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.”
No comments:
Post a Comment