Here in Odivelas!

Good morning everyone! 

This week we started the week off monday night teaching Viviem (17), Sonia (17) and Dulce (13). They are three girls from Angola that the sisters contacted in the street one day, who live here with their older brother, and have been looking for a church. They came to church yesterday and the sunday before, and are really loving the members, everything they are learning, and their mom is happy that they have found a church to attend. Monday night we taught them about the Gospel of Jesus Christ,and when we spoke about repentance, Sonia brought up how it has to do with forgiveness. She shared a story about forgiveness and it reminded me of how Mom used to teach us kids how to forgive others! haha! How when us brothers fought, she would put us in the bathroom together (while we were still mad at each other) and wouldn’t let us come out until we had apoligized and made up! haha  The girls loved the story and it brought back some funny memories of Nick and I or Chistian and I just sitting in the bathroom together until we resolved our problems. After we went on to explain the steps of repentance, the 2 youth members we invited, Kevin and Veronica, bore their testimonies of the constant companion we recieve after our baptism, the Holy Ghost. 

Tuesday night we had another family night with Família Santallem. The other elders shared the Joseph Smith story to a non-member Ecuadorian couple and another kid that is friends with Família Santallem. And then wednesday night we attended a missionary reunion for a sister missionary from our ward here in Odivelas who just got back from Cape Verde. Friday night we got to bring Sonia, Viviem and Dulce to a baptism of a kid in our ward, Rui Dimitrov. He turned 8 this past month and made the decision to be baptized. It was nice seeing his older brother Ianik baptism him. There were so many members there to support him, and afterwards, they served literally every Portuguese finger food and dessert you could think of haha. The baptism went a little long, so let’s just say we Elders filled our trays full of food and power walked to the house!

The best part of the week was probably last night. We had another lesson with Viviem, Sonia, and Dulce, answering a lot of questions, bearing our testimonies about the Book of Mormon, reading the scriptures, praying, our purpose here on the earth, etc, and we invited them to be baptized. Viviem brought up that when she saw Rui get baptized this last Friday, she felt something different, and right after she said that, both Dulce and Sonia said they experienced the same thing. We went on to connect those feelings to the Holy Ghost. What they feel when they read their scriptures, when they pray, when they go to church, that the Holy Ghost is truly testifying to them the truth of these things. We told them we prayed about what day they could enter the waters of baptism, and Dulce was so touched that we would really take the time to pray for them. Towards the end of the lesson, they were starting to feel this was for them, and we invited them to pray about it and ask for themselves. These girls have so much faith and are loving reading in the Book of Mormon. Yesterday they practically told us the whole first 15 pages of the book, how Nephi was a man of God with great faith and how his brothers wavered.  I can really see the light of this message growing in their hearts. 

Praying that they recieve an answer; we know that all who pray with a sincere heart, with real intent, with faith in christ, will recieve one. Praying that the parents who will come here to Portugal in the coming week will allow them to follow the answer they received. (A little worried because the dad is a Jehovah’s witness... but the girls don´t want anything to do with that church haha). Throughout the week I thought a lot about the actions that we make, the little things that add up. Hearing from the returned missionary, seeing the little steps that have grown the testimony of Viviem, Sonia and Dulce, Alma 37:6 really rings true….. “but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass."

I know that this is true. Our actions, no matter how small and simple, bring great things to pass. They truly reflect who we are. 

Love and miss you all!

Elder Holmes

Visit from the 70/Eric Getting Baptized! (with pics!)

Elder Holmes & Ward with Celio

P-Day Adventures at the Palacio em Sentra

Baptism of Eric

Party put on by ward members to celebrate Eric's baptism!

Sorry it has been a while since I posted a letter from Lee.  He has been transferred since the last posting and is serving in a suburb of Lisbon called Ovidelas.

Thanks for all the interest and prayers on his behalf. Sure love you all……  Carolann

Subject: Visit from the 70/Eric Getting Baptized!

From: Lee Holmes <lee.holmes@myldsmail.net>

Olá Família e amigos!

I hope you guys all had a great "dia dos namoradas" yesterday (thanks for spoiling me mom with the package!) and are all excited for another week! 

Here in portugal, we were visited by Elder Dyches, a member of the 70, which was great. He spoke a lot about the 8 fundamentals of Preach My Gospel and how we need to be applying these into our work here in portugal. Teaching the doctrine of Christ, the role of the Holy Ghost, Revelation through Prayer, Revelation through Church attendance, Revelation through the Book of Mormon, Teaching People and not Lessons, How We Invite, Then Commit and Follow up, and How to really begin teaching. He shared some great stories about conversions and how we can truly be the angels in people lives here in Portugal. How we need to look to see where the Lord´s hands was in helping us each and every day. Elder Dyches shared a story about how one time he was asked to perform a surgery on someone with a man that everyone knew as the master, one of the best ear, nose, and throat doctors out there. He began the surgery and this master teacher placed his hand on Elder Dyches' hands and helped him make the perfect little cuts that needed to be made. It wasn´t until after, that he realized he had just been trained by the master. During that story, I felt like the spirit was trying to tell me that here on the mission we are being trained by the master trainer, whether we know it or not, preparing us not only for the mission but for the rest of our lives into the eternities. It was a privilege to hear from him and his wife and comforting to hear the love he shared with us from our own living prophet. Not only are we praying for him, but he is praying for us.

Later on in the week, we had a baptism for our friend Eric Anderson de Sousa Costa. There is a long story about him so I´ll try to share a little bit of what happened! Anyways, Eric is one of Josémar´s friends (one of the youth in our ward here in Odivelas). He grew up here in Portugal, but moved to Angola and just comes here during vacation time during the winter. He had come to church a couples times, had spoken once with the missionaries before I arrived, and was waiting for his Mom to come from Angola so the missionaries (us) could speak with her about the church her son has so much enjoyed. The mom took a little time to come, so we started teaching him more, inviting him to church (with their other friend Celio) and his testimony grew and grew. 2 Sundays ago, after not talking to him for a week or so, knowing he was going to leave to Angola here soon, we sent him a text and he showed up in Church. Not only showed up in church but bore his testimony! It was awesome! Josémar shared with him that he was the first person to share his testimony before baptism for 4 years. Anyways, after church we had a lesson with him, he really felt the spirit, we invited him to be baptized that day, he got on his knees and asked God and after the prayer just kept saying how good he felt and how he was ready! How he was really feeling the spirit. Sadly, he had some troubles with his family when they heard about the decision, with him telling them that he really received an answer from God to be baptized. Never have i seen someone with so much faith and so much desire to enter the waters of baptism. Anyway, that sunday night, it was a little tough as he decided to wait, maybe until Angola or in the future, and we prayed that one day he would enter the waters of baptisms. BUT! A miracle happened. He didn´t deny what he felt, he received a ton of love and support from the members here, and decided he wanted to be baptized before he headed off to Angola. We got a call Thursday night, the members did an awesome job of preparing a little celebration after, and Eric was all smiles as he left the waters of baptism. 

The lesson I learned with Eric is our Heavenly Father is really preparing his elect, how the Holy Ghost can really touch someone’s heart and testify of whats is true. AND that Faith is what truly drives everything! He had the faith, kept with his desire, and followed through what what he knew to be true. 

Love and miss you all!

Elder Holmes

Feliz Novo Ano!

Date: January 4, 2016 at 6:44:03 AM MST

From: Lee Holmes <lee.holmes@myldsmail.net>

Olá Familia!

Feliz Novo Ano para Vocês! This week was a little random at times with the new year, and with people partying and on holidays! Anyways, This week we taught Domingos and Maria English monday night and got to know them a little better. They are a couple who has been waiting to get married, got their papers to get married, but then Maria didn´t realize that her citizenship expired, so she has to renew it before her marriage papers expire the 21st. If that doesn't happen, she will have to renew her citizenship, then reapply to get married, which will take several more months. What a headache! Just trying to teach them once or twice a week, Domingos goes to church every week, Maria off and on, has been like this for a good amount of time. They just need to get married and baptized! 

Anyways, the rest of the week, we entered a couple of houses and taught. Taught this family that we sang christmas carols to during christmas time, Vera and Carlos, who have kids that are younger, and they really seemed to like it. Challenged them to read the book of mormon chapter about christ in the americas and she said they would! We had another appointment with them on saturday, planned with a member, but when we got there, they weren´t home! Bummer. Well it happens. When we passed by later that night the husband said that vera´s mom got sick, but she read the chapter, and to try the next week. So we will see how it goes this week!

Also taught another man Eurico that is about 26 that we had contacted by our shopping center here. We talked to him about prophets, and how we have a living prophet today. He told us he would need to check the internet for that one! haha  We told him that the internet has a bunch of good and bad things, how we have been called by that prophet to serve here in Portugal, and if he really wanted to find out for himself, that we were his source. Well anyways, we taught him this week, seemed to really like it, but with new years this week he went out of town and have lost contact with him so far. 

Taught some other people that didn´t seem as interested. Just if they knew what is really out there for them. New years eve was pretty random. We taught this guy from England and his girlfriend who is from portugal, and the guy really didn´t want us to talk anything about religion, but the lady actually seemed more interested. We finally got the guy talking, got his interest a little, but then it kinda just went down hill from there.  He kept telling us that he invited us over becuase we seemed like nice kids, that we needed a break from this work, and that we weren´t going to leave to go to any other appointments that night because he had prepared us snacks and cake and all to eat! hahah Long story short, they started drinking, we were a little worried he was going to freak out on us, so when he had repeated the same thing like 15 times we were like alright we got to go. He said 'no you guys just got here', and I was like 'actually we have been her for a whole lot longer than that' and finally he let us leave. Sad to see people who just love to drink and party. It made it a little difficult to do anything that night and the following days. Elder Macedo and I just went back to the house and studied a little bit. President told us we had to be in the house at 9:30, and could stay up a little past 12, but our house is boxed in so we didn´t get to see any fireworks, just a bunch of noise and crazy people screaming! haha But we passed the new year with some pão de quijo that Elder Macedo made, some ovomatchini (maybe you know what that is nick) and some ice cream. I TOTALLY FORGOT TO BUY GRAPES I DON`T KNOW WHAT I WAS THINKING! Haha It was a new years to remember, though. Good ol crazy Joseph, making us stay in his house. Only on the mission do things like this happen.

Anyways, this week tried a harder, more appointments fell through, but yesterday was interesting! This lady we have been trying to schedule something with for this whole transfer (like 5 times, we would have given up on her forever ago but she always seems like she wants to talk to us) called us after church and said she could do a church tour that we had been trying to plan with her. Elder Macedo and I were kinda like.... we´ve already tried with this lady and she has stood us up a lot. So we got a member to go there with us, waited there... she didn´t show up for 40 minutes, kept calling us telling she would, we were about to leave, and then finally she showed up! I had tried telling the member before how we wanted to do it, but when she got there, he pretty much didn´t let us talk at all. i was kinda annoyed, but at the end, he really made a good friendship with her. She wants to come to church next week. I really believe she felt the spirit, and hey who knows! We were wondering why she had called, (becuase yesterday we had seen her in the shoppying center and she said she didn´t want to go to church or anything) but she told us a couple weeks ago, when she had planned a church tour with us, that that day was really hard for her for a bunch of reasons. She remembered we told her on the phone that this is what she needed, that these things were going to bless her, and so on. She said when she passed the church, and told us that she didn´t have time, etc. etc. when she was walking away she just felt sad, and the words we had said to her on the phone and in front of the church had stuck in her mind, and maybe what we were saying really would help. Anyways, cool to hear! And maybe it´s her time now! Going to try and teach her this week, get her to church, and teach her the gospel.

Sorry my letters are so jumbled. It´s hard to explain the details especially with so little time on the computer. Wish I could just call you guys at night and give you the real low down on what´s happening. 

Other news. P-day here on the mission got cut short 2 hours until we start baptizing more than 40 people a month... ends at 4 instead of 6:00. I am now the district leader here with two sets of sisters (one in Olhao and one in Tavira) and one other set of elders in Beja! Elder Macedo and I are staying together which I think will be good! I’m excited about that!

Elder Holmes

Christmas in Portugal 2015 (pics!)

Dear Family and Friends:

Lee didn't have much time to write today, so I thought I would post 

just a few pictures from his Portuguese Christmas.  We were able to talk with him

on Christmas day and it was great.  He sure appreciates those of you who have taken the time

to keep in touch.  Thanks for your love and friendship!

 Elder Holmes with his companion, Elder Macedo.

 "At our Mission conference, we had a bunch of musical acts and then all the zones did a skits. Elder Macedo's and my part was about how the sun melts the snow men haha. So I made us these wigs out of paper and all and let's just say it was a hit! Guess you just had to have been there!"  

 These pics are from the P-Day we had when Elder Madsen was with us.  We went to Lagos.  

Such a cool place.  

A few Christmas pics at our apartment in front of our Christmas tree!  

 And finally, a shot of Elder Holmes skyping home on Christmas day! Oh how we miss him!

Feeling a Bit Better!

Date: December 14, 2015 at 7:40:13 AM MST

From: Lee Holmes <lee.holmes@myldsmail.net>

Olá Familia!

So this week was still a little tough getting over my sinus infection. We didn’t do much all week until Thursday or so, as I started feeling better. Still was having severed headaches but the last 3 days I have felt pretty good! Tough just sitting in the house! Once we started getting going again, we taught another lesson to our friend Domingas, along with a a member of the church Emaneul. He has some struggles right not too, as we are trying to help him quit smoking again, but it´s kinda cool teaching his friend Domingas, who is helping Emanuel’s testimony fire up again, as well. She has loved the two messages we have left with her so far, but she doesn’t have a phone so it is tough getting in contact with her. She said she would come to church with us this week with Emanual, but when we arrived at her house on Sunday, she had left for work and Emanual had gone to the beach to fish. Bummer!

Taught a lesson with a man the Elders before us were teaching, Fernando. His wife couldn’t make it to be with us. But they made it to church. He has a little hard time understanding what we are teaching at times I believe, and then our member who was teaching with us started talking to him in criol, which is a little difficult for me at least to understand! It was good though. They can only meet on the weekends and aren´t married. We will do our best. 

Friday one of our members Nato, who has a lot of fire to do activities with our branch, put on an activity where Elder Macedo and I and then the sisters, Sister Olsen and Sister Andrade, did a Spiritual thought. Had a nice object lesson that is a little difficult to explain over email but it went well. Talked about the world we live in, the things we can use to overcome the wickedness and become clean and perseverar ate o fin!

This week I read a lot of conference talks from the past general conference and decided to start Elder Durrant’s challenge to ponder a scripture every week. To put it in a place that we will think about and then talk about your scriptures to others. I was reading in Mosiah, when Alma the younger went from one wicked kid to an incredible righteous missionary, and what he said when he truly had a change of heart. My scripture this week was Mosiah 27:26… I have it memorized in portguese but can’t quote it in english! haha It talks about us becoming new creatures in this life, and unless we do this, it´s going to be hard for us to return to our Heavenly Father’s presence. I thought a lot about how we truly are here to change our habits, our natural man habits, and become better people. Better disciples of Christ. Trying to become perfect, even like our Father in Heaven is perfect. Of course in becoming a´´different´´ creature, I know I´m not going to change from a human into a dog (as much as I´d love to turn into a dog like Cosmo and have everyone give me all their time all day long! hahahaha) but that “different creature” will be a new and improved ME!  We can change ourselves. Who we really are. I enjoyed sharing this scripture with my comp, and some other less actives and members throughout the week. 

Today we are headed to Lisbon and tomorrow we are having a Christmas party with our entire mission. Should be fun! We are doing a secret Santa so we all bought presents to exchange. I´m excited about. This week, I think up until christmas, I believe Elder Madsen, the AP will serve with us which I´m excited about. The president just has the AP´s now doing week long divisions with missionaries. Kinda cool and excited to see how he works. 

Excited for Christmas. Sorry that I´m not so good with the details! I am so slow at reading and try to read all your guys emails and respond as well!

Elder Holmes

Nothing like Being Sick in Sacavem! (with pics!)

A few pics of Lee in Sacavem, taken before he was transferred.

• Lee and some of his investigators in Sacavem
• Lee with his companion, Elder Leung, in Sacavem.  
• Lee even mastered Steve's rice pudding recipe!
• A few views from his apartment! 

           

So this week was pretty uneventful - except for monday! We visited a less active and a friend was there, as well, so we ended up teaching her! Domingas! She really loved our lesson and was happy for us to come back in a few days. Unfortunately, Elder Macedo and I got sick. I started feeling better around wednesday or thurdsay, but then began having these really bad headaches. Sister tavarez decided that the Roberts, the missionary couple here, should take me to the hospital. So we went to the hospital Friday night and figured out that I have a sinus infection, sinnosidis or something like that. The rest of the weekend until today we have literally just been chilling in the house and my head feels like it’s about to explode. It´s kinda hard to read and type so sorry that I´m going to be pretty short with all of you guys today! (I’ll include some pics instead). It wasn´t that exciting of a week anyways, but hopefully I can start feeling better! The headaches are like in the right side of the head and it feels like all this pressure is in my teeth. I could barely sleep the last two nights. I feel bad too because Elder Macedo, being his first couple weeks here, is just kinda chilling in the house with me and we aren´t really doing any missionary work. Big-time bummer! Hope to get better soon|

Elder Holmes

Week 1 in Olhão! (with pic!)

Bom Dia Familia! 

This week I stayed in Sacavem until Wednesday with Elder Leung, saying goodbye to some investigators, and then Wednesday morning we went and picked up our greenies! Elder Leung received a finalist on the voice. I can’t remember his name. I received Elder Macedo! He was born in Brazil, lived in Orem for 5 years and then moved to Spain this past year, so he speaks english, Portuguese and Spanish. He is helping me a lot with my Portuguese but at times it´s a little difficult to understand his Brazilian accent! They use lot of different words over there!

We took our bus to Olhão, and got thrown into this whole white wash thing! The sisters in the city helped us out a little on where our area is. The elders before left us 2 couples and a lady they were teaching to get in contact with. We did some visits here and there this weekend and it has been fun getting to know the members of the ward and trying to set some things moving! There is a good amount of youth here. The church and the members seem to be really excited for missionary work right now which is awesome! We taught a couple, Domingos and Maria, who have been waiting for their marriage papers to arrive. I believe we will baptize them this transfer, after we plan a little party for them and all this Friday. We also taught a couple of lessons to some less actives and made some friendships with them. This week I´ve felt a lot of responsibility thrown on me with my new comp, training, new area. This area is a part of the Algarve, like my old city Beja, so it seems likes it’s a little harder to find people to teach. It’s more similiar to Beja than Sacavem. We just have to keep the faith and our Heavenly Father will lead us to those who will receive us. Elder Macedo is a good missionary and teaches well. I’m trying my best to make it a good transfer for him and have things planned!

Saturday we moved a recent convert Sonya to a new house which was kinda fun! We don´t always get to do too much service so I´m always excited when we have that!

Sorry this email is a little jumbled! Anyway my new district includes Beja, Tavira and then Olhão. Elder Veiweg, who lived in the same house as me last transfer, went to be comps with Elder Sutton in Olhão and elder Sutton is our new Zone leader. Beja is 3 hours away so the missionaries in Beja have to either skype in or phone call in for our district meetings! President did a lot of mixing up this transfer. Elder Macedo and I live in a good apartment in a poorer part of the town. We are ready to see some baptisms this transfer! Lots of kids, going to work with them, and super excited for Christmas! 

This week we arrived in Olhão and didn´t really have anything to do for thanksgiving, but I sure did think about all the things I´m grateful for. My list doesn´t stop, and it of course starts with my family in first place. I think about you guys every day. I want families here to have the same thing we have, through the great gospel of Jesus Christ. I remember a while ago, mom challenged us to just offer a prayer of gratitude, and told us how amazed we would be with how long our prayers would end up being. It´s so true. I love you all and love hearing from all of you!

Elder Holmes