Starting off March

Hello familiy! 

This week we started the week off on monday taking a trip to Cabo de Roca in Sintra with Elder Madsen and Elder Soares. It was pretty awesome, a great view of the ocean with a light house and some huge cliffs! Don´t worry I didn´t do any cliff jumping haha. I´ll send some pictures though. 

The rest of the week we continued preparing Sonia, Viviam, and Dulce for their baptism. Had their baptism interviews, taught some more lessons where they could feel the spirit, did a Fast with them, and spoke to their Mom who finally got here on Saturday. The Dad arrived too, but they didn´t want us to talk to the Dad. The Mom gave them all permission to be baptised, even said how while she was in Angola she had been praying that her daughters here in Portugal would find a church that could bring the spirit into the house and help her daughters grow. We testified that her prayers had been answered, and testified that what we have taught them will and is blessng their lives. Anyways, saturday night we filled the font, made the programs for the baptism, made some desserts along with the members, and were excited to see these three girls follow the example of Jesus Christ and get baptized. Sadly though, they weren't baptized on Sunday.  It's a long story, but now we just have to have Faith that everything will work out!

The other parts of the week consisted of passing by Less actives, the ward had a party for young man named André Pina who is going on his mission to New York! They did a good job decorating the room in the church with things from New York and with Hotdogs and Hamburgers and all haha! He is our ward mission leader who does an awesome job and will do great as well on his mission. Sunday we took all the treats that had been made for the baptism and visited some members. Dropped some off at Paulette's house, a recent convert, and shared a spiritual thought with her and then Dropped by Domingas and Celeste's place, the ladies that have like the most energy in the world. Celeste had a rough day on Sunday, was a little down in the dumps, but she touched my heart and shared with me that she really appreciated the nice words and conversation she and I had after the second hour of church. Nice of her to say, and made me feel good that I helped pick up her spirits a little as a missionary! Anyways, yesterday when we passed by we helped Domingas start reading the Book of Mormon Again. She wants to try and read it all this month. We started with the Testimony of Joseph Smith and explained it as we read! 

It´s incredible the trust that our Heavenly Father had in Joseph Smith to translate the Book of Mormon and Restore the Church of Jesus Christ here on earth. I can´t imagine the pressure he must have felt. And how well our Heavenly Father had prepared him for this task. He was only human, had weaknesses, even made mistakes at times like we all do, but wouldn´t deny what he knew to be true. The work that was needed to bring the Book of Mormon about was huge and it´s apparent how many lives it has affected.

Today is Elder Ward's Birthday so we celebrated with some Pancakes in the morning and are thinking about going and doing some bowling today on our p-day. Big 20!

Love and miss you all!

Elder Holmes