Elder Parks Layton - Portugal Lisbon Mission

WEEK 54 SANTO ANDRÉ (The Boonies) December 31, 2018 Hey everyone! Whatta week full of events, you'll have to go to my blog to see more pictures! But the best part of the week was that I skyped my family last Tuesday on Christmas!! Also the transfer ended and it turns out that I'm getting transferred to Santo André! I don't know anything except that it's in the middle of nowhere, right by the ocean, and that I'll be driving a car! It's one of the only areas to have a car in the mission and it's been over a year since I've driven so... pray for me. But I heard it's a branch of about 30 people that love the missionaries. My new Comp is Elder Mansfield, he started in the Porto Mission as well, so I know him a little bit. It's his 4th transfer there and I know he's got a bit more time than I do on the mission. I know we'll be two tall blonde kids, so that'll be good. I'm excited for the opportunity to serve! Anyways, I'll just ...

WEEK 53 Just an Overall Solid Week December 24, 2018 Hey Everyone! Thanks everyone for the Birthday wishes! Really is pretty crazy to think that my teenage years are in the past. I'm actually getting kind of old! so whack. But other than that and officially reaching 1 year out here, the week was great and full of random little surprises! So I'll just start it out now! 18 de Dez, The day started off by a district counsel! Elder Fillmore (he's in our district) gave an awesome training session to us. He compared us as missionaries to Crocadiles. The source of a Crocadile's power is his mouth and he needs to open it to be successful. As missionaries it's the exact same, our power only comes as we open our mouth. But Satan (Steve Irwin) plays an affect. Steve wants to grab the Crocs and tie their mouths shut, but as missionaries we can't let that happen. He gotta keep fighting. Later in the day we had a choir practice but before that we were knocking doors. W...

WEEK 52, Already December 17, 2018 Hey everyone! Wow I hit the 52 week mark. On Wednesday it'll officially be 1 year on the mission! How crazy is that? Really doesn't feel all that long since I was in the MTC. I still have a lot of work to do though! Also it's weird that I'll be turning 20 this Saturday... so weird to think my teenage years are all done, forever! Crazy. But I feel happy knowing the last year of my teenage life was spent in the service of our Lord. It was a pretty awesome week over here though, so I'll fill you in! Dec 11th, this was an awesome day! It started off with an interview with President Fillmore, the mission president. It was great and he challenged me on a few things and sent me some stuff in specific to study. It was a great interview though, I can really say that he is my friend. After that, we bumped into an American family outside of the metro station. They were with their daughter because she served here as a missionary about ...

WEEK 51, HBD BLZ December 10, 2018 Hey everyone! Starting off this email by saying happy birthday to my best friend Blaze!! It's freakin sad that I haven't seen him in a year and we could be going on three and a half years in total... that's a long time without your main guy. I remember so many nights we would stay up way too late talking, or how we'd always have each others backs wherever we were. Miss you and love you brother, my day 1. I'd drop whatever for ya and I hope I've been a good brother all of our 18 years together. But it was good week that started off with a giant Family Home Evening directly after emailing last PDay. And after this PDay, we're going over to the Senior Missionaries house for dinner, so that'll be great! But yeah, it was a pretty normal week! This next week will be super awesome though, with a bunch of parties! One for our mission and one for our ward! And it'll be my 52 week on the mission, so crazy how the time h...

WEEK 50 - I Met The King of Portugal December  3, 2018 Hey everyone! Well as of now, I'm booked to return home next December on the 3rd... so that's in exactly one year. I can't express my feelings on that but I'll try a bit later in this message. Anyways, another one in the books as we head into the month of December! We actually had a really sweet week! Well I think at least it was good. This transfer's gonna go by so fast with all of the stuff that's happening! Here's the rundown of my week though!  27 de Nov, We had district counsel in the morning. It went well, kinda hard because basically nobody wanted to talk hahah. Elder Jardine stepped up and helped me out by responding to my questions, so that was great! After that, a man stopped us on the street and said that he was a member and wanted our help to return... he seemed a little crazy and drunk though. We gave him our contact and told him to call us later, never happened though. Durring our c...