July 29, 2012

We had a good week and felt like we made some good progress with the PEF program.  We emailed participants throughout Europe to let them know about our new Service Center here in Lisbon, and we had quite a few positive responses.  Mike wrote a detailed letter to point out some of our discoveries, make a few suggestions, and report on what we have been doing.  On Friday we had a training meeting with leaders from Salt Lake and people from all over the world.  It was very interesting to be able to see groups from Africa, the Phillipines, South America, etc. all on the same screen and all participating in the meeting.  Technology is really great.  Some of the areas are using Facebook to contact PEF participants that have been hard to find and are having great success with it.  It may be something that we will eventually use also.

Mike and I started walking to the office this week.  It only takes about 10 minutes each way.   So at least we are getting 40 minutes of walking time in each day and it is fun to walk by a soccer field and see the young people and occasionally the older ones playing.  We always enjoy that.

We were invited over to Elder and Sister Lund’s apartment for dinner on Friday night.  She fixed a lovely meal and we enjoyed it very much.  Elder and Sister Wilson, who are just finishing their mission in Portugal and returning home on Monday, were also there.  We really enjoyed visiting with them.  They had both served missions in Brazil as young people and she had also visited Mozambique a few years back and had been in Maputo, Beira and Marameu (sp.?).  She was in Marameu when there was a big group of people from a church wanting to join the Church.

We are loving the summer weather here.  It has been so pleasant.

We enjoy hearing from all of our family and friends.  Please drop us a line and let us know what you are doing.  We love you and wish you the best.

Elder and Sister Henry

July 22, 2012

We have had a nice week.  Miguel, our mentor, returned from his vacation with lots of assignments for us to work on.  There are quite a few high-priority calls which they would like us to make throughout the European area.  The problem is that it is very difficult to reach the young people—either they are not at home or their phone number is incorrect. 

We had an interesting Family Home Evening in our apartment on Monday night with Francisco, Olimpia, Nadia and Sisters Nelson and De Sousa.  We gave the lesson on the importance of families.  We enjoyed the evening.

We sent to the office for at least a part of the day every day, but we also had a few other appointments.  On Wednesday I had my first haircut here—not too bad.  On Thursday, we left early in the morning to meet Elder Berrgeron at the mission office.  He is from Tennessee.  He drove us to the place where we could get our fiscal identification cards which we were told we need to have.  We are hoping to get a better internet situation in our apartment and we can’t make a contract without this card.  There was a huge line outside the building we were entering and we had thoughts of waiting a loooong time, but when we entered the building we saw that most of the people were going elsewhere, so it didn’t take long at all.

Friday, after working at the office, we left a little early and went with Elder and Sister Lund to Cascais.  This is a beautiful city on the coast.  While in the area we visited Boca do Inferno and Cabo da Roca, which is the furthest point west in Europe.  We also enjoyed a wonderful grilled salmon dinner and later gelado.

Today at church I was asked to give a talk on the Holy Ghost at a baptism to be held at 4:30 this afternoon.  I had to scramble to get it ready and didn’t feel very well prepared, but I did it anyway.  The young missionaries here are having baptisms every week so far.  We enjoy them very much.

The gospel is true and we love being a part of the missionary work in Portugal.

We send our love to our family and friends.

Below are a few of the sites we were able to enjoy this week:

Pictures of our New Home

Our living room--

Our car--

Our PEF Office--

New Mission President & Sister Fluckiger--

Hello From Portugal

Dear Family and Friends,

We just returned from our Sunday meetings and it is time to write and express our love for each of you.  Mike gave a talk today on the three pillars of the gospel—the creation, the fall and the atonement.  He gave a wonderful talk, as usual.  I’m hoping for a little more time to adjust to the language here in Portugal before I am asked.  We’ll see what happens.

Sister Nelson (from Arizona) and Sister De Sousa (from Brazil) asked us to go with them to visit a family tomorrow night and have Family Home Evening with them.  The parents need to get married before the woman can be baptized. I believe that the father and at least one of their children are members already.

We have been investigating a way to get the internet in our apartment since we are just borrowing a device from Miguel.  First we have to get a fiscal identification number before we can enter into a contract for the service.  Luis, from our bishopric and our office went with us on Friday, but they said we needed to have a representative in order to get one.  We will go with the office missionaries to get one, probably sometime this week.

We drove to a beach yesterday and took some pictures.  We have a lot of exploring to do on our preparation days.  Our GPS doesn’t always cooperate, but luckily we have always found our way back home.  On the freeways here there are places where each lane has a different speed limit—50-70-90 kmph.  Like Brazil there are lots of turnabouts and speed bumps.

Our supervisor in the PEF program has been gone on vacation and will be back tomorrow.  We still have much to learn about our responsibilities, but we are willing and ready!

The gospel is true and we are happy to be serving in whatever way we can.  We wish you joy in your families and health to do the things that you enjoy.

Love,

Mom and Dad, Elder & Sister Henry

Hello From Portugal

Dear Family and Friends,

We have had a nice week here in Portugal.  We spend most of our week-day time in the church office building here with close to 20 people who have different church assignments.  We think that we are the only ones who are not paid employees.  They have all been very kind and helpful, especially Regianaldo.  He is such a pleasant and helpful young married man and we enjoy him very much.  We work on the second floor.  This week it has been really quiet (except for the construction work) because most of the employees went to the temple for the week.  Our main boss is one of them and he will be gone next week too.  The timing isn’t great because we are still learning and could use his assistance.  We have been able to get a few things accomplished, though.

            On Wednesday we had to go to the mission office to get ourselves registered in the country.  There we met the new mission president and his wife and they also accompanied us and the office Elders to do the same thing.  It is quite hilarious trying to find the mission office, even with our GPS.  We knew it would be difficult, so we made a practice run on Tuesday night and thought we would never find the place.  We had actually driven right past it without knowing it before finding it later. There are lots of narrow streets here and people park so you can barely make it down some of them.

            We had a zone meeting on Thursday and since it was right next door in our chapel (Half of our building is our office, the other half a chapel.) we attended for part of the day.  It was very enjoyable to be trained by the new mission president and to mingle with the young missionaries.

            Today was our P-Day and we drove around a little to see some new sights and also found a wonderful 3-story mall where we bought a few things we needed and ate some Kentucky Fried Chicken. 

            We are enjoying the wonderful weather here.  Haven’t had to use our fan since the first few days we arrived.  We are on the 6^th floor of our apartment bldg. so we are happy to have an elevator.

            We know the gospel is true and we are happy to be here to serve in any way that we can.  Write to us!  We love you.

Mom and Dad, Elder & Sister Henry

Boa Tarde de Lisbon

Hi everyone,

We feel like world travelers this week.  I think that our flight from Paris to Lisbon was the only one that was on time.  We have spent hours waiting in airports this week.  I guess we need to learn patience.  We thought that we would be traveling home from Madrid on the train, but Francisco, who made all the reservations for our trip, decided to keep us in Madrid one more night and fly us back since the air strike didn't happen.  

Francisco and his wife, Suzie, entertained and fed us in their home in Alcala de Henares on Thursday night, showed us many beautiful areas of Madrid on Friday night where we had tapas, sodas and frozen yogurt, and then took us to see an old university and the home of Cervantes, who wrote Don Quijote on Saturday morning before they took us back to the airport.

The photo where we are sitting with the statues is of Sancho Panza and Don Quijote in front of Miguel Cervantes' home.  

Our meetings were held on Friday in a building owned by the Church next door to the Madrid Temple.  We didn't go inside, but were able to walk around it and take pictures before the meetings began.  I included a picture of the temple with this e-mail.

The other picture is of us in one of the plazas we visited.  I couldn't believe all of the activities that were going on in the plazas.  They had people dressed up in various costumes, including Micky and Minnie, clowns, musicians, bubble blowers,balancing acts, people painted up in all sorts of fashions, etc.  Lots of people gather there to visit, to eat and to enjoy time together.  We ate tapas, which are small "fast food" creations, in an old market where you could get all sorts of items.  The only negative was that my feet were killing me by then and we stood to eat.  Otherwise we enjoyed our evening immensely.

We attended our ward today and enjoyed it very much.  The people were nice, but they do talk and read quite rapidly.  I need much practice to keep up with them.

This week we need to settle down to business with our PEF responsibilities.   We are working in the same office building with about a dozen Church employees.  We have met most of them.  I think they all speak English, along with Portuguese. Our ward meets on the other side of the same building.  When we enter the building it is by finger recognition.

Miguel, our PEF supervisor, loaned us a gadget from which we are receiving the internet for now.  We will have to find another solution soon.

It was hot when we arrived, but has cooled off considerably and we do not need our fan today.  It is very pleasant.  The nights seem also to cool off pretty nicely.

We love you and are happy to be here,

Elder and Sister Henry