Chasing a Dog Around!

Date: September 21, 2015 at 8:59:55 AM MDT

Subject: Chasing a Dog Around

We made this table!!

Olá meus Amigos!

Another week down for Elder Holmes in BEJA -The desert of Portugal! Good thing it´s not as hot as when I arrived but it is still hot! 

This week let’s just say it was all about Faith in Jesus Christ. I tried to study this every morning and it helped me leave the house jazzed to do missionary work. The work is tough, we contact até o po (until the dust haha) and we didn´t have many lessons this week, but we still have the faith in Jesus Christ. 

This week we decided to buy bus passes to start working in a city called Penedo Gordo that doesn´t get much love from the missionaries! We did a lot of contacting on tuesday and thursday there and have some things set up there for tomorrow! Kinda cool, right when we got off the bus there, this mom and her son practically contacted us! Always nice when it happens like that but definitely very rare! Hopefully everything falls in place and we can have a lesson with them tomorrow night.

This week I also took the stress test that is required for the 5th week training (never did it the 5th week so I did it this week!) WE ALL GOOD! I am in the GREEN! Haha I learned some good stuff though that I can definitely apply into my missionary work. One: To let go of the things that are out of my control. And Two: To do all you can and then let the Lord do the rest. It reminded me of a quote Clairesauce sent me (Claire Holmes that is), to ``Pray as if it all depends on the Lord and work as if it all depends on you.`` Something like that. So TRUE though! There is only so much I can handle, and just have to leave the rest up to Him. 

Saturday was the most interesting day for us by far though. During lunch time, we knocked on a house, and their dog escaped!! We literally tried to get it back into the house for like 45 minutes and finally it just ran away from us and we lost it! We felt so bad. What had we done!!! We left a note on the door, saying we were sorry, hoped it returns, would do anything we could to help find it, and gave our number. As we were walking away, still feeling bad, we said a prayer that it would return. We started walking towards our house and turned back and the owner of the house walked out the door and seemed like she was looking for her dog! We walked up to her, apologized again, and then she went on to say all was well and that the dog had returned home! hahaha We were relieved. God answered our little prayer! And the lady wasn´t grumpy with us at all. Actually very nice! 

Saturday we also had a lesson with that Marta and Francisco family with President Rubervale and his wife Sheila. Let´s just say it didn´t go as well as we would have hoped. They are both physics teachers, so every time we bore testimony, it was hard because the husband would then go back into physics mode. Even brought out an Albert Einstein statue and put it on the table...hahaha I thought that was kinda funny. But yeah it was tough. We had high expectations for the lesson and didn´t really yield the best results. Marta had read the first chapter of the book of mormon, had even drawn like pictures of the stories and the family of Lehi etc. but I guess just more believed it was true because it´s a record and not that it is truly from God. More the storyline rather than what´s behind it. President still thinks she has potential, and thinks we should teach them one more time with the president of the district here, who is a chemistry teacher, so we will see!! After the lesson, my heart was pretty shot. My faith in Christ, for what he would do for us after we gave it our all, was a little shaken to say the least. But then I remembered a devotional I saw in the MTC by David Bednar called the Character of Christ. He said in this, ``When the natural man would turn inward, Christ turns outward.`` I am striving for this, and for that, Elder Sutton and I got right up and went back to work contacting. Even got blessed on a house we knocked on with a family. Excited to teach them tomorrow! The work is hard but the work is true.

Last night we finished the week with a lesson with a less active that we see a lot of potential with! Just trying to help people individually and help this ramo grow as a whole. I´m so blessed in my life and have 2 years to truly try and bless others. Love you all and have a great week!!

Elder Holmes