Happy Independence Day or Beta and Fatima are Baptized

April 25th! Woo! Yay Portugal. Independence Day was something about Carnations and a HUGE PARADE through our entire area.

This week was incredible beyond words.

I will be brief unfortunately, so use your imagination to go into details about how I felt about it.

1. We met a man whose daughter is serving a mission here in Portugal. He hasn’t seen her since she was 11 years old when he moved here for work. Families are eternal ya know! It’s really cool. We are hoping to get him in the water and ask President if she can come to his baptism.

2. Speaking of getting in the water.... what? Did we have two baptisms? Why yes we did. BETA AND FATIMA WERE BAPTIZED!

Here’s what I wrote to president about it:

This week has been wonderful! First of all, Beta and Fatima were baptized! The baptism was amazing and their whole family came to support them, all of which are non-members but have shown some promise, and also their member-relatives from other wards came to celebrate and support the day. The baptism was really wonderful and the family definitely felt the Spirit. Their mother was asked about baptism and her response was "who knows, we'll have to see if maybe I should," when before she was very firm that she wasn't ready to be investigating deeply. Also, her brother lost a charm from his necklace and found it in front of the baptismal font and said, "Maybe it's a sign that I'm next!", and their sister-in-law asked us to please invite her to all of their future lessons. The members were so wonderful and just killed the family with kindness and all expressed a desire to see them in church next week. Their mom, Paula, then invited us over for lunch and we taught the whole family the first lesson! While discussing the First Vision she said she wants to better understand gospel things and have someone help her understand a few dreams she's had in her life. She continued to explain that once she dreamed she was baptized and when she looked at the font in the chapel, the blue tile around the font and the entrance into the water made her remember and feel like she was back in her dream because it was exactly the same. We are so excited to be teaching the whole family now and to help them feel the Spirit and unity of the gospel.

3. Please pray for Dean Lee. He’s not doing so hot right now and kind of hitting a wall.

4. We did a division this week and both got to work in our area with what are now called "sister trainers" so instead of one of us staying and the other leaving we just stay and accomplish double I one day. Only we accomplished way more than double. We found four new investigators and committed three people to be baptized! one of which was the first time we even talked to him but the spirit was so strong and he is so ready for this, another is an investigator that walks two hours to church and before Irma Walton and the sister trainer got to say anything he said, I really want to be baptized. I was very touched by the testimonies on Sunday and I felt like that man who spoke about the importance of baptism was speaking to me. Yeah. This work is amazing.

5. We live in the mission home. Seriously. So ya know how I said weird stuff was happening? Well we went home on Monday night thinking that everything would be fine and then about 12:15 the weird stuff started happening again so the elders came and picked us up and took us to the mission home. The Fluckigers were out of town but talked to the elders and said that it’s now a top priority that they find us a new house and we are to stay in the mission home until a new house is rented. We pretty much have the house to ourselves also because the Fluckigers are always traveling. It’s very strange but also very awesome.

Ok I love you guys and I’m going to send pictures in just one second. Have a marvelous week and now those miracles and invited when we have faith and when we got on our knees and ask for them!

I love you and I love the gospel and I love my mission!

Irma dean

Epic Adventure!

Today has been the most spontaneous and awesome 18 hours of my mission. In like a non-spiritual kind of way.

First... some weird spiritual stuff was going down at our house for a long time and so we had President and Irma Fluckiger come over and bless our house. That, on top of the fact that our house has a ton of really bad mold all over it made them really concerned so they are looking for a new house and I’m pretty sure we will be moved by the end of the transfer. So because of that, Irma and President Fluckiger left their house key for us at the office while they are traveling this week! As in they offered, and like wanted us to sleep at the mission home. We weren’t even planning on it because our house felt a lot better spiritually that night. But then the Elders from the office called repeatedly to convince us to go, and reminded us that this is super awesome and a once in a mission opportunity, especially since they trust us to stay there when they are gone. So we went and stayed there last night and got some really good sleep on GOOD BEDS AND IN A HOUSE THAT DOESNT SMELL LIKE MOLD. It was wonderful. It felt like a hotel ha-ha.

So while we were on our way back to our area to have a normal p-day, we decided we might as well stop and see the tourist attractions down the street from their house. We went to the Discoverer’s Monument and this really cool Monastery. We even ran into more LDS tourists and one of our investigators who is a painter.

Then, while we were there, the Elders called us and asked where we were. They said, “Okay, we're coming to get you. We’re going to the castle of St. George." (not Utah ha-ha) So we had an AMAZING and completely spur-of-the-moment morning and afternoon with the Elders there. It was so much fun and something we've been wanting to do forever.

Last week was incredible! We had amazing miracles and our investigators are progressing so well. We had an awesome integration activity about the temple. We had stations doing things like toilet paper wedding dresses, a sugar cube temple, drawing what we think the Portugal temple will be like, and learning about family history. There were so many members there and investigators too and it went so well!!

Beta and Fatima are so excited to be baptized and when they came to church on Sunday ALL OF THE MEMBERS SWARMED THEM because of how cute Beta’s baby boy is. The ward LOVES them and they are already like completely integrated. We have a Family Home Evening with them tonight and it’s going to be awesome!

Also, on Sunday we had a brand new investigator walk two hours to come to church and he said that he loved church and we were angels put in his path to help him find this church. THE CHURCH IS TRUE!!!!!!!!!!! SERIOUSLY!

Ahhhh this work is amazing. I love my mission so much!

Honestly I’m coming to the harsh reality that it’s ending REALLY soon. I got what’s called "the trunky call" a few days ago. The office Elders called to ask what airport I will fly home to. I don’t know if you’ve already gotten an email from the mission, but my flight is probably booked already. So weird. I hate it. It makes it really hard to focus. Not in like an I-don’t-care-about-mission-stuff-because-I’m-leaving kind of way but more like I get distracted in the middle of lessons by how much I'll miss this.

Ok I have to write President but I love you all so much!!! Stay safe and happy and close to the Spirit and you will see miracles just like I’m seeing! God loves you!

I got a feelin’

04/15/13
That this transfer is going to be epic. Really.

So family bo bamily. I’m really tired right now. I apologize if anything doesn’t make sense or is typed wrong. I have three stories for you!

This week has been incredible! Seriously amazing. During emails last week we got a call from the ward mission leader in Mem Martins (my first area!) and he said he had a reference for us and wanted to go there with us at 5:30. We said NO PROBLEM. And met up with him to go to the appointment. So he introduced us to his cousins, Beta and Fatima. Beta just had a baby and has never been religious but over Easter watched the miniseries thing on TV about Christ and told her member cousin that she wants to know more about Christ.

We went over and started teaching her and she is so cool! Just like earnestly seeking truth and direction in her life. On Wednesday and they had not only read the book of Mormon but had written down questions like, “What does omnipotent mean?” , and “What is the law of Moses?”, and “What is the organization of the plates of gold and the plates of brass?”. They said they had prayed about the Book of Mormon and felt that this was the right path for them to take. We invited them both to be baptized on the 28th of April, and they accepted and were really excited. We had another lesson on Friday and confirmed that they would come to church on Sunday. Saturday rolls around and Betas phone was off or something so we weren’t getting a hold of them, and so she calls us at ten that night and says "Hi Sister, it’s me, Beta. I’m just calling to confirm what time you will be here to come with us to church." For anyone who hasn’t served a mission, that doesn’t happen all the time. Like you’re lucky if three of the ten people you've committed to coming show up.

So Sunday morning, we go over there at nine. Stake conference started at ten. Portugal standard time is about 20 minutes later than when you arrange for. THEY WERE READY AND WAITING. But that’s not it. THEY WERE IN DRESSES. Like they looked NICE. THEY HAD GOTTEN READY and had LOOKED UP THE BUS SCHEDULE. This is a missionary's dream. At least in our mission. We went to Stake Conference together and they LOVED IT. Beta said she really loved the music and the speakers and Fatima was even paying really close attention. At the end of conference a bunch of people came up to them and it turns out they have other cousins who live in our stake and were saying stuff like, "yeah Beta mentioned that she’s getting baptized, please call us and let us know the details so we can be there."

It was amazing. And they just fell into our laps. I love it. That’s when you know it is right and that’s when they’re going to stay firm. References who have friends and have expressed desire! Don’t get me wrong, there are elect people waiting for their door to be knocked, but really member references is the way to go. Heed the advice of our leaders in General conference and talk to your friends about the gospel and give references to the missionaries!

Also this week we had a miracle with Dean! Dad thank you so, so, so much for your letter with your testimony written in Chinese. I gave it to him in a lesson on Friday and he was so excited. I even took a video of it which I will try to attach to the email. He translated it into English for us and the spirit was so strong that my companion was starting to cry. After he read it he just kept smiling and saying thank you and asking me to tell dad thank you. He said, "This is real gift. This is from the heart. I am very touched. Thank you much." (mistakes intended on that one). As we continued to talk to Dean about what he’s learned and the responses to his prayers (the two dreams about Christ) he said that in his dream, Christ reached his hand out to him and that he wanted to grab it but he woke up before he could. As we talked to him about how he can reach out and take the Savior’s hand through baptism, the spirit was so strong. Dean said he still wasn’t sure that these things are a response for him to be able to pick this path. We invited him to, if before that date feels that he has received his response from God to take this path, be baptized on May 4th and HE ACCEPTED. The first time we brought up baptism he was extremely firm that he was neither ready nor willing to think about that yet. This is an amazing step for him. Everyone please pray hard for Dean to receive recognition of the responses he is getting from the Lord. I know that prayer works and it would be awesome to have your support in this. He needs it!

Also. Being Lisbon and all, it has been my dream to meet Mormon tourists and take a picture with them. That dream came true this week! We got on the bus and a couple started talking to my companion and me. Turns out that he had served his mission here in Lisbon 30 years ago and they were here for just three days before meeting up with their son in Spain who just finished his mission. It’s their first trip back and they were really excited to have run into us. As we were talking they asked where I was from and when I said Maryland, the wife mentioned she had family in the Frederick area and I said that’s my stake! She asked what ward I lived in and when I said Westminster, you should have seen her face. She said, "My sister lives in that ward!"Susan Knouse! I about had a heart attack. We were so excited and I told her I had been Kristina’s camp counselor and that I love their family! We took pictures and it was amazing! The Lord blesses us so much in life and on the mission. He knows when we need a tender mercy and he WANTS to give them to us! So cool huh!

This week is going to be wonderful for me and I pray that it will be just as wonderful for all of you! I love and miss you all!!!

Irma Dean

General Conference (was awesome)

04/08/13
This whole week was incredible! We had an amazing p-day of NOT getting transferred, our investigators were progressing like crazy, we had an amazing zone meeting, my comp is really hilarious, and we had General Conference!

Basically that's what I want to write about. and Dean. Because he watched all four sessions.

But first, I have a favor to ask, that all of you keep Margarida in your prayers. She was doing so wonderfully with the plan to quit smoking in time for her baptism and then four days before she smoked one more cigarette than she was supposed to. She got really down on herself and Satan pounced. The next day she smoked 11 cigarettes and she is really struggling and has pretty much lost all faith that she can still be baptized. She received a blessing from our ward mission leader and was feeling a lot more hopeful but is still really sad from having to postpone the baptism. She watched Saturady General Conference at home and I know the Lord spoke to her through Craig Cardon's talk on repentance. On Sunday she came to the chapel to watch with us but had a really bad reaction to not having her tobacco with her and it ended pretty badly so she went home early. She is so incredible and it's really sad to see her like this. Satan is a real something-I-can't-say-as-a-missionary.

But! Dean is amazing! First, this week we taught him the Plan of Salvation. He had incredible questions and understood it so well! We got to the end and he said, so if we go to the sun kingdom, we are perfect and we are like God. (Yes) So then we are also Gods. (Looking at each other like wow... yes!) So there will be many Gods and we will keep progressing (hallelujah). When we finished up the lesson and he didn’t have any more questions, he just looks at the chalkboard, nods his head a little with a smile and goes, "It is good." We invited him to say a prayer that night and ask God if the Plan of Salvation is true. The next day we called to confirm plans for conference and follow up on the prayer. Hey guess what, he had a SECOND dream about Jesus. He said that it was a majestic sort of thing and there were other people around smiling and then Jesus smiled at him and reached His hand out to him. Yeah. He’s elect.

Irma Walton and I were invited to attend the Saturday sessions of Conference in English at the mission home with President and Irma Fluckiger, who also welcomed Dean and Kelsi (the member friend). The first session it was us and some other sisters and then between sessions we asked Dean what he thought. He didn't understand all of it because of the language but he really liked the feeling of it. We taught the first lesson and he asked what the difference between a seer and a prophet is. This guy's incredible. We then ate a Portuguese dinner (something called Fransazenias or something it’s basically a heart attack in sandwich form) with a bunch more missionaries and the Fluckigers and Dean asked if he could stay for the next session. Sunday he found his way to the chapel in Benfica (about an hour away on public transport) all by himself and appeared right as we were calling to see if he needed us to go find him at the metro stop. And PS: he's already reading in Alma 5. Please pray that he will finally recognize what Heavenly Father is trying to tell him!

I love you all and I hope you guys were just as edified by General Conference! If not say a prayer and watch it again! Love you and have a wonderful week!

So Blessed it’s Ridiculous

04/04/13

Heavenly Father answers prayers.

Somewhere in Luke is the parable of the judge and the woman who wants vengeance. The judge says that the woman wearies him so much that he is willing to do what she asks. Sometimes in the house during lunch, we listen to Truman G Madsen's lectures. One time he talked about that story and how we should "Weary the Lord for asking" until he gives us what he wants. Also, Helaman 10:3-5 told me the same thing.

Here’s what happened. Irma Walton and I are both Senior Companion because she's only a couple of transfers older than me, and I knew the area when she arrived. Senior comp is supposed to stay in the area for 6-8 months. Since she was also senior, and I only have three transfers left, and also just because of a lot of things that were happening, I felt for sure like I would be leaving Lapa today.

Like, I was completely sure… until a week and a half ago. When I decided to weary the Lord. I am too in love with this place and these people to leave. I can't do it. I have to see Dean recognize his relationship to God. I have to see Margarida be baptized during General Conference and quit smoking. I have to be at Claudia's wedding before she is baptized. At least that was my opinion. So I told Heavenly Father what I wanted and I did it EVERY TIME I PRAYED. Even to bless food and in the prayer to start our comp study and the prayer to leave the house and just EVER SINGLE PRAYER.
One day last week I was praying to end my personal study and I just told Heavenly Father like it is. I poured out my heart about why I want to stay and I heard, "okay. sure." and I was like, “Whoa, Wait. Like... really?” And then I started doubting that I had received a response so since then I felt completely in the air of whether I would stay.

Last night when the Elders called to tell us about transfers, Elder Souza made it all dramatic because he knew how badly I want to stay, and he told us we would be staying together! I get a fourth transfer in Lapa! I get another transfer with Irma Walton! I get to keep helping Dean and Margarida and Claudia and everyone else! I get to be in the best place in Portugal for another six weeks!
I burst into tears when he told us and we had like the most epic hug ever.
I AM SO EXCITED. I love this place, I love my mission, I love talking to strangers about God, I love Dean, I love Margarida, I love Claudia, I love our ward, I love the office, I LOVE LIFE. Seriously.

Any who, the work is going really well! Margarida received a blessing to help quit smoking and she is doing really well!! Dean spent the week in Spain for vacation, visited the Madrid Temple and attended church in Barcelona the Sunday he wasn't here! He was so excited to show us all the pictures. We fasted with Claudia and her papers are coming along to get married! The members have started giving us tons of references! And Sunday was Easter! Best thing ever.

I hope you all know how much the Savior loves each and every one of you. It is infinite! His love is beyond comprehension. I am so grateful for the chance to teach people of His love and His sacrifice. I hope you all had a wonderful week, and please know that I love and pray for you!

Irma Dean