in your life, because God grants unto us according to our desires- if we desire and ask for miracles in faith, they WILL happen!!

Happy Labor Day!! Does that mark the unofficial end of summer? I hope everything goes well with schools starting this week!

This week was really good- we were so blessed by the Lord. IT´s funny that I´ve noticed in the mission that after you have a hard day or week, you pray a lot more sincerely, and you´re a lot more blessed! We had a reunião de zona at the beginning of this week, and it was really inspiring to move and change some things. Apparently the brethren have started a new curriclum for the missions, and this meeting was the beginning of changes according to the new curriculum. We talked a lot about teaching- teahing better and with more power. We made goals and I really felt that there are some things we need to change. So me and my companion, we talked, decided some changes to make, and are already seeing the blessings!

We prayed to know what should be our goal for baptisms this week, and really felt that there is someone in our area ready to be baptized this week. During the week we contacted a potential that we had contacted last week- Vitor. He said that he had already visited the church in Benfica, which is in another area of Lisboa. When we started teaching him, he was really open, and really prepared! HE understood and agreed with everything, and really had a desire to follow Christ and be baptized! So we worked with him a lot this week and he was baptized yesterday! It really is amazing that the Lord is the one that prepares people, and then He just puts them in our path! I am so grateful that he answers prayers according to our faith, desires, and works.

We´ve also been blessed with other investigators that we found in the last week- we basically just have men! Our leaders have said to focus on the preisthood holders, and we are finding lots of dads! We had (for us) several investogators at church yesterday, one is marked for baptism next week, and things are improving. We also have a new ward mission leader that is completely gung-ho for missionary work, and we´re really excited to start working with him and the new ward missionaries. For now, everything seems to be going well. But, it´s easy to think that we are doing it, and not recognize the tremendous blessings that the Lord gives us. Honestly, there is no way to do this work without Him, becuase it is His work, and HE is the one the prepares and touches people to lead them to make convenants with Him through baptism.

Besides getting to know and teach great people, there are a lot of lighter moments in the mission, and some interesting things happened this week....

The saga of the pigeons continues...while we were walking in the rua, a pigeon that was in the road suddenly flew RIGHT INTO my face, it almost hit me! My companion was behind me, and couldn´t even see the pigeon because I was blocking it from view because it was so close...This is the revenge for running after them and making them take flight while we walk down the road... :D

On the way to an investogator´s house, we passed an area where kids were playing. As a passed, a ball came towards me. I picked up the ball, and lugged it to the kid (that was quite a distance away). It was actually an awesome through, hard, fast, and straight at him. (it was luck!) But the old guys that were outside a cafe started clapping for me...we laughed about that for a while.

We went to visit a potential investigator whose house is in an alley with just one exit- he wasn´t home but a relative answered the door, said she was taking a shower but that would return. While we waited, a woman left another house and left the alley, closing the alley gate behind her. We waited about 5-10 minutes, then decided to leave. When we got to the gate, we discovered that the only way to open it was with the keys! So we knocked on the door of our potential´s house, but she didn´t come to the door. Then we knocked on the doors of other houses, but no one was home! We were literally locked in an alley! We banged on the potential´s door incessantly, becuase we knew someone was home, but no one ever came to the door! Finally, after being stuck for half an hour, my companion managed to wedge open the lock using our keys as a lever...what an adventure! Not sure if there´s a lesson to learn from that, or maybe just to be more careful about the gates that we use!

But life is always interesting here! I am grateful for the blessings and miracles that we see every day. I love you all, and I hope you have a great week!