We are hoping that all of our friends and family had a
wonderful week. For us it was a week to
reflect on the blessings of family, health, our wonderful country, and the
gospel of Jesus Christ. How blessed we
are in so many ways.
We had some rain again this week, but Thanksgiving Day was
absolutely beautiful. We enjoyed our
dinner and visit at President and Sister Fluckiger’s very much. The mission home was decorated for Christmas and
was very beautiful. Our meal was
absolutely wonderful with turkey and all the trimmings. The office Elders were sent off on an errand
to find a turkey the day before and came back with a large one, but it had a
long neck and some feathers. I got to
bring the carcass home and made a delicious turkey soup yesterday. There were 18 of us who enjoyed the time
together. For some (from Portugal and
Brazil) it was their first time to celebrate Thanksgiving. I made orange rolls (not my best ones ever)
and some toffee.
We had an interesting email on Friday. We heard from a member of the Church in
Londrina, Brazil, named Samuel Temperbra who had come in contact with Pedro and
Irma Reis, who we taught in Chapeco, Brazil.
We were sad when we returned for our visit two years ago to find that
Pedro and Irma had moved away.No one knew to where. Anyway,
Samuel told about meeting Pedro and when Pedro found out Samuel was a member of
the Church Pedro told him about us and wants to make contact with us. Pedro, we believe, had a testimony of the
gospel but never joined because Irma belonged to the 7th Day
Adventist Church and didn't want to break the covenants she had made with that
church. Pedro attended many of our
integration night activities, some baptisms, several General Conference
sessions and a few Sacrament Meetings.
He came to our apartment a few times to visit with us and we taught him
and Irma many times in their home. Irma
was always kind to us and listened to our lessons, but didn't want to change. We cared a lot about them. We were excited to hear that he wants to make
contact with us. He is a man just a bit
older than us.
This coming Tuesday should be an interesting day. There is a small group (11 people) of
returned missionaries and wives from Brazil 65+ years old who are coming to Lisbon on a
cruise ship and will be here for the day.
Elder Henry has been in contact with an LDS tour guide and the leader of
the tour group and we are going to meet up with them at the dock early in the morning for a day of sightseeing and reminiscing about Brazil. It is supposed to be a nice day, so we are
keeping our fingers crossed. We plan to
ride the cable car and a newer version of a trolley and see how much we can
experience during the time they have.
The tour group leader is Alfred Gunn, who has been keeping many
Brazilian missionaries connected over the years with his monthly newsletters called
the Brauzilista. It will be fun to
finally meet him.
Next weekend will be our first stake conference here in
Portugal. The Saturday evening session
will be broadcast over the satellite, and we will go to a university for the
session on Sunday.
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| President Fluckiger carving the turkey. |
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| Our Thanksgiving Day group. |
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