WEEK 52, Already

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 a year ago!! They asked us where something was and we told them where it was. They actually gave us 15 euros for lunch as well!! It was cool because they were from Las Vegas and knew a Sister who I saw five minutes before. So I called her and they got to meet up and see each other!! After that, Elder Hernandez and Elder Baugh showed up! Then Henrique Oliveira showed up! I served with him for one week in Braga and then he had to go home after the next transfer because of sickness! But he was in Porto so we met up! I got a photo with basically 4 of my comps in the same pic! (I'll include it on the bottom). We went to this pasta buffet place and it was so awesome to talk and catch up with him and retell stories from Braga! After that Elders Baugh and Hernandez left and we took Oliveira to the hospital. He was going to go do some paper work so that he could return to the mission! We ended up going into a random forest and giving him a blessing of health so that all would go well. He said after he got his tests back, that his health is improving a lot! We then had to go to the church to practice this thing (which you'll read about in the next day) and then we had a choir practice. After that we met up with 2 Elders from the area Bragança, Elder Spees and Elder Tanner who are both awesome! We got Burger King on the way home because the senior missionaries took us there but then we got home, talked for a bit, then went to bed! They were staying at our house because we had Zone Conference the next day in Porto. Sick day!

12 de Dez, We had Zone Conference! It was great, our mission President is unreal!! We also had a huge Turkey lunch!! Following that was the talent show ahahah. Me and my comp did this skit with some other Elders. Kinda hard to explain it but basically we were investigators who only spoke english and 2 elders who didn't really speak english had to teach us. It got some good laughs and was overall a killer performance! Then some more stuff from our president and the conference ended. We then went with the other Elders in our district to dinner at our Bishop's house!! It was a good time, with some good food! 

13 de Dez, In the morning, I went to print off the thing President Fillmore sent me and I also finally got to open some stuff I received in a package from my Fam!! So great. In the night we went to go visit a less active member who we ended up finding just walking on the street! We invited him to church and our ward Christmas party which was on Saturday! After that, we went and taught an English class in Porto 1 (We're Porto 2) because the one of the Elders from Porto 1 was getting surgery!

14 de Dez, The senior missionaries, Casal Stewart, came over and did our house inspection. Another flawless performance by your boys. In the night, we went to a member's birthday party, Nina, at Irma Josy's house. I gave a spiritual thought on Alma 17 and a bit of Alma 18, then we ate some food!! Good times!

15 de Dez, In the morning we stopped by some less active members to invite them to the Christmas party! After that I made some cookies for the party. Then we went to go set up the party with some members. We watched the 1st Presidency's Christmas message and following that we ate. There was lots of food there and it was super good food as well! We then had choir practice after that. And then we walked home 25 minutes in a killer rainstorm. My umbrella already broke earlier that day but that's how Porto is in the winter!

16 de Dez, Church and then we had lunch at Irma Olga's house. Good times! Following that Elder Vigne in our district left for Lisbon because he goes home to Brasil on Wednesday!! Crazy to see another person in one of my districts go home! It'd been a while but it's always strange to think they're just gone and unaccesable in the blink of an eye!! Then we ate dinner at Irma Karina's house!!

Great week, seeing old friends, conferences, talking to President, seeing friends go home and stuff like that!

Cool story, Vinisios got the Melchezidek Preisthood on Sunday!! We have been working with him ever since I first got here. He went from being less active, to a worthy Melchezedek Priesthood holder and secretary of the ward in 10 weeks!! Honestly, it's amazing to see the effect the Lord has on people. Us as missionaries and member missionaries are the way for the Holy Ghost to contact and strengthen others. Everyone is a child of God and whether they're a new member, a nonmember, someone who wants to be baptized, or a member for the past 45 years, everyone needs the love of Christ.

Scripture of the week, all of Alma Ch17 and Ch 18 Verses 8,9, and 10 as well. Great scripture. Try and see how the service of Amon changes those around him.

My challenge of the week, Send me an email it's been a year and if we haven't talked in a bit, hit me up! I hope all is well!!

Great week, and hopefully even better to come! Next time I email you, I won't be a teenager!

Elder out 

Mamba out

parks.layton@myldsmail.net


Me and 4 of the buds that I've served with

Sleepover

 Our Christmas ties


 Que festa 


The District 


The lady visiting Portugal with her family.  
She sent my mom this picture with a text saying, "I think this is your missionary.".




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

WEEK 71 A Must Read Week

Image
WEEK 71 A Must Read Week April 29, 2019 Hey everyone! First of all, I'm still on the mission, I just haven't had the chance to send my weekly email through email as of recent. But if you wanna see my past weeks you can look up my name on  Blogspot.com  and I'm pretty sure you'll find them!  http://elderparkslayton.blogspot.com  Anyways this week is a must read as we had 2 baptisms, the mission president came to our area, and my Grandparents came and visited me here in Portugal... what a week, I'll just start it off right now.  23 de Abril, we had District Counsel in the morning and that was great! Our district is so awesome, freakin love the buds. We found this big spider in the church and Elder Cloes was all over catching and setting it free. But Elder Cloes was also feeling super sick during the day so we honestly didn't do a whole bunch other than our long car rides and getting some stuff to prepared for the Baptisms that we'll be having this ...
Read more

WEEK 102 "Just Hold on We're Goin Home"

Image
WEEK 102 "Just Hold on We're Goin Home" December 2, 2019 Hey everyone!  Well this is it, my last email. So thanks to everyone who has kept up these past 2 years, I really have grown so much.  The best part of the last week was the Baptism we had of Sara, we started working with her at the start of the transfer and it worked out perfect for her to be baptized in the last week! It was miraculous how she was able to leave smoking so easy, as I haven’t seen anyone leave it that fast I know God had a hand in that work. As well Sara's best friend Carina is an amazing recent convert who helped us and especially Sara out a lot. It was a great day and lots of people came to the baptism. I love the ward here in Seixal. I'm so happy I got to spend my last transfer here. I'll add a foto from the baptism below. Sara asked for a group of us to sing so we sung at her baptism while Elder Lehnhof played the violin and an Irmão from the ward played piano.  ...
Read more

Week 21

Image
Week 21 May 14, 2018 Hey everyone! Was an amazing week because it was Mother's Day, and I got to Skype the fam! But also in general it was a pretty good week, the mish is always chill though with a good comp like Elder Baugh. May 8th - Had lunch with the Soares family! That was awesome, they're one of my favourite fams here for sure! Then we went and visited a less active member. He was thrilled to see us, legit! Then we walked and talked with a mother and daughter, they were super interested so we got their number, then passed it on to the Sisters! Then a man Gjerdmun came up and talked to us, in English. He is from Norway, but currently lives in the middle of a forrest on the mountain with his family here in Braga. He had some mormon friends, and we just had a good chat! May 9th - Typical day in the office, grindin hard but no major success. Our effort and presence here in Portugal was hopefully portrayed though aha. May 10th - Crazy day! All our appointments d...
Read more

WEEK 50 - I Met The King of Portugal

Image
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...
Read more

WEEK 97 Hello Seixal

Image
WEEK 97 Hello Seixal October 28, 2019 Hey everyone!  First week of the last transfer down and it was a crazy/weird week. I got my new comp Elder Lehnhof who is from Highland utah. He has the exact same amount of time on the mission as my little brother Blaze! It’s pretty fun for me to think about the face that I have the opportunity/honour to start off someone's mission and that people had prayed for Elder Lehnhof to get a good trainer just like I was praying for my brother to get a good trainer. I'm super motivated to work so hard and just keep grinding until the last day! And that's what I'm going to do! Elder Lenhof is super cool, and super motivated to work so it’s gonna be an unreal transfer.  Our area is called Seixal and it is absolutely unbelievable! We have eaten lunch and dinner with members every single night since we arrived here, which is unheard of, especially since we completely switched the Elders who were here and didn’t know anyone. I ...
Read more

Week 99

Image
Week 99 November 11, 2019 Busy week but here are a few highlights: Elder Lehnhof  and  I found a bunch of people this week. I hurt my back mid-week, so I had to stay inside for two days.  We ate at some members' homes which is always great. The members do a good job of taking care of us.  Tomorrow is my last Zone Conference and that feels crazy.  I’ll be sharing my testimony and saying goodbye to a lot of people.  Things are going great with my companion, Elder Lehnhof.  No problems at all there.  Elder Layton parks.layton@missionary.org Elder Lehnhof
Read more

Week 4

Image
Week 4 January 15, 2018 Hey everyone! It's been a pretty great week once again! And on Tuesday it makes a full month of being gone... or you could say I'm 1/24 of the way done! Anyways, it's been great and I'll tell you about my week! Started Jan 9th! The day started with Elder Webb and I teaching 4 lessons on the Plan of Salvation, in Portuguese... which is still a grind but the language is definitely coming along. Anyways, we teach these lessons called TRC lessons, which is teaching in Portuguese to a member who speaks Portuguese but they're from Utah. The one guy said we taught with the spirit more than anyone he had ever had and we were ready for the field! Although, most of our success is probably because of Elder Webb! And the night of the 9th we had a Devotional and the speaker was Elder Bednar!! That was so good, and he's an amazing speaker. So that was a great day.  The following day was a Wednesday, and every Wednesday, the MTC gets new miss...
Read more

WEEK 78 #WETHECHAMPS

Image
WEEK 78 #WETHECHAMPS June 17, 2019 Hey everyone! So a bunch of stuff has happened recently and I´m sorry that I haven't written recently, but don't worry... I'm still here! But I only have 4 more transfers! First of all, #WETHENORTH. WE DID IT. 2019 NBA Champs, the Toronto Raptors. I have waited for so long and we finally did it. I won't write too much about this here, but you can check out my IG post my brother Blaze made for me, but let's just say... Mission Blessings. It's funny because at 7:00 am (The time we wake up) the day after The Raps won I received a text from my Mission President that said.... "#wethenorth. Toronto wins game 6. Parabéns Canada! Kawhi Leonard MVP." President Fillmore is the absolute best hahah!!!  Also happy Father's Day to my Dad, my grandpas, uncles, and my friends' dads who were like dads growing up! But straight up, I'm so grateful for my Dad and the way he raised me. He raised me to b...
Read more

Video of Elder Layton Speaking Portuguese

January 4, 2018 Parks' language teacher, Brother Machado, sent all of the parents of the Elders in his class this video this week with a text saying: "My name is Brother Machado.  I am your sons' teacher at the MTC.  I recorded them saying the First Vision in Portuguese and thought you would appreciate seeing it.  Thanks for sending them!  They are powerful missionaries!!!" The First Vision is Joseph Smith’s account of seeing Heavenly Father and Jesus.   Translated in English they would be saying what Joseph Smith had written:   “I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me.   It no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound. When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing ...
Read more

WEEK 53 Just an Overall Solid Week

Image
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...
Read more