this week´s letter

I´m not feeling very inspired to write this week, so this ought to be short and sweet...
News, we´re teaching and people are learning. I am feeling like finally I am a missionary. It´s a good feeling. Yep, the church is true, the Book of Mormon has power and I love it. I am also really enjoying reading a little bit of the Old Testament every morning, and really understanding that the Lord does not change and I am so greatful for the convenants He made with our ancestors that also pertain to us. Yep, that´s about it. Oh, and I am getting my comeuppance for being somewhat of a problem child during my youth. We are talking with a couple of moms that are at their wits end because of rebellious(sp) teenagers. It is also good because I can comfort them from the other side of the fence, seeing as I was there causing heartaches, but it also hurts because I can feel those same heartaches. I am so very very thankful for a family and friends who always stood by me and helped me. Um grande abraço for my great parents!! And that´s about it for this letter... oh and here´s a picture of me by the ocean...how lovely! And another of a family in Sao Joao (Duarte, Maria Fátima, Helder, Patrícia, me, Vânia)
Love you all!

ellen

I´m glad that I live in this beautiful world!!

So, this has been a really great week. We have had some amazing lessons (both learned and taught) and we had an amazing conference yesterday with Síster and Presidente Greene!! Basically all I have to say it that the Book of Mormon is true and I want to read it more and more. I just want to eat it up! It has great lessons to teach for our everyday lives. One great thing it does it that it helps us more than any other book to gain a friendship with our Savior Jesus Christ. This friendship brings with it repentance and faith which bring peace, happiness, and the sense of accomplishment and acceptance that we are all striving for. It has changed my live absolutely for the better and I´m so excited every morning for the oportunity I have to search its pages to be able to help someone else gain the same love that I have for this amazing book of scripture.
One other great thing that we saw yesterday was the film «Journey of Faith »(done by FARMS) It was awesome! I know Dad would absolutely love it, it is just down his isle, so would the Halgrens, and the Palmers, and just about everyone. It talkes about the Book of Mormon journey. It was really great. Also, a great quote by George Cannon ( father of George Q.) «No wicked man could write such a book as this and no good man would write it unless it were true and he were commanded of God to do so» I love the book of Mormon!!

Other exciting happenings...We went to the ocean today. There is a little chapel on this rock on the beach. It is beautiful and the ocean was really spectacular because it was windy and had been stormy. However, the storm cleared up just for us (Sister Call, Sister Carter, Sister Phillips and I ) and it was really absolutely amazing. Hopefully the pictures turn out well. Speaking of pictures, I promised that Nephi would be getting tons and it seems like they were never sent, but I will do my best to encourage their speedy arrival. Sorry about that.

Thanks Mom and Martha for the wonderful Valentines Day cards. I absolutely loved the pictures! Yes, they do celebrate Valentines Day here, it being a saintly day. People give hearts and flowers to all the members of their families and really go all out. We had a great experience on Valentine´s day, we taught a great lesson to this woman named Monica, we then left and while we were standing waiting for the bus, she called and told Sister Call that she wanted to be baptized on Sunday. Sister Call thought that she wasn´t understanding her correctly and so handed me the phone and I reaffirmed that she was serious. It was kind of a crazy experience and not at all unpleasant. She has a bit to go before baptism, but her enthusiam and desire are truly laudable and I think she´ll make it soon.

Anyway, this has turned out to be quite the long letter, I must be in a gabby mood today. Aaron, my prayers are still heading there in your direction. As mellhores (a blessing of health) for Mom and Grandma! Parabens on the shed Dad!! Thanks for the card LeAnn- you could probably send them to the address here in Gaia, I have a feeling I may be here for a while, and it is really cool to have letters that say `way of the Holy Ghost´ (that´s what `Vereda do Espírito Santo´ means) Makes you feel kind of safe doesn´t it. A big hug and kiss to Janie! My love to all of you!!

ellen

Samuel: Two Things

Oi Família,
I learned two important things this week. The first-the spirit needs to guide and will guide if you will just let it and be worthy of it. The second is that we need to do things more for love than for reconition or example. It really is very interesting to me. I learn something each week that is something that I know I should do but am like everyone else, I fall and make mistakes. The success comes when you learn from those mistakes and never make that mistake again. Also, patience is required but has always been a hard thing for me to learn. I will learn to be patient in my life and to be happy with the blessings of the Lord. I am at a great time in my life and a time that is very short. I need to make the most of my time and more than that the time of the Lord. I won´t have the spirit and the capability to change anywhere else than right now on my mission. Its a time to get up and move forward;its a time to focus on what is important and to be lost in the service of the Lord. I know that in doing the will of the Lord the lives of so many people will be blessed. Let´s move forward and leave the mistakes that we made in the past behind. We have more knowledge and understanding than we did in the past and we certainly are better prepared to meet the Lord. I plan to make some new goals today and to strive to focus on my purpose of being here--to bring souls to Christ through baptism. I love you all and am trying to focus on what is important and what what help to become the best servant of the Lord that I can become. I love you all and know that you are all blessed.

Love,
Elder Thompson

Stuff is happening

So, another exciting week in the life of a missionary in Portugal. I do have to say that it is wonderful to be able to serve in this ward. There is a special spirit in a small branch, but also a certain order that is in a ward. Oh, and they have a blog, it´s written in portuguese for sure, but here it is, and it has a picture of me on it, and the 8 year old who was baptized on Sunday. «aasud.blogspot.com» It´s good that we get to have different experiences all of the time so that we can learn from all of them. Sister Call´s portuguese when I got here was a bit rusty as she had been junior companion for a long time and was almost afraid to talk. However, we are changing all of that as she has been designated senior companion (by us) and therefore gets to take charge of all of the lessons. Sometimes they still don´t understand everything that she says, but she is really improving in leaps and bounds with the language. I also get the opportunity to brush up on my grammer because when you´re teaching someone grammer, you get the chore of making sure yours is correct. So, it´s been good.

We had an awesome experience the other day...one of many, actually we´ve already had tons of great experiences here in Gaia, beautiful city by the sea. We finally got to enter and teach an investigator of a long time. We had an amazing lesson about what we have to do to use the atonement in our lives and get the peace that has been promised. Our dear friend Carmen and her daughter Carmenita are just so cute, and so darn smart! We would teach a principle and then Carmen would explain it again perfectly with different words to see if she had understood it correctly. It was really cool to see the light going on in her head. We ended up teaching the 10 commandments and the 3rd lesson all at once because she was so eager to know what she needed to do to gain this peace that we promised her. It was great.

Something funny, our Relief Society President here is a recent convert and really a fireball. She was teasing me in sacrament meeting because the bishop had asked me to bear my testimony seeing as it was my first Sunday in this ward. She said that she would not be bearing her testimony so I had to bear mine for her as well. When I asked her why she said that she had in a set of teeth in that she was not accustomed to and was afraid that they would come shooting out of her mouth. In the end she did bear her testimony and much to my dissapointment, her teeth stayed firmly on the other side of her lips. It would have been such a great experience! We´ll just have to wait on that one.

Aaron, glad to hear that you´re still eating as I would hate to come home to a stick figure of a brother and those kids of yours are much cuter when they´ve got little chubby cheeks to pinch. Really, you´re in my prayers and I´m glad things are going for you. Thanks Dad for your great advice. Yes, Mom, I have been a bit freer with my money than I should be, but am setting goals and will do better with my budgeting. Oh, I saw a book the other day that you´d really like, maybe you already have it. It´s called Sister Eternal. It tells the story of Elder Uchtdorf´s family and their introduction to the gospel. The pictures are really great.

Yes, Samuel I did remember that Saturday is your birthday. Parabéns a você, nesta data querida, muitas felicidades, muitos anos na vida, hoje é o dia de festa, cantam as nossas almas, para o menino Élder Thompson, uma salva de palmas!!!!! Há uma pacote nos correios para ti, mas não vai chegar em bom tempo. É dificil, sabe, para ter tempo e tudo na mão para mandar uma coisa e coisas acontessem. Vais gostar muito dela no mesmo e verás que uma pacote da mim vale a esperança.

Also just a little remembrance for the millions of other birthdays coming up: Jackie Palmer and Stephanie on the 12th, Deann and Zac´s anniversary on the 13th. Happy birthday to Uncle John and Uncle Larry, and last week I forgot to mention Emily Morales. I almost have someone written on every day of the year, or at least half of them. It´s great to love so many people.

So, yep, this is kind of a long letter this week. Just so you know I love you all and I´m doing my best every day to get out of bed and jump to work. Therein lies happiness. Com Amor!!

ellen

Samuel: I will keep it short this week

Oi Família,
I will keep it short this week as I don´t remember exactly what happened this week. That´s what happens when you get old. We didn´t have any baptisms this week but we are planning for one this next week. I am learning one thing and that is patience. I have to be patient with myself and not kill myself everytime that I fall down. I need to get right back up and work hard. This is very important in missionary work. I am exactly feeling better because I am being patient. I am not stressed or worried as much and as I work hard and trust in the Lord, good things will happen to me. Diligence is so very important and in Doctrine and Covenants 58: 26-28 that we need to do many things of our own free will as well as in Mosiah 4:27 diligence is the key to winning the prize. Patience but diligence is to me accomplishing your goals in a calm manner. I am not anxious or worried or even setback by the difficulties that I am having. I am striving for the goals that I have set.
Each week is a new learning experience for me and I know that I have learned a lot being put into the firey furnace and being molded the way that the Lord wants me to be. That´s the best part. I love you all and know that in our trials we can learn to be patient but diligent in overcoming them.

Love,
Elder Thompson
Happy Birthday to the Spudster-oh excuse me--Blair and to Grandpa-the groundhog. I don´t think he will see his shadow this year.

Transfers

So, goodbye to everyone in São João da Madeira and hello to everyone in Vila Nova da Gaia. I am now serving there with.....Sister Call, the same one I served with in the MTC. We are going to have a blast Iam sure. She and I have come so far since then, it seems like an eternity ago, but also like it has only been two minutes. So we´ll be having a good time. We had some great lessons this week mainly because of the inspiration we received last Thursday. Sister Phillips and I had a great 4 hour conversation with Sister Greene (President Greene´s wife) We asked her how it is that she uses the atonement every day and we got all sorts of great ideas. They were very possibly the best 4 hours of my life up to now. We took lots of notes and then used these notes to teach our lessons the whole week. We had much more of the Spirit with us in our lessons and really had a great week.

Great story for the week...Sister Phillips and I had a great conversation with Margarida this week. She hasn´t been opening the door when we try to pass their house, but finally this week we got a chance to talk to her. We asked her how her week was going and she said, "So so" Then we said "so, so?" and she started talking for an hour about the problems she is having with her 16 year-old son and how hurt she is that he talks to her disrespectfully and everything. If only all of the doubts of the people we teach were that easy to find. We felt so proud of the way that we followed the counsel of our MTC teachers to clarify doubts. Then we listened to her, and felt very bad for the pain that we had caused our parents when we were adolescents (So very, very sorry!!!) In the end it was a great lesson. It´s funny how none of life´s experiences is for naught. There comes a day when every single one will be used either to help us learn, or to help us teach someone else.

So, in case any of you would like to send letters, any one at all.....My address is:
Vereda do Espírito Santo
Nº 12 - 2º esq\traz
Canidelo
4400 Vila Nova da Gaia

Mom, so glad you liked your birthday present. It was a good excuse to send home some things that I don´t want to have to pack. There may be more packages of that same kind in the future.

Aaron, so glad everything is alright with you...I just thought things like that happened here in portugal where the wiring systems are quite variable. You´re in my prayers.

Thank you so much for all of your faith and prayers on my behalf. Hope everything is going well for all of you. Sure do love each and every one of you. Keep up the great reading of the Book of Mormon. It´s the greatest book ever, really. It gets better with each reading.

ellen