WEEK 55 Rollin'

WEEK 55 Rollin'

 January 7, 2019

 Hey everyone! First of all Happy New Years! Crazy that we're already in 2019! Anyways first week done in from Santo Andre! It's been so dope! I actually live in the City of Sines, but the church is in the city of Santo Andre! I'll fill you in on lots of things throughout the email! First off, my Comp is Elder Mansfield from North Dakota. He likes ball and sports, and overall we like some similar things. He's in his 4th transfer here so he knows where we need to go! It's funny though that I'm the driver! The branch here is so awesome though! I'm lovin the members! You'll see more about them throughout my email!

2 de Jan, I left Porto on the train! I went with a small group of missionaries and we headed off to the Lisbon train station. Once we got there, I met up with Elder Mansfield! I knew him from before, so it was easy to find him! We met up, received our car keys and basically headed off to Santo Andre. We got there kinda late, and got to drive over the longest ocean bridge in Europe. Once we got home, we had a dinner appointment with Irma Marcia and Irmao Miguel which was awesome! They're pretty cool, she's from Brazil and he's from Portugal. Then we drove back home and went to bed! 

3 de Jan, Got up in the morning and went off to Setubal for the District Meeting in the morning. It's a good 1hr30min drive so that's pretty cool. We have 10 people in the District, so it's my biggest District yet! 8 Elders 2 Sisters. That was pretty cool! We had to quickly get back after that to eat lunch with Irma Germana, she is so awesome. She's my grandma of this area for suuure. So great. And in the night, we went and stopped by some less active's house and left a message with them! Hopefully they start coming back to church! 

4 de Jan, We got our weekly planning done. We had to sort out a bunch of stuff with the area and what our goals for the transfer are. After that, we went with Irma Germana to visit some less actives! It turns out that her nephew Joao was there and so we shared the message of the restoration! He seemed super interested and I'm hoping we can keep meeting with him throughout this transfer! After that we went and visited an investigater Valmire who has been reading the Book of Mormon! We basically just answered all of his questions that he wrote down beforehand. He really understands the start of the book and is enjoying it a lot! After that, we visited some members that lived nearby!

5 de Jan, So in the afternoon, we went down by the beach and I met most of the family of our Branch President! We saw the beach and a castle with them and Irma Germana as well. It was super fun! In the night, we had dinner with Irmao Jeorge e Irma Valkeria! They live out in the middle of nowhere and they were baptized about a year ago! They made some great food and we had a good time! They found the church through the video of Joseph Smith online!! And from there on, they knew this was the true church because of the feelings that they had!

6 de Jan, First church in the Branch, and first 2 hour church! There were about 28 people there and it was great! I got to meet a whole bunch of the members and I can tell that they love the missionaries here and actually want to help out with the work, so that'll make being a missionary so great!! We even got food to bring home after church! Then in the night, we drove to Santo Andre and visited some less actives and actually gave a blessing of health. All will go well according to her faith. 

And that was basically the week. A lot of figuring stuff out and getting prepared for the next 5 weeks of the transfer!

Cool story, I'm back to driving. I basically had 1 year off the job and it was strange coming back! I totally forgot about some of the basics for the first couple of minutes like red lights haha. But I stopped and everything has been going fine. I'm back to being in driver mode. It's cool though, a lot of roads here are super foggy, especially on the way to Setubal! Which is pretty fun! Also there's SO MANY round-abouts here it's crazy! Literally everywhere. 

Scripture of the week, might be a repeat from a while back but I love this one
DC CH104 V82
And inasmuch as ye are humble and faithful and call upon my name, behold, I will give you the victory.

Challenge, Share the video of Joseph Smith and the first vision with someone this week! You never know the effect it could have. Just like Irma Jeorge nd Irma Valkerie!

There's my first week here and I'm sure the rest of my time here I'll have more interesting stuff to send home!! 

Thanks for the emails! Look at my blog to see more pics!

Elder out.

Mamba out.

parks.layton@myldsmail.net



Tchau Porto

The District

Elder Mansfield

The Car (Send me some car names)










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