Thanksgiving Feast

Happy Thanksgiving to you my beautiful family! I am so very very thankful for all the many things that I have been given. Especially for my family, my many friends, and for the gospel and its influence in my life. I have so much!

For the last couple of weeks we have been planning this great Thanksgiving feast and this week we realized our plans. It was really great. We had all the missionaries in our zone (18 in all) and each companionship had a different task. In the end we had a great amount of food and plenty of leftovers to take home. I got to make three apple pies in our little convection oven and made kits for the elders to make three pumpkin pies which turned out pretty well, their mothers would be proud. It was pretty fun and we all ate a little too much and listened to Christmas music. It´s great when a plan comes together. (reference??)

Other exciting happenings this week included an awesome zone conference on Monday. We talked about making contacts and did a practice where we all had to leave the chapel and all 18 of us had to contact someone on the street in the next 15 minutes. Normally I am a very shy person on the street (yes, yes, I know--you don´t think I could be shy) Anyway, I always have a really hard time iniciating a conversation in Portuguese, especially in the middle of the road when they don´t want to have anything to do with me. So, we had this challenge to perform and I was praying my guts out that I would have the guts to talk to someone. So, I approach the prey...a middle 30-40´s lady who looked in kind of a hurry and walking the opposite way. She glanced at me and our eyes met and then she quickly turned hers away and down, but Sister Schneiber had already done her contact and the minutes were ticking, so with a great big prayer in my heart I started talking to her and started walking alongside. She at first said she wasn´t interested, but then since we were already walking with her and keeping pace she listened a bit. It was a great contact and she was pretty interested in the end, even though she did have to go to work. We gave her our number and a pamphlet and let her go on her way. The important part of that contact, in addition to helping one more person find the happiness, peace and joy that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has to offer, was that I was able to speak and have a conversation, responding to questions and doubts with few if any pauses in a manner easy to understand--and all of this without fear of any kind. I was calm as a summer´s morning. It was a marvelous answer to my pleading. I am so thankful for the love and concern my Father in Heaven has for me. I am thankful for the atonement of Jesus Christ and for his authority and power on the earth today. I´m thankful for my beautiful family, for my amazing friends, and for the opportunity I have been given to represent the Savior on the earth to help bring souls unto happiness in His influence. I´m thankful for the great food that I just finished eating and for the opportunity to learn Portuguese. It is a beautiful language and a beautiful culture. Love you all and know that I am thankful for you and my prayers are with you.

ellen

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