Dear Everyone,

 

If there is anything that I learned from this week it was that the grace of God is very really and very powerful. Here are some excerpts from the Bible Dictionary of the word `Grace:´

 

     The main idea of the word is divine means of help or strength given through the bounteous mercy and love of Jesus Christ... Divine grace is needed by every soul... however, grace cannot suffice without total effort on the part of the recipient. Hence the explanation «It is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.»

 

Summer has begun in Portugal! The past couple of weeks have been hot enough to need to wear sunscreen and a pair of sunglasses, which makes the days even more exhausting than usual. During Weekly Planning on Friday (which was a very spiritual experience I will tell later) My body was overcome by heat exhaustion and I began to vomit. We stayed inside for the afternoon so that I could recover and I honestly felt like my internal organs were baking inside my chest with no way to cool down. As I was laying down with the fan on the Lord taught me something.

 

I was amazed at how amazing the human body is. What a beautiful machine the Lord created! It is outstanding that normally I don´t need to consciously control my breathing and heart rate. What as miracle life is!

 

When I felt good enough to work, we took it easy, but the Lord taught me a second lesson. As we were walking around or sitting on a bench, etc. I felt my bodily pains and my emotional frustration. However as we contacted people or entered a lesson the pains left and the Lord carried me through, giving me the words to say, the questions to ask and a clear mind to understand how to help. Never before have I felt the grace of God that strong in my life! To be honest I really am not worried about my health because I know that if I take care of myself things will all work out. When I was set apart by the Stake President, He blessed me with good enough health to stay in the mission and to perform well. How grateful am I that the Lord always keeps his promises!

 

I also  learned another lesson... Perhaps this is kind of a side note, but I learned why Sisters only serve for a year and a half while Elders serve for 2 years!

 

Okay, so other than throwing up, Weekly Planning was really spiritual this week as we were making plans to mark people for baptisms. Our baptism goal for the week is 3- a goal I have not set for a long time. We were really feeling that our investigators are getting ready for some serious changes in there lives, so we started presenting dates for baptism like crazy. Rui is a friend of a recent convert that has gone to church 3 times in a row. We have been having a hard time meeting up with him, so we grabbed him after church to talk a little bit. We explained the Restoration, he actually understood, and we invited him to be baptized on the 25th. He said yes! We hope that his testimony can continue to grow and we can meet with him more this week.

 

Tavares is basically a skinnier version of Obama. He is from Guinea and moved to Portugal in hopes to gain money for his family, but now there is a Coup in Guinea so he can´t send money very well. We had a great lesson with him last night and he said that he wanted to meet with us every day! We invited him as well to be baptized on the 25th, but he said that he would be more comfortable with the 1st of June. We are really excited.

 

I love you guys so much and I am so grateful for all that you are doing to support me.

 

Sister Derrick