milagres

so this week was a good one, I asked to see the miracles that occur with regular frequency and I saw them. It was great. We did lose our new investigator Jenea, but we got another one in the same predio. Anabela is a cute girl. She is a doctor and has a new baby (anyone recognize the key indicator here) anyhow, before we started the lesson she was telling us her beliefs about God and basically taught the first part of the lesson to us. It is miraculous to see people quoting scripture that they have never read. Anyhow, our other investigators Vasyl e Paula e Cleber are also doing very well. Last week they gave up going to a concert Saturday night so that they could get up in time to go to church. Also they walked all the way to church in the rain. Vasyl is almost constantly on the internet looking for things about the church. It is pretty neat. We also found some new contacts this week that have promise, so we´ll see if they pan out. Yesterday was a very wierd day in my otherwise good week. I think we found about every wierd person in the city. There were some doozies, and there was this one homen that came up and was blatently hitting on us, it was really annoying and uncomfortable. There was this one very intelligent guy who was telling us that really God was just a way to describe how aliens were the ones who brought us to this planet, and stuff, he was citing all kinds of studies done at oxford and stuff and it was so funny, but also crazy because in all of his proofs for his theory, I found in my mind proofs for the Book of Mormon. It was crazy. Then we found a couple of other people that believed in something akin to the movie Matrix. It´s really hard not to laugh out loud when they tell you in all seriousness that they really believe these things.

The weather is good. Sometimes hot, sometimes cold, rains and then is hot and then cold. I just think I need to go and buy a couple more things one of these Thursdays so that I don´t have to wash and iron them quite so much. No one here has dryers here, and the washers are smaller, so things do get quite wrinkled. I love it here though, I think I love all types of weather, so this is just fine. The Lord is really blessing me here.

Tell Sister Simler and Sister Hinchman of my love and also give my best to Grandma Jex, and Grandpa Jex and Grandma & Grandpa Thompson as well. Good luck on the house and all. I´m sure it will work out exactly as it is supposed to. Sure do love all of you.

Oh, Martha, I realized that I never said anything about Keturah and Alaina´s birthdays. I thought about them each on their day and told my companion, but forgot to write anything to them. Make sure they know that their favorite aunt still thinks about them, even though I can´t write as often as I´d like. One of these weeks I´ll have time enough to write a letter I hope, but we´ll have to see.

On that note, in case I forget. Happy Birthday on the 5th Gina! Another year older and wiser, yes?

Oh, one of my favorite scriptures this week is in 2 Nephi 1 when Lehi breaks down repentance into smaller steps for Lama e Lemuel: Awake (acknowelge) shake off the chains (get rid of the sin) (do something about it) arise from the dust(get rid of the habit and leave it behind you, don´t do it again, ect) and rebel no more against Nephi (listen to the words of the prophet and replace the sin with something good) that´s just a llittle overview, but that is cool. We had a mission conference this last week which was awesome! President talked to us about the importance of the book of mormon in our teaching and challenged us to use it more. Also he gave us an extra half hour each week to study the book of mormon as well as a clean copy to mark the references to Jesus Christ in one color and the references to the first principles of the gospel in another. I have found a new unsatiable hunger for reading the book of mormon. I could do it all day. I love that book! Thanks for the cards Mom. The ones to the mission office arrived a little bit after one week, so I´ll have something good to look forward to this week.

So, love you all! The book of mormon is really the most correct book on the face of the planet. I think it might be one of the very few that gets better and better with each reading, which in itself is a testimony of it´s truthfullness. hope all is well.

ellen

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to the fam

So it was a pretty hard week this week, although we did have some good times. We had another week of knocking doors and getting them shut in our faces. My feet are getting tired of that. Anyway, finally yesterday we got in and taught a first lesson, it was so exciting after so much time of being rejected. Jinea is a cute Brasilaira who just moved with her husband to Portugal and they have a cute 7 month old son. We have invited them to church, to our "Actividade Espectacular" we´re having tonight, and to read the book of mormon. I really think that she might do all of those. We also have a couple that we have been teaching Vazil from the Ukraine and Paula from Mozambique and her son Cleber who all came to church on Sunday and other than feeling like it was very long, really liked it. Hopefully they´ll be there tonight also. It was just really exciting to get a new investigator so that we can teach a lesson more than a couple of times a week. I´m getting very good at negative responses at the door in portuguese and could probably give you every excuse in the book, however, I personally would rather learn more words about the lessons and how to teach better. Anyway, Sister Landro and I usually practice our portuguese by telling each other stories between rejections. it is kind of fun.
Sorry about the famine of letters Mom, it is just that preparation days are so short and action packed for me. We have studies until 11:30 and then have to clean the house, get groceries, do any other shopping we need, lunch, e-mail, and then any site seeing we want to do before 6:30 when we go back to proselyting, but I will do better. Oh, so if ever anyone wants to send a package, which is expensive, the advice is to make it kind of small so it will come directly to me and I don´t have to go get it from customs, ect. As for the pouch address, I don´t really know, also, I don´t really care if I get them, but if Sister Couey really wants to, more power to her. Thanks for all the news of Relief Society. It is nice in this ward because there is really a strong ward here so that for instance on Sunday when we brought our investigators to church they were already integrated. It was nice. Also it is good to hear that Grandpa and Grandma are doing better. It´s probably good for Grandma to be a bit more independant and for Grandpa to get a little TLC and attention.
So, a plug for missionary work. If any of you know people that have 1. lost a family member recently 2. had a new baby recently 3. moved recently or 4. had teenagers who are rebellious, offer to have them over to a family home evening or something and then offer to have the missionaries teach them in your home. it is really the ultimate way. For instance, our cute little Jinea has two of these indicators and I am certain that they made her more receptive to our message. The Lord will prepare people to teach if we will just do our part and open our mouths, taking that step of faith into the darkness.
I really love this opportunity that I have to exercise and increase my faith on a daily basis. The scriptures are truly amazing and really the more I study the more I find that they really do answer every single question that we have. The trick is to always be immersed in them and then we will encounter answers to questions that we either had the day before or that we will have. It is so awesome to be able to help teach other people to use them in this same way. An awesome chapter to read which could take years to fully understand all that is contained is moroni chapter 8. At first glance it is only about infant baptism, but there are so many other basic principles of the gospel in there. I am working on my own topical guide and I think I added about 10 new topics today during my study of this chapter and added a lot to topics I already had cateloged. I really love the book of mormon, and it is funny how I learn different things reading it in english than I do in portuguese, but it is all true. Love it!
Sorry also to Samuel, i have been a bit remiss in my letters to you as well, but I will repent and hopefully find a better way to buy international stamps here. The lines in the post office take hours (eek) It is also great to feel of your fire and testimony. Sometimes by the end of the day my flame gets a little dampened, but I try to remain ever vigilant and ever hopeful. I don´t even have time to think about money here in Europe, I really do appreciate the filling up of my cup that occured in the MTC because it gives me strength to endure the hard days out here. Sometimes the CTM was a little annoying because you are around so many people who have a little bit different view than you, but it is great to see how much you can learn from everyone.
Well, time´s up. Off to Porto to see the sites. Love you all!! The church is true. ellen

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hello from portugal

So, obviously I am alive and everything. I love Portugal. i love the way people stand and look out of their windows and sit in the streets during the afternoon. I love the way the buildings do not match and the streets have no order to them whatsoever. I love the crazy way they drive. I love the way they aren´t very much different from Americans, but are because they have such a long tradition. It is an awesome country.

The work...is work, but I love it as well. My feet are sore and tired all of the time, but that will pass. I am thankful for these good shoes. A lot of the sisters here have the dansco shoes and they have lasted them well. I am also thankful that I can change each day and I think that has helped because I have not yet gotten blisters although I´ve been on my feet for about 10 hours each day straight (this is a bit harder than in nursing where you do get to sit down once in a while. During the work there is no time and not very many good places to sit down) So, at the moment it is a bit hard, there are only two investigators that we are teaching right now, so we spend a lot of the day finding, bating doors and such. It makes you really think about how much the missionaries appreciate member referrals (especially those that are actually home and when the member is willing to go with you to the visit or have it in their home-the optimal place to learn) yes, so that is my little plug for missionary work. It is a bit frustrating sometimes because people just won´t listen to you. You do have to love them and their rigid politeness, even though they won´t let you get a word in, they still try to be polite. I have learned that aspect of portuguese very well...com licença, obrigada, nao estou interesada, mas brigada, desculpa-la, com licença...as they shut the door. We did find a couple of people this week after about 40 hours of bating doors that seem promising, hopefully they will guard their compromisso(appointment).

So, yeah, um, I have an awesome trainer Sister Landro is from Salt Lake and she is awesome. We get along very well and I´m learning a lot. We also have a great ward here. They have a contest between the women and the men to see who can get the visiting\home teaching done first. Otherwise, I have eaten all sorts of fish already including squid, still don´t really like fish, but maybe that will change.

other than that, I don´t know what you all want to know. I would like to know good things that are happening in your families with your beautiful children and such, if the folks are homeless yet and the like.

Nephi, thanks so much for the e-mail addresses and keeping everything in line for me. If anyone has an address that they would rather me send this to, let me know. I probably will just write one e-mail a week because of time constraints and I´ll post them all to the blog as well so it is also there for your viewing pleasure.

Oh, Mom, I did really like that little tidbit by the way, it was really cute. Oh, and if you do want to send cards which I also love very much I will probably be in this area for the next 6 weeks and packages can come here as well: Rua Teixeira Pascois
N. 139 ´5
4450 Matosinhos
PORTUGAL (but you could have guessed that)

The ones sent to the mission home don´t get to me for a while. Actually it isn´t too bad because we are only an hour from the mission office by metro and so somedays on preparation days we will go down to porto to play with the sisters that serve there.

So, let me know what you would like to know more about, the weather (hot), the people (cold until you warm them up-which does not take very much), ect

Love you all!

ellen (sister thompson)

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