From Portugal With Love: 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!