WEEK 43 #Porto

Week 43 #Porto

 October 15, 2018

 Hey everyone! Super great first week here in Porto! So my "son" actually is 6 foot 8! He's actually super cool and we like a bunch of the same things, like sports and tv series hahah. And he's a savage as well, so I'm constantly laughing. The other thing is that he speaks Portuguese super good!! It's crazy, I mean obviously he makes a fair share of mistakes and stuff but he speaks super well for being so new! So life's always good when you have a cool comp! But Porto is pretty cool! It's a super old and pretty place! It was named the best European stop of 2017 haha! Well that's what a pamphlet that we have says and it could just be biased, but Porto is beautiful. Another thing is that we are basically doing a "White Wash" which means 2 new missionaries in a new area. Elder Jardine already has 6 weeks here but we just moved to the other side of the city. So we're in a brand new area! It'll be cool though. We got some good work to do! Here's the week

Oct 9th, Crazy day, and I finally said bye to Carregado. As I said before, I'll miss that little place. It was my home for the whole summer and a little bit more! Then we went to the train station where all the missionaries go to meet their new companions. I saw a bunch of my homies and finally saw my day one Elder Taylor. Love that guy and I know we're gonna serve together one day hahah. And also I traded ties with my MTC comp Elder Webb, love that guy!! Then I went up to Porto and even sat with one of my old comps, Elder Baugh, yup "The Legend". Then got off the train and met Elder Jardine! He's super tall, holy. But I knew it'd be a cool transfer! Also saw my other old comp Elder Terra, he's actually my Zone Leader right now. After that we walked home and it was a struggle, Porto has a bunch of hills and some how the wheel on my suit case started to get rekt and I basically had to drag 60 to 70 pound of dead weight up and down hills for 20 minutes. GREAT workout though, so the gains are worth it. As soon as I pulled it into the door of our house the wheel actually fell off hahah! Then we went and bought groceries cause I hadn't eaten all day.. and after that we tried to go to bed but we talked a little bit long! That just means it's gonna be a lit transfer. 

Oct 10th, We had to go switch and move stuff from Elder Jardine's old house to our new house. They took the Sisters out of our area and we took the Sisters' house. Which is awesome because it was left super clean and they left us treats and food hahah. Sisters are dope. Then the only other thing that we basically did was go to English classes at the church. At least I'm not the main teacher this time hahah!

Oct 11th, District Counsel in the morning, it's only like a 20 minute walk to the church so that's way better than an 1hr 30min bus ride to Santarem every District Counsel. The district is cool though, it's me, Elder Jardine, Elder Vigne, Elder Fillmore, and some senior missionaries "Couple Stewart". It's pretty cool that I've met Senior missionaries with the last name Stewart and the last name Layton ahah, my mom's maiden name (or the last name of my grandparents) is Stewart, and obvisously my last name is Layton. But Also my name is Parks Stewart Layton! It's the little things aha. But anyways, the District is super cool, the other Elders are dope and we'll probably chill during most of our Pdays. After the counsel, we went and got Pizza, just us Elders haha. After that we went home to study and our Bishop called us and asked if we could go to the church. So we went there and met a young woman named Veronica, she was baptized last December in Lisbon but just moved here to Porto. We basically gave her a tour of the church (which is HUGE, it's a stake centre) and helped her get comfortable! She's super cool though!

Oct 12th, We did weekly planning, and we have someone to teach that the sisters were teaching. That will be awesome, and she speaks english ahah. For the rest of the day we went around trying to contact and work, but really no luck. We're just trying to figure out our area a little bit!! Good day though.

Oct 13th, In the morning we went to Irma Josy's house and gave her and her son Vinicius a Priesthood Blessing. Then we went and did banner. Which is literally setting up a banner and contacting anyone who passes by. We did it with the Sister from the Amial Ward. Sister Homes (I sat by her on the plane ride here) and Sister Farris (we were in the same district for the last 3 transfers.) It was super awesome though, we made a couple good contacts and even have some return appointments. Then in the afternoon I felt super sick, maybe it was something I ate. That was basically the day sadly.

Oct 14th, We had church. We walked with the new member Veronica to church, and from there it was awesome. I met a bunch of the members and it looks like it's gonna be an awesome time here! After church, we had lunch at a member's house, Irma Olga. Then we worked a bit until a member called us and wanted to have dinner, so we went there. It's cool that the other Elders live so close because we ate lunch and dinner with them. The day basically was getting to know members and the area a bit better.

Really was a good week and I love my comp, he's such a great guy and super funny. We're gonna get a lot of work and lessons done this week. It's gonna be great.

Cool story from the week: Well it's already rained here more than I ever saw in Carregado.. first thing is that we live right next to an American food store so I can actually buy whatever kind of pop or food I want hahaha. But also we have a CrockPot (Thanks to the Sisters who just left) and for lunch today we ate this BBQ Dr Pepper Pork recipe that we have and woww. That thing was unreal. Let's just say we're gonna use this CrockPot non'stop this transfer.

Scripture of the week, Mosiah Ch8 V18
This is Elder Jardine's fav scripture and really, it's a super powerful scripture! And it shows how we can be of service and benefit to others.

Mosiah 8:18 Thus God has provided a means that man, through faith, might work mighty miracles; therefore he becometh a great benefit to his fellow beings.

Challenge of the week.. Like I usually do when I go to a new area, look up Porto on google maps, or google images, and just take a look around!

Anyways, I'm pumped for this transfer and it'll be a party. It'll probably fly by. Look at my blog for more pics, as usual.

Elder out

Mamba out

parks.layton@myldsmail.net


My boy, Elder Jardine


 The District


Elder Leitão


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Elder Taylor








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