This week a year ago I arrived in Portugal! I remember very clearly my very first week, and it hardly seems like I arrived in Leiria a whole year ago! It was very fitting that I was able to see so many members from Leiria at the stake conference (which I will talk more about below)!
This week we had Stake Conference! It was the first time that I have attended a stake conference in Portugal, because everytime I was transfered to a new area this past year, it was to a different stake, so I always ended up just barely missing it, haha.
The stake that Castelo Branco is a part of is the Coimbra Portugal Stake. But the chapel in Coimbra isn´t big enough for large conferences, so the meeting was held in Viseu. About 22 people from Castelo Branco were able to make it, which was very good, haha! Because we live so far away from Viseu, the Church payed for a bus to take us there. It left at 7 in the morning, so everyone was super tired and felll asleep on the ride over, haha.
When we got there, the members from my first area (Leiria) were just arriving as well! It was fun to be able to see a lot of them, and see that some of them still remembered me, lol. As we were walking in to the church, a man ran up to me and gave me a big hello. His name was José (from Leiria) and was super excited to see me. (He had joined the Church right before I arrived in Portugal, and he was always willing to help out with lessons.) It made me feel good to see that he had not only remembered me, but went out of his way to greet me!
The actual conference was good, the theme of all of the talks was faith, but for some reason I couldn´t understand too well, haha.
Remember that Brazilian lady (Keila) that we helped move apartments? This week week we visited her and talked a little bit about the church (she didn´t have too much time). It turns out that her mom had met with the missionaries a lot when she was in Brazil, but Keila had always been working, so she never had time to listen to them. But she remembered that the missionaries had given her mom a "little, blue book." We asked her if we could come back the next morning to give her this "little, blue book," and she said "of course!" When she arrived the next morning, we gave her the Book of Mormon, and she said it was exactly what her mom had been given. As she opened it, there was a very tangible, sweet spirit in the room. She´ll be out of town this week, but promised to read the book as she is traveling on the bus. The Book of Mormon is so special!
We had our last district meeting of the transfer this week (because next week we will have a Zone Conference instead), so we took a picture, haha!
The Roques were there this time, so they were included in the picture, and then gave us a ride back to Castelo Branco and did a house inspection (we passed with flying colors!)
As always, it was good to hear about how Abrantes is doing ( Manuel and Susana are as strong as ever; more of Rosa and Claudia´s cousins arrived with their aunt; two inactive members have returned to coming back to church every sunday, etc). Also, Sister Roque gave me a letter that Manuel had written me, which was super nice to read!
We received a phone call from someone this week who we had been trying to get a hold of all summer, Clenilson. He had given us his number on the street in June, but had never answered our phone calls. Well ,this week he called us and apologized, because something had happened and he hadn´t had his phone all summer. But he said he wants to hear our message, so we will be teaching him this weekend!
I miss you all! I love you all! Have a great week!
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