Dear Everyone,

 

This week was tiring, but really great! Thank you so much for the prayers and support; I have been really feeling of your love. Last Monday we had interviews (I am pretty sure that I already mentioned that) and as a result We got together as a district to see how we can help the ward become more united. We started out by: planning a pancake party, giving compliments to members and helping the Bishop calm down and feel loved. I am so excited about these plans because they are already starting to show results! We threw the pancake party on Saturday, which was a hoot! We had way too many pancakes and way too few toppings, and then there was a revolution because we didn´t have enough cups. But it was fun all the same and the ward liked it. We have been giving compliments (both direct and indirect) to the ward members and it has really made them feel appreciated and noticed. It´s kinda fun! I got brave and called up the Relief Society President. Oh my gosh I was so scared, but it turned out great and in ward council she gave me a compliment in return! Woot, woot! We are still working out how we can help the Bishop. If you have any ideas, let me know.

 

Things have started to improve in our area too. Three people came to church and we marked 2 people for baptism:

Amilton!- We have been taking things one step at a time with him. He prayed for repentance of his sins, about which he said that he felt `relieved.´ He is marked for this upcoming Saturday, but has been sick lately with migrane headaches. The Elders and Ward Mission Leader, Nedgar, came with us to give him a blessing of health, but he still isn´t feeling 100% better. We are going to fast for him this week.

Jorge- He was a door contact last transfer whom we came back in contact with two weeks ago. In the doorway we asked him if he would be baptized when he knew our message was true and HE ACCEPTED! He is from Cape Verde and is on kidney dialisis, plus has diabetes. A few years ago his left leg was amputated, and a few months ago the toes on his right foot got amputated as well, so he walks like a pirate. He has very little religious background but really wants to be ready for the next life. The last lesson we had was on the Plan of Salvation and I honestly had the feeling that he is going to die shortly after being baptized and confirmed.

 

This week we went on a division to Lapa again, which was fun. It was funny because the Sister I went with was on the Azores, so I already went on a division with her last transfer! She is Sister Riveros, the 39 year old spit fire from Peru. Seriously, she has more energy than me and I am half her age! I´ll have to send a picture of us next week. Man, divisions are tiring as is, but doing a division without having a P-day was exhausting. When we got home we thought that we should make a sitcom because we were acting so ridiculous. On Thursday morning I got up and dressed to do yoga in the front room but ended up lying on the tiles for 20 minutes. We called up the Senior Sister over our health and these are the exact words that she said, `Your bodies are in a state of exhaustion. Take a nap. Now!´ Then we called Amilton, marked him for baptism while on the phone and rolled around on the ground because we couldn´t do victory laps. Then we took an hour nap. At least today we have a real P-day!

 

Tomorrow is our Mission Council, which we are really excited about. For every Mission Council, Sister Training Leaders from other areas sleep over for the night, so we decided to make our apartment `Hotel Odivelas´ To help them feel at home! Normally they come really late at night when we are cranky and tired, so we thought that if that happens again, they can at least be greeted to a mattress with sheets and a sweet on the top with a welcome note.

 

Thank you so much for everything. I appreciate all that you guys have done and are doing to support me.

 

Sister Derrick

Dear Everyone,

 

We ended the first week of the transfer with a fresh view of things and ready to battle our problems! I am really excited because we are coming together as a district to come up with a vision to help the ward. We have really been blessed with two really great Elders that are new to Odivelas. Our District Leader, Elder Bluemel, is especially a great missionary and a huge support. We had interviews with President Fluckiger today and President said that he specifically picked all four of us to help solve the problems in the ward. It´s just what we need! I am so excited!

 

Recently I have been thinking a lot about faith. In Ether 12 verse 6 we learn that only after the trial of our faith the Lord will bless us. I hae really been thinking about why we had so much success in Setúbal and not here (aside from internal problems) and I think the answer is faith! You know, as a new missionary the fact that you got up in the morning is an act of faith and the Lord blesses you for that. But now missionary life is `normal´ for me and it is a habit to get up, exercise, study, speak Portuguese, talk to people that may or may not like the Church, bear your testimony, and walk 3-8 miles a day. So I have been thinking about how I can show more faith? Or in other words, how can I go the extra mile? So far I have come up with better study techniques, learning to respect my leaders and inviting people to be baptized as soon as we can. I am still trying to think of other ideas. If any of you have some good suggestions, let me know! I would rather humble myself than be compelled to be humble and learn things the hard way!

 

Deep unfortunately is moving to Belgium tomorrow and will stay there for at least 3 months. It was a bummer, but I don´t have a shadow of a doubt that he won´t have another chance. We invited him to be baptized on Saturday, but he didn´t accept it. However he made huge progress! We had a really powerful lesson about the 10 commandments and the Word of Wisdom. By the end he took all his cigarettes for the week and flushed them in the toilet! It was a powerful moment. We are taking over half of the Sisters´ area, so now our area is gigantic! We get to meet the people that they were helping, which is really fun. We had a fabulous lesson with a man named Amilton yesterday (that´s Hamilton in Portuguese). We tried to mark him for baptism and he said that he would think about it. I think he´ll get there.

 

I just want to wish everyone a Happy Easter! In the Portugal Lisbon Mission we have what are called `lições poderosas´ which are simplified lessons meant to bo used when we don´t have time or we need to help our investigators understand the message better. I thought that a good way to help each other feel of the Lord´s love for us, I would share my favorite simplified lesson. It´s obviously adapted for people that have already been baptized.

 

Jesus Christ is our perfect example. Through His example of Faith, Repentance, Baptism, the Gift of the Holy Ghost and Enduring to the End we can become cleansed from sin. Jesus said, `Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.´ Through these 5 things we can allow Him to come into our lives and give us comfort.

 

The first step is Faith, or trust in God´s plan for us and a belief that Christ is our Savior. However we must ACT according to the will of God in order to have true faith. Such actions include prayer, church worship, service, reading the scriptures, keeping the commandments, etc. What can you do today to show your faith?

 

One way that we must show our faith in Christ is through true repentance. Repentance is an honest change of heart to leave sin behind us and follow willingly the Lord´s way of life. This can only happen when we 1st recognize what we have done wrong, 2nd STOP IT!!!  3rd Confess what you have done wrong to the Lord and anyone who was involved (as appropriate) 4th Do what you can to fix any damage caused 5th Keep the commandments and 6th Recognize that the Lord knows how to help you. I know that repentance is real. IT IS REAL. Through Christ´s sacrifice, our sins and weaknesses can be wiped clean. When I repent I feel relieved and loved. Tonight, will you confess your sins to the Lord and repent?

 

Christ was also our perfect example in baptism. According to the account in Matthew 3, He was baptized out of His own free will and choice (He was old enough to know what he was doing.) He was completely immersed in the water and He was baptized by John the Baptist, A MAN WITH THE PRIESTHOOD AUTHORITY TO BAPTIZE. Baptisms are ONLY valid when done with this authority. This authority was lost, but restored again through the Prophet Joseph Smith. The Priesthood authority to baptize for the remission of sins only exists in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. How has (or how would) baptism by proper authority blessed your life?

 

Baptism is a promise to follow the Lord and to keep His commandments. The Lord wants us to be successful in our quest to follow Him. After baptism we receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost, or a constant companion to help us stay on the right track. With the guidance of God given by the Holy Ghost we can successfully stay on the way of righteousness until the end of our lives. To endure we need to take of the Sacrament worthily to recommit to keep the Lord´s commandments every week. Will you prepare to renew your baptismal covenant by taking the Sacrament this Sunday?

 

Happy Easter! I hope you like it as much as I do!

 

Sister Derrick

Week #42, April 14th

Dear Everyone,

 

Transfers ended yesterday and Both Sister Gidney and I get to stay! We are really happy and excited about it because this week was a pretty great week and a great end of our transfer. Unfortunately a lot of missionaries are going home this week, so quite a few areas closed down, one of which is the area of the other Sisters in the ward. Now we´ll just be a district of two Elders and two Sisters. 

 

This week we did our last division. It was in Benfica, the area where the Mission Office is, with two of the office sisters there. They both  have foot injuries and are unable to work a normal mission schedule so they spent half of the day in physical therapy and work mostly in the office with a few lessons here or there in the chapel next door. It was kind of hard to see such wonderful missionaries like that ! I did the division with Sister Nigri, a Brazilian on crutches. She was a HUGE example of optimism for me. A month ago she was in Coimbra running to an appointment and had a spiritual prompting to hop off the curb of the side walk. She thought that was really weird, but did it anyway and ended up tearing a tendon in her foot (her shoes didn´t have the best support). At first she was really frustrated and confused about it, because she had to be emergency transfered to Lisbon for treatments. But in the end she said, `Oh, Sister, that must´ve happened for a reason. I just don´t know what it is yet!´ That little trooper!

 

Deep went to church this week too! Taught him about the Restoration-- he actually understood!-- and about the Plan of Salvation, which he really liked. We tried to mark him for baptism for the 13th, but he didn´t accept the date because he wants to have an answer to his prayers about the Book of Mormon beforehand. He´ll get there! We are really excited for him. We are also working with María do Céu (translated that´s Mary from Heaven) who has been trying to quit smoking. She´s down to 6 cigarettes! The Elders gave her a Priesthood blessing on Saturday to help her be stronger than tobacco. Unfortunately she was sick yesterday, so she didn´t come to church, but she´ll get there too!

 

A miracle happened this week! On Monday night we were doing contacts in the street and we ran into Nuno, a man that was baptized a year or so ago by the Assistents (aka we have no records of the baptism), and was wanting to come back to Church! After talking a little and saying a prayer, I was about to invite him to church when he said, `I´m going to start coming back again!´ So we marked a time to come visit him and his wife. While in his neighborhood (man, we had to walk 8 miles to get there!) he introduced as to lots of great people that we are going to start teaching! It was an answer to both our prayers and Nuno´s prayers to meet one another! From what we understand Nuno´s wife had some issues with the Bishop, but things will work out. It has been a long time since they talked to one another.

 

Here is what I learned this week: the power of the Atonement while taking the Sacrament. I´ve always known that when we take the Sacrament we recommit to our baptismal and temple covenants, and that we are cleansed. But to be honest I spent my whole life trying to REALLY understand the Sacrament, but not making enough effort to figure it out. This last transfer was my most frustrating yet, and last week I definitely fell short in a lot of ways. During the Sacrament I just a little prayer asking our Heavenly Father to help me clean my slate and make me feel better. As I took of the bread and water I felt so relieved. I felt like someone weeded my spirit from all of the `bad water´ as the Portuguese say. I am so grateful for the Atonement and that every week we can be cleaned and fortified as we worthily and thoughtfully take the Sacrament!

 

I love you so much!

 

Sister Derrick

Dear Everyone,

 

I am so grateful that all of you think that I am a super noble missionary, and that you´ve sent all of your love and support about extending my mission. But I have to confess one thing before we get out of hand...APRIL FOOLS!!! Wow, I really got all of you guys going! How funny!

 

This week was a rollercoaster! I haven´t felt like this since my very first transfer, which isn´t actually a bad thing, it´s just a fact. This week we had a lot of fire and water. I´ll just outline it in days of the week:

 

Monday: P-day was good! We went to the mall. Four other Sister Training Leaders spent the night because we had Mission Council the following day.

Tuesday: Mission Council was wonderful. I got to see Sister Giberson there! This month we are focusing on making our studies more fruitful so that we can be better prepared and have a stronger conversion to Christ´s Restored Gospel. We also got a sneak peek at the new Distric 3 (training video) that has snipits from missions all around the world. The piece we saw was a lesson about repentace (taught by missionaries with less than 6 months in the mission-- knocked my socks off!) using a careful a specific approach accompanied by the Gospel of Christ pamphlet. Man, it was so good that we applied what we learned that very night in a lesson with María do Céu, whom we marked in that very lesson! Her marked baptism date is April 20th. We really hope that she can come into Christ´s fold!

Wednesday: Zone Conference was fun because Sister Gidney and I gave a training about how to make our studies better. Man! I am so, so grateful for the time I have on the mission to learn how to study the Gospel. It makes a huge difference starting and ending in prayer, planning out what and why you want to study, and then writing out how the things you learn apply to your life. Sometimes I laugh when I look at what I called `scripture study´ before the mission, because it wasn´t very fruitful. If you haven´t already, I suggest that when you read the scriptures, do it that way and you´ll get SO MUCH MORE out of it.

Thursday: Sister Gidney reached her 1 year mark! We celebrated by going out to eat at McDonald´s, where I had my first fast food hamburger is more than 5 years! We later had a lesson with a half Asian, half African man named Deep and learned that he was taught 20 years ago by the Elders back when they had flip charts. Those flip charts must´ve been really amazing because Deep remembered about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith! We gave him a Restoration pamphlet and invited him to watch General Conference at the Stake Center on Sunday.

Friday: Two people entered into the waters of baptism that the Elders and other Sisters taught. I made rice crispy treats and everyone loved it. It was funny because I guess the Elders didn´t explain how to stand when being baptized because Cicilia had to be dunked twice and Gene had to be dunked 4 times! What a hoot. It ended up being great anyway though.

Saturday: Women´s Conference was spectacular. I think my favorite part was simply the fact that the choir had primary children, young women and relief society in it. I think that this combined meeting will make us more united and aware of one another as sisters in Zion. We also watched the Saturday morning session. Elder Holland was my favorite when he talked about the Sister missionary that had a potato thrown at her because it helped me remember that it is all worth it! I am so happy to be here in Portugal helping my fellow men. I think it is teaching me how to learn to be happy. That night we got a less than pleasing phone call. They `gave us the knife´ as they say here in Portugal for not baptizing while being Sister Training Leaders. Sister Gidney and I called Sister Fluckiger, just to have a nice conversation and calm down. She invited us to come to the mission home for the Sunday Morning session.

Sunday: We went to the stake center for the Saturday Afternoon session and then went to the mission home for lunch and the Sunday Morning Session. It was so great. I loved especially Elder Anderson´s talk about defending your truths no matter what others think. The laws of God will never change and will never be `old fashioned´ spiritually speaking. It made me so grateful once again to be on a mission because I GET IT now. Before the mission I was more like those members that `liked´ those comments on facebook contrary to our beliefs. Now I understand that the laws of God don´t change depending on popular opinion. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. We ought to be trusting in His ways rather than our own. I am so excited that I still have 9 months left to learn even more in such a focused atmosphere of the mission field! We were not able to see Sunday afternoon live because it was past our bedtime, but we saw it this morning and loved it as well.

 

I love you all. I am so grateful and I hope that all is well.

 

Love,

Sister Derrick