Dear Everyone,

 

What a fun Mother´s Day call! I really enjoyed talking with those of you that were there! That was just what I needed.

 

This week was truly a miracle. I can´t even come to describe how much of a miracle it was! I´ll just go by days to make things sound right. Keep in mind that at the beginning of the week we had 2 people marked for baptism (Maria de Carma and Jorge)

 

Monday: P-day. We went to the mall to buy sandals for Sister Gidney, which was fun. Then we took an hour nap! In the evening we visited Jorge and gave him a simple outline defining the `big four commandments´ (Sabbath Day, Word of Wisdom, Tithing and Chastity). He accepted and asked us if he could start reading the Book of Mormon from the beginning, which we excitededly agreed that it would be a wonderful idea!

 

Tuesday: District Meeting. We gave the Elders an outline of what needed to be taught to Maria and Jorge while we were gone, promising them to bring some Azorian soda in return. We had a lesson with Maria about tithing and the 10 commandments, but she wasn´t feeling ready for baptism... We packed up our bag and slept in the Sisters´ home closest to the mission office. Sleep over!

 

Wednesday: We woke up at 5:00 a.m. to get to the airport by 6:00, promising the office Elders some Azorian cookies, and be on the airplane to Terceira Island at 8:00. When we got to the Sisters there, one of the sisters had really bad side pains and had to go to the clinic at the hospital. For some reason it didn´t work out to divide in this case, so Sister Gidney and I went to their appointments for them (a little counter productive, but hey, what else were we to do?) It was really fun to do the work in another area! We met and helped some amazing people. When they got back from the hospital I stayed with the sick sister, and we did practices and watched examples from the district training videos.

 

Thursday: We took a flight to São Miguel Island and had a fantastic division! I was with Sister Bos, from Texas, that was a blast! I bet she will be a Sister Training Leader as well pretty soon. We were able to teach their investigator that was baptized yesterday, which was a treat.

 

Friday: The rest of our division on São Miguel. We got a phone call from the district leader saying that Jorge passed his interview... Whew! However we got a dissappointing call from Maria saying that she didn´t want to be baptized any time soon and that life was too crazy for her to think about things like baptism. Satan is such a stinker! Sometimes I want to grab him by the collar and say, `Stop stealing my progressing investigators! They want to be happy and find Jesus!´ Too bad he doesn´t even have a collar. While driving up to the airport we got a call from Jorge saying that he passed the interview and that he is so grateful that we took the time to help him understand the Atonement. My heart just about burst! He said that the best day of his life until that point was the day we knocked on his door! We caught a delayed flight to Lisbon at 10:00 pm

 

Saturday: We got in bed inbetween 2:30 and 3:00 a.m. and accidentally slept in until 8:00! We did our weekly planning and visited Maria. We reviewed the interview questions with her to see what she was lacking. Turns out she somehow missed the concept of repentance and needs to gain a stronger testimony of the Book of Mormon before entering the water. We met with the Elders to practice everything for Jorge´s baptism.

 

Sunday: We had 4 people in church! Granted one showed up with a hang over, but he came all the same! God really blessed us for leaving our area for so much time. After church the Elders the Elders Quorum President, Jorge and Maria (the Elders´investigator) got in all white! We wrapped up Jorge´s diabetic foot up in plastic and had the most beautiful baptismal service I´ve seen here in Odivelas. We missionaries did a musical number of ´I´m Trying to be like Jesus.´ The Elders´ Maria was baptized first, after which she said, `I´m born!´ It was really cute. Then came the tricky part. I need to take a picture of the Odivelas Baptismal Font. It is literally an old ghetto Jacuzzi  adapted into a font. Almost everyone that is baptized in that font has to get baptized twice due to complications. The District Leader and Elders Quorom President helped Jorge climb the latter, sit down, take of his prosetic leg, enter the tub, kneel down and get dunked. I was praying so hard! Everything went smoothly! That was a miracle.

 

Here is another miracle. Two weeks ago (we didn´t have any divisions) we had 0 baptisms, 4 in church, 32 lessons and 11 new investigators. This past week with half of much time in our area we had 1 baptism, 4 in church, 24 baptisms and 13 new investigators. God takes care of us!

 

I love you all and I am so grateful for all of your support!

 

Sister Derrick