First of all, I love reading all of your emails! They seriously lift me up and keep me going throughout the week. Especially when I have a harder week, reading emails from home gives me such a boost, you don´t even know haha. Oh, and one more item of business before I get into the juicy stuff: we´re most likely moving apartments! The one we live in now is really nice, but it is at the top of a huge hill, and is far away from every thing in our area. We literally waist 40 minutes every morning and evening just walking from/ to our apartment. So the mission office has been looking, and we should be moving soon. So that means that the address I gave you last week won´t be valid for much longer--so if you plan on sending me any letters to the apartment (hahha) maybe just hold off for a little bit longer :).
Now to the juicy stuff--there is none. This week, I don´t think anything out of the ordinary happened. About Irmão Rolinho, we didn´t visit him last week because apparently he´s in the sisters´area, so they are supposed to be the ones that visit him( especially since he lives maybe an hour and a half from our area, by foot). I still don´t really know what goes on around me, because it is still hard to understand the language haha. But we will visit him this next thursday to give him a priesthood blessing, so that should be special. He really is such a great man, and I didn´t feel as nervous to try to talk to him as I have with other people haha.
Our mission president has really emphasized working with the members, and has created a different way of accomplishing it--the Listão, or big list. It´s basically a way to get a bunch of names from members for people to visit. Personally, I don´t like it very much, but apparently it has been successful in the past, so I´ll be patient with it haha. Anyway, we had done a Listão with a family, and the mom had told us we could go and visit her cabeleireiras (I can not say that word to save my life haha, but it means hairdresser lol) this past week lol. So we searched for the address, and walked there on tuesday. When we got there, the two hairdressers that she mentioned were the only ones in the shop. So we introduced ourselves, and told them that their friend, Irmã Isabel, sent us. We talked a little about church and gave them a Book of Mormon. They older one didn´t seem very interested, but the younger one seemed nice and interested. However they said that they would talk to Isabel, and then to us--which usually means "we won´t see you ever again". So right after, we called Isabel and asked her to talk about the gospel with them at her next appointment, and maybe ask them if they would like to meet with us sometime. She´s going in tomorrow, so we´ll see how everything goes--crossing my fingers!
This last week we also talked with Wyllam for a little bit--only for a little bit though. And during that little bit, he asked some hard questions about the Book of Mormon that were hard to answer (even if they were in english). During my personal study, I found some things that I am sure will help, but he never has enough time to talk with us. We also invited him to church this week, and he said he would if we would go to his on the saturday before--so of course we did! Apparently he is a leader of a sort of youth group that works hard to keep youth doing good things. It was very positive, and I realized that they believe pretty much every thing we beleive! #CidadeFeliz. The next morning was church, and we left our house early to go and get him. He answered the door and said that he would get ready, and then meet us there. We waited at church for him. And waited. and waited. He never showed up. It was very discouraging, because I know that he would have liked it, and he would have felt hte spirit. We visited him afterwards, and apparently he fell back asleep. But he said he´ll go next week, and we´re planning on visiting him this week sometime.
Today we had district P-day, and we went to Coimbra. However, it wasn´t very well planned haha. We ended up just visiting an old, old university, and then a sort of Portugal-themed "tiny town--Portugal dos Pequenitos. It was actually really cool, and I´ll make sure to send the pictures next week!
It´s so hard to imagine that a month has already gone by since arriving here! It has gone by so fast, but also slow haha. We´re almost done with my first transfer (every six weeks is a transfer), and people usually stay in the same area for three transfers. I´ll most likely stay with my trainer for one more transfer to finish off my training. But, yeah, I´ll be in Leiria until sometime in January I think!
I wish I could reply back to all of you this week, but our time was cut a little short today! I´ll try to reply back to as many of you as I can in 15 minutes!
I love you all so much! A mission is hard, especially when at times it feels like I´m not having much success. But I know I am doing the Lord´s work, and I will see wonderful things happen here in Leiria and in any other area I serve in!
Love,
Elder Barker
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