 |
| These three I got from our Recent Convert José.
Elder Morrison and I with José.
Taken the Saturday before Elder Morrison left (about a month ago).
|
 |
| When Elder McColley (the far right) came and visited Portugal with his family. Elder McColley basically ended his mission in my area. |
 |
| Us with some of the Young Single Adults in our ward. :) This was taken on the Sunday before we played futebol, like two weeks ago. |
This week was a blur. This week we had the chance to talk to Rui, that hippie that Elder Morrison taught a while back. He is still doing alright, but he is a little resistant at times. But he is taking baby steps, and once he is in the water, he will be a firm member of the Church. We had a really great discussion this week on repentance and what it can bring into our lives.
This week we started the second phase of the Listão (big list) with Maria de Ceu! It was really cool. Right off the bat she gave us one person that she felt needs our help, and then we also made some plans to do some family nights with her family and her friends! Recent Converts are the best!!!!! :D
We also had dinner with Família Ribeiro, an older couple in our ward. When we got their, and walked in, the husband was just in garments, and some pants, and for some odd reason it was completely normal for me! :D The dinner was delicious, and we have plans on doing Listão with them as well. They live in a city called Gondomar, which is outside of Porto, and at one time had its own little branch. Maybe we will work on opening it back up again! :D That would be legit.
Friday and Saturday, we did a lot of finding, in an area called Corujeira (Co-roo-jey-da; you need to roll the 'r'). It is in the shadow of the Soccer Stadium, and is a little bit poorer, and I am sure the missionaries have just hit this place up. But we found a family! Dad, Mom, and three kids, the youngest is just one-month old. They couldnt meet with us then, but they said to come by on Sunday.
Sunday rolls around, and we saw that we had many appointments for that day! I love it when that happens. Unfortunately, that family couldnt meet with us, but we did see a few miracles. The Executives (Elder Erhardt and Elder Valentine) had to do numbers, so Elder Moeller came and joined Elder Karthigeyan and I. We were in a building knocking doors, and no one but a dude on the top (fifth) floor answered. When we were tried opening the door to leave the building it wouldnt open! We then tried pushing a button that should've unlocked it (many apartments here have a button to push as you leave the building), but that was broken! We were trapped!!!! And Elder Moeller had an appointment that we needed to pass by in a couple of minutes. So we return to the fifth, to try and tell him that we were locked in, but they didnt answer!!! So, when we got back down, we tried a couple more times, and then we decided to say a prayer. 5 minutes later, some from the outside came into the building! Woohoo, we were free! Never underestimate the power of prayer! :D
We went to that appointment, but the person we were hoping to meet wasnt home, but his girlfriend was and she seemed really interested, and gave Elder Moeller their contact and a time to come back. They are from São Tomé (St. Thomas), an island off the coast of Africa that Portugal colonized (or in other words, elect). Majority of the members in Portugal are people from countries that Portugal colonized back in the 14th and 15th century.
Later that night we met with our recent convert José, who is preparing to serve a mission. Every since I got here, we've been meeting with him just about weekly and we have been choosing a scripture to ponderize for the week. So, because we had Elder Moeller with us, Idecided that we would go with Elder Moeller's favorite scripture. He chose his mission plaque scripture, Psalm 144:1-2. "Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight: My goodness, and my fortress; my high tower, and my deliverer; my shield, and he in whom I trust; who subdueth my people under me." I thought that was such an awesome scripture! And it totally fits who Elder Moeller is. He is this big rugby kid from Highland, Utah. However, he doesnt play for Highland, he plays for their rival club. And obviously, he doesnt think very highly of their program. :)
Then just last night we had an awesome conversation with a mom and daughter. I was with Elder Moeller and Elder Erhardt in their area, and we were doing contacts in the street, on our way home. We passed this mom and her daughters and Elder Erhardt just gave them some invitations to our Hawaiian Party, and we had a conversation while we were walking. The mom was a little resistant about the Book of Mormon, and it seemed like her and Elder Erhardt almost started Bible Bashing. But Elder Moeller starting talking to her daughter who is up her studying. They are Capo Verdeanas, but they live in Lisboa. We reached a corner where we stopped and talked for a little bit. The daughter asked a bunch of questions about who we were and why we were called Elder (Remember, the name Hélder is an actually Portuguese name, so many people think it is our name), and stuff like that. Those sometimes are the best questions, because we get to show people that we really are pretty normal people. In the end, she got to know a little bit about us and our plans in life and why we are missionaries, etc. It was pretty fun, and lasted for about half an hour. They left with two copies of the Book of Mormon, and invitations to our party! Also, we gave the daughter the phone number of the Sisters in the other ward here in Porto, because they have the university in their area.
Our Pday was good this week. We bought food, cleaned the house, had lunch with the Sisters in our district. We ate Rodízio at Pizza Hut! Think Tucanos, but with Pizza Hut Pizza. ;D SO GOOD! Also, next week we have a conference with Elder Zwick of the Seventy, who is really good friends with President Amorim, and so it is likely that we will have Pday next Monday instead of Tuesday.
I love you all! Time flies fast, so enjoy life, and have fun!
Um abraço,
Elder Yoder
The first three pics are of the rives that runs through Porto, and that splits Porto from Gaia (you are looking towards Gaia). The third being one of the bridges that connects the two cities. We were in some type of transport thing that was climbing a hill. I'm not even sure what it was called in Portuguese.
 |
| From our house looking towards to the back. I feel like this picture accurately describes Portugal. I mean, it makes sense to clean the rough tops, but the way they are doing it is so Portuguese. |
No comments:
Post a Comment