Did you know that in Portugal we have lots of Chinese Stores?  I would have never thought it would be so, but there are many.  They are a good place to buy things without spending too much money.  Mike bought a new pair of shoes there this week because one of his shoes was split on the bottom.  They only cost about 16 euros.  If they don’t last long, at least it’s not a big loss.  Most of the employees in these stores are Chinese and some don’t speak at lot of Portuguese.

I was able to find five of our “lost” participants this week on Facebook.  Since this was the only way I had to contact them, I was able to send them a message.  I think I found another one who is supposed to be in Spain, but it looks like he is back in Brazil.  Proving it is him is another matter.  I did find a cartoon on his site that gave me a good laugh:  One old gentleman says to his friend, “What are you going to do today?”  He responds, “Nothing.”  The first man says, “You did that yesterday.”  He responds, “I didn’t finish.”

We had some success this week with our contacts wanting to pay off their loans.  Sometimes it is just because we send them a text message or give them a call to see how they are doing.  We also were able to meet another Area 70 from Germany who was visiting some of the people in our office.  He came into our office for a while and talked to us about the PEF program.  His name is Elder Fingerley and he is originally from Germany, and is a very sweet man.  He wanted to come back to our office and listen while we made a phone call, but ran out of time.

This week we had some hard rain, thunder, lightning and strong winds, but today is a beautiful day.  We are managing to stay warm enough by wearing jackets in our apartment and dressing in layers when we go out.

I sent an email to our investigator friend, Paula, and she says she has been meeting with the Elders.  We want to find a time to take her to see some of the sights here and she seemed very interested in doing that with us.

There is a new couple arriving on March 1^st, so Sister Fluckiger invited us to come to the mission home on Saturday March 2^nd to meet them and have lunch with all of the couples in our mission.  We always enjoy this.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is a great blessing in our lives and gives us so much incentive to improve and strive to live closer to the teachings we have been given.  The more commandments we keep, the happier we are.  What a perfect plan our Heavenly Father has given us!  We send our love to all of our family and friends.

When we ate our lunch in Setubal, the pigeons loved our crumbs.  One even lit on Elder Henry's knee.

Scenery on the way to Setubal.

So many apartments in Portugal.  These are in Setubal.

February 17, 2013

It has been a great week!  The best part was that we had a wonderful opportunity.  On Tuesday it was a holiday here, so we decided to take a drive to Setubal, a city about 30 minutes from here.  We drove around seeing the sights and located our two church meetinghouses there.   Then when it was lunchtime, we stopped at a Pingo Doce (a grocery market chain here) and looked around, but then went next door to an inside marketplace where many vendors had fruits, vegetables, pastries, etc. to sell.  We bought a few items, but decided (or should I say, were prompted by the Spirit) to go back into Pingo Doce to buy something to eat for lunch.  Elder Henry stayed outside with our sacks from the marketplace while I went inside.  I met up with Paula Castro, who asked me a question about something on the shelf.  We started talking and I discovered she was from Brazil and is a nurse here on a scholarship taking a 6-month course.  I mentioned that we had served a mission in Brazil and were serving another here in Portugal.  She expressed interest in going to our church, so I got her phone number, email address and the address where she is living.  Meanwhile, Mike is outside wondering what is taking me so long.  After I checked out, I met up with Mike, got the address of a church nearby and returned to talk with her again.  In the next few days we gave the reference to the missionaries, made several phone calls and emails to Paula, spoke with both sets of Elders in Setubal, and on Saturday we returned to take her to the nearest church to meet up with the missionaries and have her first discussion.  She was planning on walking to church today (quite a distance) and also is scheduled to have her second discussion on Tuesday.  We wish that we lived closer, so we could do more with Paula, but we will have to rely on the saints in that area.  This been so exciting because our mission this time has a completely different focus and we have missed those special opportunities to spread the gospel.

The holiday on Tuesday was for Carnaval.  The only thing we noticed was that young children were dressed in Halloween-type costumes.  We saw several as we drove around town or shopped.

We also had a good week at the office making our contacts with PEF participants.  We feel it is an inspired program which we have the opportunity to work with and we can see that it is blessing the lives of many young people.

We had our second class on Wednesday night studying the Pearl of Great Price.  It has been very interesting to study about the symbolism involved in the account of the creation.  I have so much to learn.

After church today we took our two young Elders Staples and Oliveira to visit and give the Sacrament at two different homes.  This was a very nice experience.  One lady, Rosa, has no legs and comes to church occasionally when her husband is able to bring her.  The other lady is wheelchair-bound and only leaves the house on Christmas Eve to celebrate with the family.  She is a grandmother to our bishop.

We hope that all of our friends and family know how much we love you and miss you.  Hope you had a wonderful Valentine’s Day. 

LDS Church in Setubal

One of several  paintings on the Scout building.

Elder Henry at marketplace in Setubal.

Sister Henry at marketplace in Setubal.

February 10, 2013

On Monday morning we had a meeting at the office with three visiting authorities from Frankfurt, Germany.  They gave a presentation and talked about changes in the administration of different church office functions.  Then they said they would be meeting individually with 4 of the church employees who work in our office.  One of them was our leader, Miguel Adriano.  As it turns out, he is staying and also Gustavo Silva, who is the stake president of the Lisbon Stake.  We are very happy about this.  We will be losing Olinda Silva and Luiz Silva, but probably not until the end of July. 

I ended up missing two and a half days this week because of the way I was feeling, but am starting to feel quite a bit better.  Mike was able to find Sinutab at a farmacia here, since I was using up all of the Alka-Seltzer Cold Plus which I brought from home.  The pills have a nasty taste, but I believe they are helping.  I slept on the couch for about a week because I found that I could breathe much better with my head elevated.  So far Mike has remained healthy, for which we are grateful.

We had noticed that Elder Oliveira in Caparica came to the mission with really worn-looking shoes, so this week we were able to buy two pairs for him at one of our many Chinese stores for only 23 Euros.  He was very thrilled.  He is the only member in his family, and a very sweet Elder.  Our Elders are doing well in our little ward.  They have several investigators who are progressing toward baptism.  One of them, a lady named Domingas, sat with me in Relief Society today and slept through most of it.

Last night our stake president’s daughter was baptized.  Sister Graca had invited many of her co-workers, so there was a huge crowd.  President Graca had the opportunity to speak with many of the group afterwards and someone commented about the different spirit that they had felt there.  After the baptism, which was very nice, we had a “banquet”.  If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought we were attending a nice wedding reception.

Today Annica Rosa, who was baptized a few months ago, gave her first talk in church.  She gave a wonderful talk on prayer.  She was also called to be a counselor in Relief Society.  Our RS president, who is about her age, has been a great fellowshipper for her.

This week we have a holiday on Tuesday for Carnival.  It doesn’t seem to be as big here as it is in Brazil, but we will see.  There have been lots of Halloween-type costumes out in the stores and Mike saw a group of school children dressed in costumes last week.

We love the gospel of Jesus Christ and know that it is only through Him that we can return to live with Him and His Father if we can qualify ourselves for this great privilege.  We send our love to all!

Sara Graca at her baptism

Some of the "Banquet"--They kept adding more!

The Birthday Cake

February 3, 2013

We finished up all of our high-priority contacts for the month and were so excited because we had 100 percent this time.  The only problem is that one was not reported correctly, so it may only show as 98.7%, but at least we know that we got them all. 

Claudia Santos, who is a Church employee in our office, recently asked me for a recipe for some oatmeal cookies I had made.  I told her to be sure not to cook the oatmeal because she was questioning me about it.  Well, what do you know, she cooked it and then made cookies with the cooked oatmeal.  I thought this was pretty funny.  But, I would probably do something just as comical with their recipes. Just so you know, she indicated that they were more like mush than cookies.
We were invited to a special class on the Pearl of Great Price taught by Joaquim Moreira (returned mission president in Brazil) who works out of our office.  He is over seminaries and institutes in this area.  This class is for Church employees and their family and friends over 18.  There were 24 of us for his first class on Wednesday night.  If I can understand him well enough, I just might learn something new.  He is a little difficult for me to understand.

Tomorrow we are having visitors in our office to share their thoughts on the reorganization of the Church offices and from what we have heard, there may be 4 employees asked to relocate to Germany.  They will hold a joint meeting with all of us and then meet individually with the Church employees.  The changes may not take place for a few months.

I came down with a cold and missed Thursday and part of Friday at the office.  I am feeling better now, but with a pretty bad-sounding cough, so I didn’t go to church today.  For one thing, the women all kiss you on both cheeks and I don’t want anyone getting sick because of me.

Elder Henry is taking good care of me and continuing on in his usual good fashion.  I’m hoping that he doesn’t catch anything from me. 

I finished reading the Doctrine and Covenants in English, and now want to go back and read and study it in Portuguese and English a little more slowly, but I sometimes enjoy a quick read-through.

D&C  133:8 “Send forth the elders of my church unto the nations which are afar off; unto the islands of the sea; send forth unto foreign lands; call upon all nations, first upon the Gentiles, and then upon the Jews.”

D&C  130:18-19 “Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection.  And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come.”

OUR LOVE TO ALL!

My beautiful blooming violet.

Apartments are so common here. These are in Charneca.

Apartments with a different look.

Poorer section of town.

Pink school for Braden.