New Area!

Exciting to Go, but Sad to Leave

This week was great!! :) I was transferred!!! Hahah crazy!! I am up
north now, close to Porto in a city called Aviero. Its sooooooo different. Its really pretty
 and has some really pretty old looking buildings. There are those cool
looking boats and its magical! hahah! We live in our area so we dont
need to walk that far. Yeah!  We have the nicest apartment, it is huge. I have a whole room for all my stuff.  It is just me and companion in the apartment which will be different.
 Also it is more flat and green in this area. It took me three hours to get here on the bus.

 It was wierd traveling by myself.  My new companion is Sister Duke. 

She is so nice and we have been out the same amount of time.  She has
been in this area just one transfer.  They are adding another set of sisters
 to my old apartment, so there will be 6 sisters using one bathroom.  Crazy!

On the way here I passed through Coimbra.WOW it was sooooo beautiful!!!

Okay,I didn't get off and look at anything but I saw it from the bus and it was so cool!!!
 
I am going to miss my WARD!!!!! OHH I am going to miss them!! They
are all so great and helped us so much! I am going to miss all of my recent converts!!!!
 Especially Castro, hahah that guy is so funny!! Haha he told us this
week he is going to hire the fbi to find the three Nephites... :).
He fed us dinner last night to say goodbye. :) He gave me a huge
dictionary but it was so big that I had to leave it :(.

Bela is doing good. We watched the Joseph Smith filme with her this

week. She went back to smoking :(. But she seemed a little bit better.

Jessica and Yolanda ahhh I will miss them. They were too busy to do

 really anything this week...Ahhh Its just sad to think that I might not see
these people again!!  Ohhh I just love them.
 
I am not worried because Sister Carroll has got it all
under control. :) She is going to do great! I am going to miss her
too! She was a great companion and I feel like I learned so much from
her!

We were teaching the Medes Family. It was sad saying goodbye to them. They will be

 baptized soon.  I love how they have great values and are
so united as a family. They still have troubles with
 tithing and the word of wisdom. But they are great.

I am so grateful for the opportunity to serve a mission and watch how

the gospel can bless and change people's lives. I know that God loves all
of us and wants to help us. We are so blessed that we can pray to Him
 anytime that we want. I know that this is the only true church.

Lost but Now Is Found

Family Love
We had a family night last week with Castro and Hogo´s Family. We
talked about how we can stay away from Satan's influence. Then we
had dinner and it was delicious :)
We taught the Medes family. Their family is so united
and you can just tell how much love they have for each other. It was
so nice to see. The dad smokes 18 cigeretes a day but he is trying to
quit and he is down to 4 a day. The parents have a hard time
 understanding why we need to pay tithing, but we are going to keep
working with them. We have been helping the son with his English as
well and he is so ready to be batized.
 
Lost in a New Area
This new area is different. Haha we need to walk a hour before we see
 a single person! So one day we thought we would try another path
to see if it would get us to our area faster. We walked for 2 hours
and it started to get dark out. We kept asking everyone if we were in
Sobrea (dont know how to spell) and they said yes. Then we kept going
 and then we decided that we were completely lost. Haha we asked this
other lady after a while and she said no you are not even close!! We
kept walking hoping that we would find a city because were in just
neighboor hoods. After a while We decided we should ask someone. We
 knocked on this door and this guy came out and we contacted him and he
wasnt interested. At the end of the contact I was like... "Sorry sir I
just have one more question.... where are we?" hahha. He said that we
 were Costa de Caprica or something like that. Haha when we told our
elders that they said that we werent even in our area anymore and that
we were close to the ocean. So we continued walking and finally found
a city and a taxi. This new area is fun :) we decided that we
are not going to try short cuts and get lost again.

Temple Work and Blessings

Castro is doing great. He has been helping the missionaries and went to
the temple this week. So did my recent converts Jessica and Yolanda.
They all loved it. They all said that it was a great experience. The ward rents a bus
and takes everyone that wants to go.  They travel for 7 hours to the Spain
temple and do temple work, have lunch and then come back. Its 30 eros to go.

The Buffetings of Satan

Bela... So she was doing great. We vistited her on tuesday and she
 told us that people kept telling her that she was different and that
she was happier. But then sunday she came and it was like she was a
 whole new person... Apparently alot of people have been asking her why
our church is true and pressuring her and she looked online at some
anti mormon stuff and now she said that she feels like she doesnt know
if its true. Its sad. We are going to keep working with her.

A Little Taste of Home

This sunday we had lunch with the Santos again. They are so nice. I
 feel like they are family. They try to make us American food hahah its
so nice, This week we had roast and soup and apple pie!! :) it was so
nice of them.

 

Hastening The Work of the Lord

Bella’s Beautiful Baptism

Bella was Baptized!! I am so happy! So we taught her this week and she
 had a really hard time giving up smoking but she did it. She said that
 she feels a lot better now that she doesn't smoke. We also found out
 that she had a boy friend but he was super lame and so she said that
 she would break up with him.
Her baptism was great! There were a few tech problems with the font
 and it wouldn't fill all the way and it was making some weird slurping
 sounds and she had to sit down to be completely covered but everything turned out great.
 She really wants her family to follow her example but they don't
 want anything to do with it. They wouldn't come to the baptism and they tried to convince her not o come. She said that other people
 were trying to convince her not to be baptized too, but then we called
 her and she said everything was better.
 
 Also Castro is amazing!!!! The day of the baptism, our ward mission leader told us to ask
 Castro to give a talk. Castro was so
 excited and said that he would. We went in the morning and helped him
 write it. It was on the Holy Ghost.  During the baptism he was
 shaking he was so scared. Ah it made me so sad and I wanted to give it for him! But then he got up here and he gave such a powerful talk.
 After the baptism, he went home and studied more and found more
 scriptures. He shared his experience of how he knew the church was
 true. He made the bishop cry. Ohhh I felt the spirit so strong. I was
 so proud of him. Also he is going to the temple this weekend and
 received the priesthood this Sunday. It is just so amazing how the
 gospel can change people.

New Area But The Same
 Also this week we found out that we have been working in the wrong
 area and outside our ward boundaries and so have soo many missionaries
 before us... So the area that we were working in went to the other
 sisters. Ahhh!! I am sad. So we found out where our lines are for our
 new area and our new area is HUGE! It also is super far from our
 house. It is sooooo different. It has so many houses and there are no
 people in the streets.
 (There are so many pink houses hahah and every time I see one I just have to knock on the door aha I love pink)
 It has been fun exploring this new area but its harder because not as
 many people will talk to us.
 
The New Mendes Family
 This week we taught this family that was a reference from the
 Elders. The Mendes family came to the church and asked to be taught.
 The elders taught them the first lesson and then realized that they
 are in our area. We taught them this week. There is Neilson 17, Erica 5; the dad and the mom. They re such a cute family. Also they have a house!!!! It was the first house that i have been in since I left ur
 home!!! I was so happy!! We marked the son to be baptized this
Saturday but we think that we are going to move the date so that the
 whole family can be baptized on the same day! They are so great! Hah
 just hard to teach because they are never there at the same time.

Bella and Natalie in Picture

 

Conference Spiritual Boost Week

Zone Conference and Training
On Tuesday we had zone meeting. :) We learned how to get references
 from members and what to do after we eat at a members house. We also
learned new ways to contact on the street. They want us to start
inviting people to be baptized on a street contact! :) It surprised me
a little at first, but I know that the Lord has many ready to recieve
 the gospel and follow the example of Jesus Christ.
 
Right after we had divisions with the sister training leaders. I got
set up with one sister that is from Brazil. Sister Nigre... idk her
name exactly... something like that. But she was so nice. She talked
 soooooooooooo fast. The whole day I didnt even talk because she was
talking so fast and I couldnt get a word in. I really liked her
positive and upbeat energy. She was really good at conecting with
people and talking to people. I feel like I learned a lot. Sister
 Carrol went with a sister that is from Jacies area. She was really
nice too. She taught us a lot of fun and more interesting ways to teach
different things :)

Half Year Mark

The next day was our 6 month mark!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WAHOOOOOOOO I did
 it!!! hahha :)! We went out for ice cream to celebrate :). I feel like
time has just zoomed by! I cant believe that I will be home in a year
from now. Its crazy to think about.

General Conference

 Did you love General conference?!!! Oh it was so amazing! It
 was the highlight of my week. I was looking forward to it all week
:). I was so happy when I saw President Monson, I got the chills. I
feel so blessed that we have a prophet to guide us today. I know that
they speak for God.

For General Conference we watched it in the basement of our church on

the computers. Everyone else was up stairs watching it in Portuguese.
We were able to watch all the sessions. That meant that we were able to
 stay out until 11:30 :) to finnish the sunday night session. :)

I cant decide on my favorite talk! I had so many. I loved President

Monsons talk. I think my favorite session was the Sunday morning
 session. Oh but they were all so good!! :)
 
Can you believe that there are 80,00 missionarys?! I am so happy to be
a missionary! :)

 

Bella and Castro

Bella is still doing great. I love her so much! :)! She is probably
one of the nicest ladies that I have ever met. She came to general
 conference on Saturday and Sunday :). She really enjoyed the talk that
 talked about the lady that recieved bread. She has had doubts
about tithing. Elder Bednars talk was perfect for her. She came out
after that and said that she would not be able to pay tithing because
she doesnt have the money. She said that she is weak from her cancer
 but still has to clean a ladys house for money and sometimes that isnt
even enough. After talking to her and after she watched that talk she
said that she would pay her tithing. She is also smokes but she
promised us that she would quit. She is excited for her baptism this
Saturday. Castro was at conference and he loved it. He was even taking notes :)!

 

On the Other Side

One day when we were door knocking a natural gas salesman walks up
to the door by us so we contacted him. After, he offered us a job.
 hahahhah! It was funny. He wanted us to sell natural gas. hahah :)