Me dê um toque no facebook 😀😀😀

I miss you guys!!!

Monday:

- We have these 2 kids in our ward who are recent converts. They are 10 and 13 and they are sooo cute little chubby guys. And Their mom is an evil inactive lady. We text her a lot about the activities and things, and she does tell her kids about the things, but that doesn't mean she's gonna be nice about it. We try to mark things with her and her family and she evilly refuses everything. On Sunday a calendar of our meals with members was being passed around and the two cutie recent convert kids signed up their family for a meal this week and we were so excited!! Lol and then we were having a lesson on monday night and we received a call from the evil mom and we were shocked because she's never purposefully acknowledged us before and we got excited because maybe she had a change of heart!!! We called her back and she didn't answer and we texted her like what's up!! And she said "Pois I just want to take our name off of the calendar." My heart kind of hurts for these kiddos.

Tuesday:

-Tuesday morning we had a videocall with Gilson and our good old member friend de novo, but this time we taught the Word of Wisdom and I was tbh pretty nervous. You only really teach the commandments and laws and ordinances lessons a handful of times on the mission you know because only a few get that far. Before this lesson I had taught the word of wisdom two times before but also neither time was I the senior comp. It actually went suuuper well!!!! Gilson said he wanted to stop and that he will. More to come on this.

Wednesday:

- There wasn't enough seats on the buses for us to go to Viseu or for the elders to come to Aveiro so we had district council over zoom :((((

- Sister Smith: "HE POKED ME BACK!!!! "

Thursday:

- Sister Adib complimented me on my subjunctives and that was so kind!!! Made my day.

Friday

- The weather this week has been SO NICE!! Like 70s and sunny bro the dream. I am literally so blessed to have been here during the winter. Not in a part of Portugal where you don't see the sun for weeks and it's just terribly rainy. I don't wanna jinx it tho.

- We had a lesson with one of our friends named Maria and her member friend and it was SO COOL to see the power of the members testimony and the difference it made.

Saturday:

- After our lesson on Tuesday with Gilson, we had some other videocall lessons planned but they all fell through, and so we were getting a lot nervous tbh. But then!! On Saturday we were able to have a lesson at the chapel with a member and it was bomba. Gilson walked in and for the first time ever he didn't reek of smoke!! We sat down, started our lesson and he started telling us about his week. On Wednesday, we texted the member that helped us in our lesson teaching the word of wisdom, and asked him to message Gilson and see how he's doing. And then on Saturday during this lesson, Gilson told us that this member called him and that it helped him sooo much. Helped him feel much more capable. Gilson smoke and drank a lot, and he told us that with the help of the Lord, he went from his normal 100% to 30% of what he normally does. He said he normally goes out and parties Wednesday-saturday night but that he didn't want to be tempted so he didn't. It makes me so happy!!! to see his true desire and willingness to change.

- Found the coolest facebook milagre!!!! I'll show what I mean in some screenshots of his messages!!! I don't know if I'm allowed to do that but I'm gonna do it!!!! This man messaged me and then went to church here in Aveiro even with us being in Viseu. I'm excited for this man.

- We had a member meal dinner and it was sooo much fun. The mom is from the Philippines and the dad is Portuguese but they've lived in England and Portugal for a lot of their lives so them and their daughter speak all the languages really well. This mom is literally hilarious it was so fun. Once every month she drives 5 hours to Spain and then 5 hours back just to go to the Costco there because she just loves Costco. (Costco? Cosco?) She was showing us all her Kirtland signature brand things and her ziploc bags and we were all

Sunday:

- We had stake conference in Viseu!! It was kinda stinky because it was actually impossible to get our friends and recent converts to church, buuuut it was also nice to go to church and not be sweating bullets checking the door every 3 seconds waiting for friends to not show up. We had stake conference for the 2 hours and then after there was another meeting for the young adults and it was soooo good. Elder Philips an area authority I think from England was there speaking and also President was there!!! I freaking love him!!!

Something cool is that this week I've been thinking a lot about consecration. Because I'm nearing halfway on my mission (ikr 😵‍💫 ) and I want to be more consecrated in everything I do. And then one of the speakers at stake conference gave a bomb talk on literally just that. Really the only gift we can give to our Heavenly Father, is our hearts. All of our soul. We have to leave everything on the altar! And consecrate ourselves DAILY. Elder Philips was saying that sometimes we wonder why we don't feel as close to God and to Jesus Christ as we used to be, or as close as we want to be. He said to examine your life and ask yourself, "Am I really leaving everything on the altar? What are some things I'm still holding on to?" My goal is to council with the Lord in prayer on how I can consecrate myself more and really make the most of my time as a missionary!!

Today is zone pday!! With President de novo!! And then tomorrow we have zone conference!! With President!! It'll be a good week!!

Sister Menden

Pics!

- Zoom devotional featuring David Presidents son he's so cutie

- Me sneaking a screenshot of the videocall with Gilson when we taught the Word of Wisdom

- The prettiest highway art!! All of those designs are made with the broken tile!!

- A pic of me contributing in District council por zoom lol and then us eating out after at this amazing burger place

- English class!!

- What our meals look like when we don't have member meals

- The fun member meal!!!

- Us on the bus going to stake conference with the other missionaries

- Facebook miracle!!