From Portugal With Love: December 9, 2012

Our week at the office was good and we had a good start to our month. We have both made a fair number of contacts already and Mike has been working on an audit connected with our PEF participants and priesthood leaders. It is meant to check on how well the processes are working.

We had some heavy rain this week, but also some beautiful days. We find that we don’t hear the rain in our apartment unless it is really coming down hard because we are on the 6^th of 10 floors.

We put together a Christmas package for an elder from Cape Verde. Sister Fluckiger wants to make sure that no one is forgotten. I think her family is helping with some of the other elders from that country.

On Friday night and Saturday I made about 16 dozen cookies (13 dozen for the missionaries). I really appreciated having an oven that cooks everything much more rapidly than I am accustomed to because it actually went pretty fast. By the time I had one pan ready to take out of the oven, I had another ready to go in.

This week is a week of celebrations. On Tuesday we have our missionary meeting and celebration, on Friday we will have a devotional and lots of food, and Saturday the Costa de Caparica Ward is having their Festa de Natal. We will go on Monday afternoon to help put together the goodie bags for the missionaries and to help decorate for Tuesday’s get-together.

We find it impossible to believe that a third of our mission will be completed on Tuesday of this week. Time seems to fly by when you are busy doing the Lord’s work.

We are so grateful for family and friends. Remember the reason for this wonderful season of the year. We are so thankful to know of our Heavenly Father’s plan for us and to know of our Savior, Jesus Christ, his atonement, his example and his teachings, which bless our lives each and every day.