Dear Everyone,

 

Well, quite a bit happened this week. Here´s the weekly layout:

 

Monday: We went to Lisbon as a district to eat some yummy, rare Mexican food. I must say that the guacamole was amazing. Unfortunately we received a text from Joaquim that was rather disheartening. He said he needed to `take a break´ and that he´d `come back.´ Not exactly a comforting message. We´re just worried as to what arouse. Perhaps his family didn´t like the fact that he was gone on Sundays or that he was spending so much time with us and the ward members? He lives far away (2 hours by public transit) so we can´t even visit his house. Needless to say, he´s in almost every one of our prayers.

 

Tuesday: We brought Nuno, a ward missionary, to walk around with us. Luckily he saved us from an awkward situation when a 50 year-old investigator said that I looked just like the only woman he ever loved... Phew! So glad Nuno saved me that time! We also had a great ward council meeting.

 

Wednesday: We´ve decided to something called `In and Outs.´ No, they don´t involve Californian fast food restaurants. We are visiting a few relief society sisters each week for 10 minutes just to get to know them. Our first visit was to Maria Chaves, who says I look like her grandaughter Raquel. Well, 10 minutes turned into 2 hours when she told us her and her husband´s life story and gave us four bags of goodies to take home. I think she´s in that elderly stage where she needs to get rid of stuff so she´s starting to give it all away the second she gets a chance. It was fun. Unfortunately this time Abel, her husband, wasn´t there. Hopefully we´ll be able to catch him again!

 

Thursday: We contacted a guy named Helder a few weeks ago and finally got to teach him a lesson. Turns out he just moved into town, but had been taught by my Brazilian buddy Sister Salies in Sacavém beforehand! Then we just contacted him in the street! What are the odds of that? The Lord is preparing him, I feel.

 

Friday: We had a lesson with Rita and mother in the Silva family´s house. Boy, that was an interesting scenario. The atmosphere was really tense and the Silva´s were cranky with one another, even started arguing in front of us all. But we sang a song and started drawing out the Plan of Salvation, and things cooled down a lot. Rita is so prepared and ready. After the lesson Bruno said we needed to have a meeting with him on Tuesday to talk about her baptismal preparation. We´re losing our patience with him, but the more we get to know him, the more we see that he does these controling things to everyone. I don´t know if that is comforting or not...

 

Saturday: The Elders had a baptism and forgot to tell us! We felt so bad because we didn´t realize we missed it until we were on the phone with the district leader that night. Instead of supporting the Elders we explored a city we had never been to before and ended up talking to a crazy man whose mind was like Dory from Finding Nemo. Whatever. It makes for a nice story.

 

Sunday: Church was great, but for some reason Rita wasn´t there. We visited a couple named Silvestre and Rosa. They aren´t members, but their daughters are. Both of their daughters married Americans and are in Utah, but one of them Ana Maria Preto died suddenly a month ago. They are devastated and are in true mourning-- wearing black and keeping the lighting dark, the whole bit. Super sad. They have a lot of friends and support, though. I really, really want to teach them the Plan of Salvation if they´ll let us. Especially for Silvestre. We also visited a sweet, recently returned missionary, Ana Gama, who is a counselor in the Relief Society. Her family members aren´t members of the Church, so it was another great introduction to the church and what she had been doing not to long ago for a year and a half. It was treat.

 

Well, that was my week in a nut shell. I love you all and hope you have a good week.

 

Sister Derrick