Sunday, September 30, 2012

Our week at the office was very busy, with lots of contacting of PEF participants and Mike was also doing the final interview for new loans in Spain.  Our week ended on a really high note because three of our students paid their loans off and all of them were significant amounts.  All of them have moved to Europe from other countries and when they arrive they have no idea how to continue paying on their loans, so they do not pay at all.  As we contact them (without mentioning that they need to pay) many of them ask how they can pay in France, Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands, Slovenia, etc.  This week we had the opportunity to communicate with these three students with details for them and they responded by paying off their loans.  This made us so happy because now they are eligible for the blessings promised them by President Gordon B. Hinckley when he announced the beginning of this program to help young people rise from the depths of poverty, gain an education and be better prepared to care for their families and serve in the Church.  We were so thrilled for these young people because we know that freedom from debt brings a wonderful feeling.   We have experienced this at various times in our lives and especially when we paid off our mortgage last year.

We had the opportunity to make a visit on Thursday night in Costa de Caparica with Geraldo.  We visited again with Mario Brandao.  His wife had gone to bed early because she has to get up early to go to work.  He is not working right now because he had knee surgery and is undergoing rehabilitation now. 

We had a wonderfully cool week with rain several times, but never got caught in the rain on our walks to and from the office.  We are wondering how we will get along without a heater in our apartment when it gets a little colder, but we will be okay.  We survived in Brazil without one.  We were supplied with some nice warm comforters for the bed which we haven’t needed yet.

While Elder Henry was studying our family history he found a great book called “Stand by my Servant Joseph”.  The statement was a quote from Joseph Smith about Joseph Knight, his friend.  It tells the story of the Knight family from before Joseph was given the plates near Emma’s home in Colesville through the early history of the Church in New York, Ohio, Missouri, Illinois and on to Utah.  It includes the story of how the Harris family(our relatives) joined the Church on their travels to Oregon when he was healed by Joseph Knight and were then converted by him and decided to go to Nauvoo instead of Oregon.  They were baptized in the Mississippi River at Nauvoo and attended the dedication of the Nauvoo Temple.  Then they traveled with the saints to Utah.

I came across a wonderful quote this week which was from a July 1953 Improvement Era.  “I define home as being a divinely appointed institution in which a servant and handmaiden of the Lord prepare themselves in righteousness to receive chosen spirits coming from our Eternal Father and give them bodies in the flesh for mortal probation and then undertake with all the power at their command to lead those spirit children entrusted to their care back into the presence of God from whence they came.”  This was by President Richards.

We send our love to family and friends.  Hope you have a wonderful week.

This is Hanah and Reginaldo Cruz.  We like him so much, but he got promoted and is leaving us.

Many walls and buildings here are painted this way.  This one is in our neighborhood.

In the background is the Cristo Rei statue.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

We received some good news this week.  Elder and Sister Davenport, who have been helping us in Spain with the contacting of the PEF participants there, are returning home this week.  But we will have a new couple from Spain for the next six months.  We are really excited about this because there are around 100 participants in Spain, with more being added as we write.  With a Spanish couple there to speak with them, it will help us a great deal.    This also means that we will get to make another trip into Spain to train them around the 10^th of October.  Thank goodness PACO will be there to help with the translation because they don’t speak English.

On Wednesday there was a meeting at the office to prepare the Church employees that there are changes coming.  We may lose some of them as positions are being consolidated.  This makes us sad, as we really like the people we work with.  Reginaldo, one of our favorites, is being transferred to Porto with an advancement in position.  We are happy for him and his family, but will really miss him.  He was our go-to guy for all computer problems.  He always made me smile because he worked right next to us and we would often hear him singing “Jingle Bells” in English.

We also had appointments with two PEF participants in Lisbon on Wednesday evening.  Both are from Brazil—one a young married girl and the other a bishop with a new baby boy.  We really enjoyed getting acquainted with them.  Unfortunately they are both looking for work and we hope that they will be able to find something soon.  We would love to meet with more people, but there are only 14 in all of Portugal and many live a great distance from here.  The difficult part for us is that we have to make contact with students in so many countries and we have to do it by phone, email or text messaging.  Would you believe that I now text?  But, I do it by computer.  We have a special program for doing it that way.  We can mass text, but it is difficult because we are working with three different languages.  We feel that the work is going well and we are getting some positive responses from the students.

On Thursday we made a visit to a family in Monte Caparica and found that it was the mother of one of our members in the Miratejo ward.  We didn’t go to Caparica today because we were concerned about a fluid leak in our car.  So we stayed here in Miratejo and Mike was asked to speak in the Sacrament Meeting.  He did a wonderful job, without notes, and pretty much gave his talk from a few weeks ago.

Our weather seems more like fall now.  Our temperatures are now in the 70s and are supposed to dip down into the 60s for a day or two this week.  We had some rain last night.   Today is very pleasant.

We are healthy, happy and enjoying our opportunity to serve however  we are able.

Sign on school wall--HE WHO FALLS ON HIS HEAD RISES ON FOOT

It seems everyone here has a dog--This guy has three.

Interesting building in Lisbon.

September 16, 2012

Our week started with the receiving of two facebook messages which thrilled us.  Those who remember us talking about the Coito family will know that we visited and worked with this family in Chapeco (who had been inactive for about 12 years) for about 18 months.  We taught, encouraged and finally were able to baptize their three daughters, but the parents just didn’t make the effort to come to church.  Their middle daughter, Jessica, started coming to Seminary, church, temple excursions, etc.  Finally the family started coming and Brother Coito recently received the Mel. Priesthood.  He wrote on Monday to tell us that they are planning to go to the temple on October 13^th.  He thanked us for not giving up on them and continuing to visit.  What great joy this brings us!  Another message we received from Paulo Santos, who joined the church while we were there, went to the temple with us to be sealed to his family, and then became inactive when out-of-town work and financial problems hit the family.  When we visited in November of 2010 we got them to church to bless a new baby and they have been active since.  He has now been called to be 2^nd counselor in the branch presidency and is very happy.  So our first mission is continuing to bring us great joy. 

On Wednesday we received a call regarding the funeral for Catarina Marques, an older lady we had visited once in Caparica.  Her funeral was to start at 11:00 AM.  So we hurried from the office to get there in time.  It didn’t begin until about 12:45PM.   Mike was asked to speak and I was asked to lead the music (without a pianist) and give the closing prayer.  All turned out well, but I was getting a little impatient for the service to begin.

We had a busy week at the office.  I spent several days updating the PEF participants’ records.  Many have come from South America or other countries and their records were not correct.  Mike has been busy with correspondence and phone contacts.

We had a nice visit with Mario, Solange and Pedro (4 yrs old) on Thursday night.  Mario recently had surgery on his knee.  They have been inactive  for some time, but we hope that will change.

Saturday we had a wedding at the church in Miratejo for a couple—Francisco and Olimpia—who were here for a home evening with us a while back.  They have a daughter who was baptized over a month ago and now the mother will be baptized this afternoon.  The dad is already a member.  The Sister missionaries have been teaching them and were the bridesmaids.  I will include pictures.  Apparently there is another wedding planned for next weekend.  I think we have met the couple, but not sure.

We had Elder and Sister Johnson from Idaho Falls, Idaho, over for dinner last night.  They are just younger than us and we enjoyed our meal and visit with them.  We are planning to do some sightseeing together when we can arrange it.

I liked our lesson in Relief Society today about staying on the Lord’s side, George Albert Smith said, “When I have been tempted sometimes to do a certain thing, I have asked myself, ‘Which side of the line am I on?’  If I determined to be on the safe side, the Lord’s side, I would do the right thing every time.  So when temptation comes, think prayerfully about your problem and the influence of the Lord will aid you to decide wisely.  There is safety for us only on the Lord’s side of the line.”  Love you all!!

Our beautiful Sister bridesmaids

Wedding of Olimpia and Francisco--daughter Nadia in white on left.

Bishop Ribeiro and family of Caparica minus oldest son.

It was a busy week for us.  Even though it was Labor Day on Monday in the US, we spent the day at the office here in Portugal.  On Tuesday, after working a couple of hours, I had an appointment for my first permanent here.  I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but it is better than the ones I got in Brazil.  We went back to the office afterward and then had a visit in the evening with Nuno and Monica again.  This time we went with Simon, counselor in the bishopric.

Wednesday we spent the day at the office and then drove to Caparica again, where we met Elders Barr and Peacock and made a visit with them to see Rosa, a lady without legs, and her daughters and grand-children.  It was a nice visit and the one daughter was at church today.  We had some time to kill between appointments, so we took the Elders to get a treat and then met up with Simon again to make another visit.  The scheduled visit fell through, so we visited Teresa, Isabela and Jessica.  I sat next to Isabela, who held my hand and smiled at me during the entire visit.

Thursday was Mike’s birthday so we made it our Preparation Day and went to explore some areas where we hadn’t yet been.  We drove out to Casilhas where you can take a ferry across the bay.  It is pretty cheap to make the trip over and back; we will have to try it sometime.  This was in an interesting older section.  We tried some of their pastries and bought a few items.  We drove to Brandao and Trafaria to see what was there and ate a wonderful meal of Salmon at a little restaurant in Trafaria.

I spent several days this week working up a list of PEF participants whose records need updating.  These are students who are now living in Europe somewhere, but whose records still show their address in some other location.  We have two men in our office who work with church records, so we will probably have to enlist their help when I have the list completed.

Saturday I had to be at the church by 8:20 to take a bus with other women to an all-women’s meeting in another area.  To start with our bus was late and then because of a very severe traffic accident, we were delayed 1-1/2 hours in arriving for our 3-hour meeting.  What we did hear was very good.  Elder Nelson’s wife, Wendy, was speaking when we arrived.  She talked a lot about being holy women and an experiment she had done with several women.  We were also able to hear Sister Rasband who stressed that we are all daughters of God.  As soon as I returned to the church, Mike met me so we could travel to a missionary meeting with the Johnsons.  It was quite an experience to arrive there, but fortunately Mike had studied the route on Google Earth.  There were several narrow streets and one-way streets and a person could get really confused without preparing ahead of time.  We had a wonderful meeting with most of the missionaries in our mission and Elders and Sisters Rasband, Texeira, Rocha, Richards, Bishop Causse and President and Sister Fluckiger.  After our meeting we had sandwiches and ice cream and a nice visit with Elder and Sister Johnson.

Prayers are needed for our dear brother Jerry Henry.  He fell several times, was taken to the hospital and then transferred to UC Davis in Sacramento where they are treating him for an infection and an aneurysm (an excessive localized enlargement of an artery caused by weakening of the artery wall).

Remember how much you are loved by us and by our Heavenly Father!

Old part of town in Casilhas

Happy Birthday to Elder Henry w/Olinda, Gustavo and Luiz

Our Missionary Meeting.  We sat on the stand.

                             

With Elder Hope, cousin to Elder Craig Hope of Corning Ward

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Mike gave a wonderful spiritual thought about unity in which he showed pictures of the Redwoods, and talked about how their roots intertwine to create a great support system.  This week we finished our contacting of the PEF participants for the month, and I learned how to text message from the computer with a program called Clickatell.  We were trained in mass texting in SLC before we came to Portugal, but I haven’t actually wanted to do it on that scale yet.  There will probably be a time when we will use that option also.  We don’t have cell phone numbers for all of the students, so it is not a great way to reach everyone.

On Tuesday we had a zone meeting.  Mike was asked to share his experience with John Torgan and his baptism (the father of our recently released mission president).  The Assistants to the President involved Mike and I in a teaching skit.  That evening we visited with a family in Costa de Caparica.  Nuno, the head of the family, is inactive but was receptive to our visit with the young Elders.  He said he would be at church today, but unfortunately was sick.

PACO flew in from Madrid and held a meeting with us in the afternoon on Wednesday.  Elder and Sister Johnson, who were transferred here from Porto, also came to our office and we met them for the first time.  They have been in Portugal a month longer than us.  We took PACO to eat and he bought our dinner, then we drove him to the airport.

Thursday we were invited to President and Sister Fluckiger’s for lunch with the Johnsons and the Roses, another couple who arrived in Portugal that day.  We very much enjoyed our lunch and visit and also were able to meet some young Elders.  One of them is having health problems and so we took part in his blessing.

Saturday we decided to use our P-Day to visit some local sites of interest.  We went to the Museum of Coaches and saw some amazing old carriages from the past.  We also visited the Museum of Archeology and the Monument to the Discoveries.  These were all located in Lisbon.  We also visited the Pasteis de Belem, which is famous for its pastries.  (Crystal, this is another one you will want to experience!)

We didn’t make any visits today because President Graca is at the temple in Madrid with his family.  But we will probably go during the week to visit some members with Simon.  He is a counselor to the Bishop and a very pleasant young man.

Mike and I were asked to speak next week.  Bishop Ribeiro gave us each a letter asking us to speak, giving us our topics (mine is Faith and Mike’s is Service), telling us we each have 7 minutes and telling us to be on the stand 10 minutes ahead of time.  I thought this was a nice touch.  They actually post a schedule of the talks and subjects for the month on a bulletin board.

Thank you for the emails we received last week.  It was wonderful to hear from so many of you. A thought from Jeffrey R. Holland:  “God is anxiously waiting for the chance to answer your prayers and fulfill your dreams, just as He always has.  But He can’t if you don’t pray and He can’t if you don’t dream.  In short, He can’t if you don’t believe.”