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
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