Monica Gets Baptized

This week was awesome!!! All I want to tell you about is this one family who are ELECT. Like, seriously, incredible. The bishopric gave us a reference last transfer of this woman Monica who is "married" to Toni who is a member, just extremely less active. As in, not at all.

He served a mission in Porto and everything and still has his scriptures with his missionary tags.  We talked to them for a while and Monica was a sweetheart so we made plans to meet with them more. We went back like two weeks ago and taught her and her three daughters who are 13, 12 and 8 years old. They all accepted a baptismal invitation. So when we returned to next appointment, we prayed with them to confirm that they should be baptized yesterday, the 24th. They all felt really good about it and our lessons with them have been incredible. They were already taught by elders in a different place a few years ago but it didn’t really stick.

So, we gave all of them a new Book of Mormon and invited them to read every night. We came back the next day, the three daughters had read together that night and marked their scriptures and had so many questions.  They were so excited to talk about it! It was amazing. They really were incredible and the spirit is always so strong in our lessons. So, we came to find out at the beginning of the week that Monica and Toni aren’t actually married.  That’s a problem so we taught about the law of chastity on the day we prayed about when they should be baptized and she was on board 100 percent. She just kept saying, "I don’t want to have a life of sin."And, "I want to be born again and cleaned of this."  She kept telling us that she felt like their home was lacking something essential.  We testified that it was the spirit.  And that their home needed the Gospel of Christ.

Seriously this family is a missionary’s dream. We talked to her about temples and she said she saw a picture of the temple and just had this feeling inside her that she needed to go there, and be married in there, and be with her family! She even came and met with the bishop to talk to him about what needed to happen for her to be baptized .  Her daughters came too so it was really cool. We got to teach Toni and Monica together too because they weren’t sure if they really wanted to be married or not so it was kind of a roller coaster in that department.  Honestly, Heavenly Father prepared her. She was ready for this change to the point that the only thing we really needed to do was invite her to pray and have an interview with the elders.

So, Saturday comes and the zone leaders come with us and did the interviews for Monica and the two older daughters and everything went really well. We had to come back though, to the younger daughter's interview later that night and apparently she had talked to Toni a lot and he was saying she wasn’t ready.  They needed to be married first and he´s absolutely right.  He thought that they should be married but we really felt that she needed to be baptized now so we went back with the elders and none of the daughters were even home.

So, we just talked to the couple. That lesson was incredible. Journal status. Even the zone leaders said that. A lot happened but basically, Toni talked about how he was going to do everything to support her to be baptized because having an eternal family is his dream, and he’s just having a hard time forgiving himself and repenting of stuff. So he just kept saying all of this stuff about how he wanted to help her but she needed to wait. So, you guys know me,, I may have called him out and said that I didn’t believe him when he said he wanted an eternal family.  I told him to support her because if he really did want it then he would be doing things very differently and he wouldn’t let ANYTHING get in the way of this for her. Things may have started to get a little heated but just because I really do love this family, even Toni. Then we were all like, "we need to pray." We need to know what the Lord thinks.

We prayed and then stayed silent for a minute and then Monica just gets up and says TEN QUE SER AMANHA. It has to be tomorrow! She said, “I feel something inside me, my heart is jumping and my hands are hot, my whole body is warm and I just know it has to be tomorrow." It was legit incredible. Then Elder Ca testified that after the prayer, he saw in his mind the temple and felt prompted to promise them that they would be sealed in the temple in a year.  That their home would never be without the presence of the Lord's spirit again and that many other people would be brought to know of the gospel and Christ’s love through them.

By the end Toni was crying and thanking us for helping their family and being the only missionaries out of the countless that have been sent who could help them finally see what needed to happen for their family. Long story short, Monica was baptized yesterday and it was just about the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. It was AMAZING. I love her. Her daughters still had some doubts and we prayed with them and they felt they needed to wait a little so that was a bummer, but it's ok because Monica was baptized.  I swear to you, the angels were singing. I heard it myself. So she’s living with her parents this week and their getting married this weekend.

Everyone should pray for them that nothing goes wrong by then.  Because Satan is trying to stop their progress for real. So much so that he sent demons to church. I’m not kidding. Here’s a fun fact for you, there was a lady in church who´s family is pretty big into witchcraft back in Africa.  She was sitting in the front row at church and the previous bishop for the ward was giving a talk. As soon as he started to testify and the spirit was really strong, she started laughing this like evil growl laugh cackle thing and saying all this stuff about how she was the devil and some other stuff I didn’t understand that the members refused to translate for us. So the man giving a talk raised his right arm to the square and said, "In the name of Jesus Christ, I command the spirit inside of you to leave the room immediately."  Then the bishopric came down and escorted her out and took her upstairs and gave her a blessing to remove the presence that was in her. The guy giving a talk just went right back to it and testified that this sort of thing happened a lot on his mission.  He said that Satan is real and constantly trying to stop us from progressing.  So we need to do everything we can to stay close to the Lord.  We ate lunch with the bishopric after church and they said that when she looked at the picture in the office of Christ and the apostles she started growling and shouting and blaspheming and legit everyone in the ward was like distraught afterward.

It was a crazy week but apparently this kind of stuff happens a lot with Africans here because they invite bad spirits through voodoo. It was intense. I just stayed with this icky feeling all day and like hearing what she was saying in my head all day long so we called the elders to come give us blessings and I feel so much better. You guys, the priesthood is real. This gospel is true. Heavenly Father really loves us. I love you guys, I’m happy as a clam because Monica was baptized and she is amazing.

Fica bem, I love you all and the church is true!

Transfers & Stuff

Today was transfers!

Parabens to me for making it this far!  It’s a legit miracle. Things are getting a lot better and I’m starting to really feel my purpose here, and  I'm starting to get excited and happy despite the difficulties. First things first! HAPPY FATHERS DAY DAD! I miss you and love you a ton.  I got two letters from you today. You are amazing and I love you and appreciate your letters more than I can say.

Well I guess you guys want to know where I am. So, this past transfer I was in Rio de Mouro, which shares a ward with Mem Martins.  We had four sisters in one ward. Irma Brown got transferred to Beja and will be with one of the Irma’s I knew in the MTC.  Irma Thomas is now in our companionship, and we are a triple, and we are living in the Mem Martins area house.  They are combining our two areas! So it’s absolutely wonderful that we get to stay without investigators.  That just means that now we have to cover a lot more ground and manage a lot more investigators.  I’m excited though. The house we live in now is nice. It has a working shower! That’s really the thing that’s taking away any stress. I’m so excited for that.

We don’t know what’s happening to our house yet, but I’m pretty sure the conditions are like unfit to live in.  So they won’t put anyone else in there even if they split the areas again later on. There’s like mold everywhere and dust and everything’s falling apart and someone died in there. I can’t get past that. Weird. 

So, yeah, this transfer should be good. I’m so excited to be staying with Irma Quebbeman because she is wonderful and Irma Thomas is super nice too so it will be good. I’m just a little sad because Irma Brown and I were freaking peas on a pod. Anyway, this week was actually pretty good.

I’ve been so much happier the past couple weeks and then I kind of started getting in a funk again.  I just sort of felt apathetic about the work and especially the people. I honestly didn’t care if anyone was taught or baptized because I didn’t care about them for some reason. So, I prayed about it and felt like I needed a blessing. The zone leaders came to our area on Friday because we were trying to have an interview with one investigator named William. I don’t think I’ve written about him. He’s incredible. He’s 12 and has a learning disability.  So we’ve been teaching at a much slower pace than normal but he is just amazing. Like I don’t even like kids, but the first time we met with him I was a goner. You can just look at him and know how much Heavenly Father loves him.

When we started teaching him, we taught him with his aunt who is a member.  We had permission from his mom, who lives in Cabo Verde, to teach him. Two days before his original baptism date, his mom said he needed more time.  So, we’ve still been working so hard to get him baptized because he really wants to be baptized.  The elders came to do an interview because we were working with his mom and trying to get her to allow him to be baptized.  We had the elders come to do the interview but he had gone to stay with another aunt in a different area for the weekend. It’s been a struggle, but we're making progress.  So please pray for him.

I asked our zone leader, Elder Weiss for a blessing. He gave Irma Quebbeman a blessing first and a lot of it talked about how the Lord is pleased with the work we’ve been doing in Rio de Mouro. Then I got mine and it was amazing. It was exactly what I needed to hear. He said that the Lord could see my growth and my companions growth and the friendship we had formed.  He was really pleased and had planned that. He said that the Lord changed Rio de Mouro to Irma’s specifically for us. He said the Lord wants a miracle worked there and he wants us to be the ones to do it. He talked a lot about my purpose and why I’m in this specific mission. He said the Lord loves his children in this area and trusts them in our hands and that my strong personality was going to be invaluable in my work as a missionary. He said a lot more too but most of it was to that effect.

As soon as the blessing was over, I just felt at peace. Like legit I cannot honestly say I had any fervor for being on a mission until after hearing the things in the blessing I was like ok, let’s go work some miracles! Really since then my attitude toward this has been totally different.  I finally feel like I have some direction and I know for myself why I’m here. Something just clicked in my head and I know what to do now. I can actually say I’m excited! Ha ha, that’s a miracle.

Anyway, that’s really the only update for the week. I love you guys a ton and I promise I’m happy. I hope everything is going well with all of you and my goal this transfer is to be better about writing letters on p-day. I know I’m a bad friend, sorry. But I do really love you guys!

Everyone fica bem, have a wonderful week.  Look for the little miracle in your day. It helps make life easier, I can promise you that. The church is true! Do everything you can to help and support the missionaries in your ward. No seriously, Do it.  We need you guys.

Love you!  

Not This Past Week But the One Before

06/11/12

No one get mad at my mom.  I just didn’t write an email last week. Sorry! Things be crazy in Portugal.  Actually, that’s not at all why I didn’t write one. Last p-day we went up to this area called Sintra where there are really cool castles like the one I see from my area every day.  So we went up with the other Irma’s from the ward and a couple elders.  We saw this really cool manor house thing called Quinta Ee Regeleira. It was Bem Fish, which means very cool. I’m not joking, that’s how you say it. We went up there and we were back with enough time to email but the only place we know in our area said their internet wasn’t working! Yay! that was super depressing because we had a crazy week that I wanted to actually write about! So now, you get to hear about two weeks. Read the whole thing, it’s good. Spoiler alert... there’s a baptism in here.

Not This Past Week but the One Before: 

During this week, my companiera was soooo sick. Like nasty sick. So we had to go over to the other Irma’s house since she couldn’t leave the house but we had appointments to be at. So we spent all of p-day hanging out with them and then I we went to our appointments later.  President and Irma Torgan told us to stay at their house until she was feeling better so we spent the night. Side note- I’m fairly certain I’ve already had more contact with President and Irma Torgan than a lot of missionaries do in their entire mission. This transfer has been a crazy train.

Tuesday we had district meeting and we were supposed to be praying about our revelados and how we were going to help them that day.  The only answers we got to that prayer were that my Irma needed to go to the hospital. That’s not like as serious here or something, she wasn’t like needing an ambulance, but she needed a doctor. So we spent Tuesday in Lisbon, and I got to talk to Elder Platamone while we waited at the hospital and another Elder helped Irma Quebbeman understand what was going on.

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and half of Saturday were spent being very ill by my companion and all kinds of strangeness was happening while we hung out with the other Irma’s. I feel like this is not a normal first transfer experience.  Ha, but! Super cool thing! Thursday night Irma Brown and I went to meet with our revelado who we knew the Lord wanted to be baptized that Sunday and we were praying hard for a miracle because he was going to have to accept everything immediately. We get into the lesson and it was amazing! He ate it up and he had such a strong desire to follow Christ and know which church was true so we taught him all about Joseph Smith and asked him to pray.  He said he felt that it was true so we invite him to pray about being baptized that Sunday and he does. We asked how he was feeling after the prayer and he said, I’ve been stressed all day and now I just feel tudo calma. He said he could feel peace and calm so we said "that’s the spirit".  He said, "I know"
We asked, "So, will you follow Christ and be baptized?"
He said, "yes!"
He like genuinely said yes.  No hesitation! It was one of the most incredible things ever! So we go to leave after teaching a super condensed lesson of the word of wisdom and mark a time to come back the next day and teach him the law of chastity to make sure everything will work for him to be baptized so quickly.  When we went to leave we see a woman in the kitchen and ask who she is.
"That’s my wife."
"You guys are married?"
"Yeah... "
"No, like, really married?"
"No."
For those who don’t know, that’s breaking the law of chastity so they would have to get married by Sunday. They have three kids so I don’t think he’s going to move out. He didn’t get baptized but we didn’t even get the chance to teach him again after that so were at peace with it.  We tried everything we could .

This Past Week That Just Happened.  

We had that loco p-day. Then Tuesday was zone meeting so we were gone almost all day. I’ll tell you about Wednesday in a second. Thursday we had an Irma conference. Friday was normal. Saturday, one of the other Irma’s was sick, so we had to go back over there for an exchange.

Monday night, we felt really strongly that we needed to visit a recent convert family in the ward. The whole family was baptized except one girl because she’s like a niece or something who is only 10 and her mom is in France working and didn’t give her permission to be baptized. But, the girl had been taught everything and interviewed back in April so all she lacked was parental permission.  So we go over and teach a lesson and ask about the mom and if there’s been any progress and they go, "oh yeah, she said she can be baptized." I guess what happened is the elders had kept asking every week and the mom still hadn’t given permission.  And three days after the elders left, the mom said she could be baptized.  We didn’t even see the teaching record until the previous Thursday or something.  They just hadn’t said anything because no one had been asking anymore! So we were like, "Well, shoot.  Do you want to get baptized this Sunday?"
She said yes obviously.  However, her aunt had to work on Sunday.  There was also a big stake activity Saturday so the only night that would work was Wednesday.

We left their house at 9:30 pm Monday and worked our butts off to have everything be perfect by Wednesday and get everything approved. It was not easy but thank goodness Dania had already been taught and was such an incredible little girl.  Because the only thing we had to do was have her interviewed again.  That only took ten minutes.  She’s so sweet.

Being a part of that baptism was incredible because it really showed me that I have nothing to do with this. People are already waiting for this and it's Heavenly Father that prepares them and lets them understand and desire it. The Holy Ghost is just working away with these people and I’m just here to make sure we get the technicalities taken care of.  I make sure they’ve been taught what they need to know. Even that doesn’t come from me. I don’t know what I’m saying or doing as a missionary but the spirit just gives us instructions on what they need to hear. The only thing I contribute to baptisms is obedience to the spirit and putting in effort. I hope that makes sense.

This week was really incredible. Not just because of the baptism. We also had the Irma conference with all the Irma’s in the mission which was amazing.  We took MTC district pictures and stuff. it was so great to see how everyone from the MTC was doing and reminisce a little. Once I figure out how to use technology, I'll send pictures.

I’m sorry this was so insanely long, but I love all of you guys and wanted to share the craziness and good news. I know that what I’m doing is right and that Heavenly Father wants me to be here. It’s still insanely hard but I’m just used to it now. This Gospel is really the only thing that matters. It’s the only thing that can bring so much joy to people’s lives.  I know that it really is Christ's only true church. I know that reading the Book of Mormon will help anyone see that and help every single person gain a testimony. I cannot think of a single thing I could be doing right now that would be more important, or more meaningful, or more substantial, or more desirable. It’s been so hard but literally nothing else sounds like a better alternative than being here and being able to witness the gospel change people's lives.

 I love you all, go read the Book of Mormon.

I LOVE YOU GUYS.