Monday, October 12, 2015

Take a Step Back and Sharpen our Blades!

Olá Family!  What’s up? Thanks so much for the e-mails.  What a week you’ve had.  On one hand, I am so freaking pumped for Christian!  That is SOOO awesome!  On the other hand, my heart is so sad, just thinking about Rachel’s mom.  I will for sure write both C-Bear and Rachel today!

We had transfers today and Elder Sutton and I are staying in BEJA! Another Elder got transfered out to be a Zone Leader in Setubal so Elder Simpon will be getting a new companion, Elder Sorenson. And Elder Sutton will be the district leader here in Beja! Time to have another great transfer and work hard and smart!

This week we did some more with some less actives and had a good week! One of our less actives sons had a birthday so we baked him some cookies and they were very appreciative. They have a nice family, and hopefully they will be able to have a family night with us tonight with President Ruberval and Sheila!

We also had dinner with another less active named Maria and also our recent convert Antonio! We thought we were just going over there to give her a spiritual thought but we got there and she had a feast prepared for us! haha nice lady, and Antonio seems to be loving the church. I think he really sees that the church is a family and it has truly blessed his life.He has so many more friends and so much more guidance in his life. 

We had a zone conference in Faro again this week on Friday which was great! Just learned more about how to work better with members. President is really stressing the importance of this. And of course, we had to eat at good ol' micky don dons after (MCDONALDS! hahah). Nothing like a fine american hamburger! Elder Braga was very complimentary of my portugese for 2 transfers and asked what I do on my pdays, if I just study the language all day?? hahah I think he was beefing it up a little bit but the language is coming, slowly but surely. Trying to talk as much as I can! My training is done though so now I don´t have as much time to study the language, which I am a little bummed about!

What else, I did a division with Elder Dorius saturday and it was great. There is this man named Edson who all his kids, who live in Brazil, are members of the church, and he has been an investigator for 15 years. He goes to church every sunday and he has all his friends as members. He has been waiting to be baptized in Brazil, which he is leaving for here this month, but Elder Simpson and Dorius had really been feeling that he should get baptized before he leaves. Elder Dorius and I had a lesson with him on saturday that was very powerful and he is keeping all the commandments of God right now. We shared how we know that he has a choice to make, to get baptized before or wait until Brazil which might be harder. He came to church and decided that yesterday wasn´t the day for him, but after talking to his son on the phone, he has decided to get baptized on Tuesday! I am soooo pumped for him. He isn´t in my area, but I have taught him several times and he just cracks me up all the time. I love the guy. Fun to see friends take their first steps in the Gospel. Tuesday will be a good day for Edson and the branch here in Beja!

Lastly, I want to share a story Elder Empee told me at zone conference. He shared how there were 2 men having a race of who could cut the most logs in half. One man decided that he was going to go all day with no breaks, just work, work, work. The other man decided he was going to take 10 minute breaks, sharpen his blade, have a little snack and overall, just have a better time. While the first man’s blade was getting dull and you could tell he wasn´t having the greatest time, the second man was cutting through the wood like butter, with a smile on his face all day. The second guy ended up winning the race. I liked this story a lot because sometimes as missionaries we think "just work work work", but at times we just need to take a step back, sharpen our blades, put a smile on our face, and then get back at it. Not only as missionaries, but just in life in general. Alright, enough with Elder Lee Sauce´s story time. Haha

Love you all and miss you guys like crazy. It was a good week and looking forward to seeing miracles here in Beja this transfer. 


Elder Holmes

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