From Portugal With Love: December 2, 2012

We have had a great week. Monday was especially gratifying for me. I had emailed Edward (originally from Africa, but living now in the United Kingdom) several times to ask for his phone number so we could contact him. He never replied, so I contacted his bishop, and ultimately, his stake president. I received a phone number for him on Monday and called him. We had a very nice visit, he asked for information on how to pay and told me that his email address was changed. I forwarded the info to him and the next thing I knew he emailed back saying that he had made a payment. Mike made lots of phone calls this month and also had some success getting contact information from leaders. By the end of the day Friday we had 94.5% of our high-priority contacts completed in place of 78.1% last month. We made contact with most of the other 300 or so participants through emails or texts. There are some that we will probably never find because we have no leads.

We had a very fun day on Tuesday with the small tour group of returned Brazilian missionaries and their spouses. We met them as they disembarked their cruise ship and rode in taxis, cable cars, and buses to visit various places in old Lisbon. We ate lunch at the Pasteis of Belem, which is always great, visited the Castle of St. Jorge, Jeronimos Cathedral, and various other sites. Elder and Sister Johnson also joined us and our tour guide was great. She said she would lead the tour for the price of lunch and passages, but we gave her a nice tip also.

This weekend was our first stake conference here in Portugal. For the Saturday night meeting we watched the meeting via satellite at the Miratejo church. Today we went to a university between here and Costa de Caparica for our meeting. Both sessions were really good. Today we had a wonderful youth choir; we were really impressed with them. Also a group of 5 former and present missionaries sang a couple of Christmas carols and were really great. We complimented one of them and found him to be a missionary who served with Gregg in the Sao Paulo South Mission years ago. It continues to be a small world.

Our Stake President Graca and his wife invited us and President and Sister Fluckiger to their home for lunch. They fed us so much—enough for lunch and dinner and then sent us home with some of the leftovers. Their daughter Sara, 7, wanted us to play a board game with her and we enjoyed that very much. They have invited us to come back on Christmas Eve if we are able.

Sometime this coming week I need to make 13 dozen cookies for the missionaries’ Christmas party to be held on December 11^th. I think this may be a 2-3 day project, depending on our schedule. All of the senior couples are helping with this project. We are also putting together a package for an Elder from Cape Verde, as his parents cannot afford to send him anything.

How grateful we are to be representatives of our Savior, Jesus Christ, as we celebrate his birth and contemplate what his life and his atonement means to each of us as we strive to live His teachings and qualify to return to His presence.