WEEK 54 SANTO ANDRÉ (The Boonies)

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 go right into the week! (the week actually started out with teaching a bunch of people at a Christmas Eve party!)
25 de Dez, Christmas!! It started in the morning with a little District party. There's two Districts who share the same church, so we had a cereal, sock swap, Nativity party with both the Districts! Following that, we went to a member's house for Christmas lunch! We went with Elder Fillmore, and Elder Leon, the other missionaries in our District! It was great, the classic Christmas meal here is Cod Fish done all fancy, which to me, is pretty good!! And then they brought out about 100 different cakes... which was pretty awesome! Following that, we were all stuffed but had a dinner appointment at the Senior missionary's house, or in other words, The Stewart's house! Pretty funny to think that's something I actually didn't miss out on from back home this year haha! (We always have Christmas dinner with my Stewart side of the family back home!) But it was super good and they even had cinnamon buns! We were so stuffed though, holy. Which was good cause we went right to the church and called our families through skype!! So unreal to see my fam, the last time was last Mother's Day! I'd have to say that Tag looks and sounds the most different! Crazy, and it was the best part of my Christmas!
26 de Dez, So in the morning we had our weekly District Counsel, which, as usual, was lit! I gave the spiritual thought which was the classic "Rocky Balboa" speech. Which I then related to how missionary work will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. And that it's not about how hard we hit, but about how hard we can get hit and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done. Then we tried to make a list of the active members in our ward right now but there wasn't much info to work with!! Then we went over to a less active member's house, Antonia Leite, and we set New Year's goals with him, and how we can work together so he can achieve them! That was great and he was happy to figure things out with us! 
27 de Dez, basically nothing really. Sad to say. Nobody really wanted to talk to us or even really give us a chance! But in the night, we went to the other church in Porto and taught English lessons with some Sisters! That was a good time at least.
28 de Dez, started out pretty normal, we did our weekly planning and then went contacting on the streets and all the classic stuff. Then we came home in the afternoon to do some studies and we finished them all. As we were getting up to leave, our phone started ringing. I looked at who it was and it was someone that we didn't know but his contact was in our phone. That's because we have an area phone that stays in one area and has contacts from a bunch of people that Missionaries throughout the last year have talked to. So we saw the phone ringing and I answered, the man could barely speak, and his voice was all muffled. He was saying that he didn't want to live anymore and that he needed our help. I tried for like 5 minutes to get his address, then I approached the situation with a different idea. I told him we'll go to "some fake address" and he said "no, no, my address is this" so we said we'd be there in 15. We got there to the apartment and the door called him. He opened the door on the bottom so we walked up to his floor and his door was open a crack. I cautiously peeped in and I saw him stumbling towards his bed... he just fell right on there ahah! He started mumbling and told us to close all the doors... so we didn't hahah. And eventually it got to the point where it was just creepy... so we told him we were gonna call medical. We got outside the apartment again and called medical. They showed up and we went back up. Turns out, he was super drunk and also kinda had some mental issues or something. They told us that we could leave, so we left! It was funny because the man actually denied ever calling us... so it could have been God just helping him out! I hope all went well with him afterwards!
29 de Dez, So in the morning we went to a baptism and it was great!! Someone came to the baptism and was interested, so I taught them with Elder Lewis while Elder Jardine went to our other appointment with Elder Lewis' comp, Elder Weber. So we taught the man, and after that Jardine returned with our less active friend Antonio Leite, and we showed him the church again. The best part was that they brought 2 nuns in with them (look at the photos) so we talked to them about our church and made plans to visit their church the next day! In the night we visited a woman named Maria and her son Luis! We taught them the first lesson about the restoration of the church, and then they invited us to eat dinner with them!! That was great!!! Good times.

30 de Dez, Last session of 3hr church! Crazy that's all done! But it was good! After that we ate at Irmao Mario's house! And then we met up with Elder Lewis and Weber and we went to the Catholic church. The nuns gave us a tour and it was cool. Honestly really strengthened my testimony of our church though! And in the night we ate with Irma Karina! Classic times!
Cool Story... I'm leaving Porto! I spent 12 weeks here and it was a good time. I met some amazing people and my testimony really grew. I really learned the power of the priesthood, and saw people grow in the church. I've learned that helping and seeing other people's testimony grow, is the best thing that we can do to strengthen our testimonies!
Scripture of the week, Alma Ch17 V2. I read that and thought of "The Buds". I'm excited to see them again and more excited to see how we've grown in testimony!
Alma 17:2
Now these sons of Mosiah were with Alma at the time the angel first appeared unto him; therefore Alma did rejoice exceedingly to see his brethren; and what added more to his joy, they were still his brethren in the Lord; yea, and they had waxed strong in the knowledge of the truth; for they were men of a sound understanding and they had searched the scriptures diligently, that they might know the word of God.
Challenge, look up Santo Andre Portugal on the internet and find me some cool things to do! I'll have a car so it can be anywhere close to there!

Love u all
Elder out
Mamba out


The Buds


Nativity

LEGEND 

How Dope

Goodbye Porto 2









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