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!