FELIZ PÁSCOA

Well, since Sister Andrew and I figured we wouldn´t be getting any Easter mail, we took it upon ourselves to make an Easter Pot to celebrate. Turned out pretty well if I do say so myself.

The young women in our branch made dinner for us this week as part of a personal progress goal. It was adorable.

Sleep is for the weak.

I don´t think it will come as any surprise that we had another crazy week! A ton of work to be done and not enough time to do it, so unfortunately it has cut into a bit of my sleeping time. But I will sleep when I am dead, I am just extremely grateful for the success that we have been having! I think President has noticed that we are doing good things here in Montijo, and I am sure that it is because of all of your prayers as well that we found out Sister Andrew and I will be staying together another transfer!!!!! I am not going to lie, I was absolutely sure one of us would be leaving, and we were pretty bummed about it the whole week, but then we actually got in on the secret a little early that we would be staying together and we are absolutely stoked about it! It is pretty rare for companions to stay together more than 2 transfers in this mission, but it is just our luck because we have about 3 people we are preparing for baptism!

We are going to get some serious work done this transfer!!! I´m Super excited about it.

As for main events this week.

We had our zone meeting on Tuesday, and I got my training finally out of the way. Like I said before, you know how much I love public speaking, so I was not really looking forward to giving this training, but it turned out pretty well I think! 

We also had our 3rd division for the transfer, but this time I got to go to Mem Martins!!!! I was so excited about it because since I went there every week when I was serving in Mafra, I actually already know a ton of the people even though I haven´t ever actually served there. I served with Sister Barron for the day. She was in the MTC with me, but since then I haven´t served very closely with her, so it was fun to get to spend some time with her.

We visited a lot of people I already knew which was awesome, and even got to go see Joelma and Andreia who go help out Mafra every week.

We literally got home from our division Thursday at about 6, after traveling for 2 hours, and it was absolutely crazy because we had a ward talent show scheduled for 6 on Thursday as well. We ran home and dropped all our things off, I grabbed my uke, and we headed to the church. I am going to be completely honest and say that the hour that we started the activity Sister Andrew and I had NO idea what we were going to do still, and hadn´t practiced anything. (Who has time for that?) So we ended up getting to the church and winging the song Hallelujah hahah oh my goodness, SO CRAZY!!! We did it 2 times through- Sister Andrew sang and I played the uke. It was quite the sight..... But hey, it didn´t end up being too bad for making it up on the spot! haha We also had 4 investigators show up to the activity which was awesome, and we also had a member bring their mom, with whom we will be doing a family home evening this week! Crossing our fingers that we have some success from this member reference!!! 

I don´t have a ton of time to write, but just for an update, Denilson, and Toni are marked for baptism on the 10th of April, and they are probably the coolest people ever!!! Sister Andrew and I are incredibly excited we get to stay together and continue to teach them until that point. Please keep them in your prayers that everything runs smoothly for them. 

We had tons of other incredible lessons and experiences this week, but I am running short on time. The Lord is blessing us extremely here in Vasco da Gama! Our next project is convincing President Tavares that we need a car, because we literally do not have enough time for everything! It is a pretty amazing feeling.

Thanks for all the love and support fam. Love you all! Hope you had an amazing Páscoa.

Paz e Bênçãos!

-Sister Selk

Zone Pride! Miratejo March 2016

Divisions with these Lovely sisters! And I got to see Mariano!!  

Some pictures from our ward talent show this week!

Graziela taught us how to make her specialty dish this week. So Good.

Aleluia

I definitely had one of the best weeks in the mission this past week. It was such a solid week full of absolute miracles!

I had my second division this week, but this time it was with....SISTER TILTON!!! You better believe that I was incredibly excited to serve with her again for even just one day. She is currently serving in a tripla, so we had Sister Tilton, Sister Hansen, and Sister Ditton come to our area. Sister Ditton is in her second transfer like Sister Andrew, and Sister Hansen is in her first transfer.....power to Sister Tilton for training two sisters....that is absolutely insane. She is a powerhouse.

I always get a little stressed about divisions. It is a lot of pressure to try and have solid plans for two people. I have been fasting before every division, and was really hoping to see the miracles from that. I am going to be completely honest and say that it was slow going at first. We literally called every single person we could to try and set up appointments for Tuesday.....We called SO MANY PEOPLE! And absolutely no one was available on Tuesday, so we had no fixed plans. So I stayed up later on Monday night just trying to at least organize a bunch of people from our area book that we could pass by. By about midnight on Monday night I had plans, backup plans, and double backup plans to pass by a ton of people.

Sister Tilton and I ended up going to Pinhal Novo for the day, and basically passed by a ton of people that had previously been taught by missionaries. Although we didn´t have a ton of success with that, God still provided us with some major miracles! Just being able to work and contact with Sister Tilton again was a miracle in and of itself. We work so well together, and have a ton of fun so it is the best of both worlds with her. But besides being able to work with Sister Tilton, we had so many good experiences that day. We were walking down the main street and were going to pick up some dinner real quick when a lady stopped us and asked if we were the missionaries. She works next to the cafe we always go to to eat, and has seen us a number of times, but said she was always to hesistant to stop us, but this time she came out from her store to talk to us! She is a mom with a 14 year old daughter that were baptized in Setubal- another area in Portugal, but then they moved to Pinhal Novo and no longer knew where the church was. She said she missed going to church and wanted to start going again. I honestly couldn´t believe it! It was so incredible! Sister Tilton and I just walked away like "did that really just happen?" Then, not even like 10 feet away from where we were talking to her, we got stopped yet again by a guy who asked if we were the sisters. Although I had never seen this young man before, I knew exactly who it was. President Luis told us about a young man from Pinhal Novo that had been baptized over the weekend. Although he is living in our area, and we probably should have received his reference, the elders in another area baptized him, and he has been attending church in another ward. President Luis didn´t know his name or really anything about him, and just a few hours earlier I had asked him if he had found out anything more about him so we could contact him somehow. He still didn´t know anything, but luckily the Lord has all the information, and placed this young man right in our path. It was literally the most incredible thing ever. His name is Paulo. He is 25 years old and just the most amazing guy. You can tell he already has such a strong converted testimony and already wants to send in his mission papers. He received the priesthood this week in the other ward, but said that he wants to start coming to our branch, so we are going to start working with him!

The rest of the week was absolute gold. After divisions, our work picked up majorly. There were 2 solid days that we had to run from lesson to lesson, and we found and are teaching so many amazing people at the moment. So I am going to tell you a bit about them.

While calling everyone in preparation for divisions, we called a less active member Etiandro. We had never met him before, but we set up a time to meet with him. We got to his house and no one was home which was unfortunate, but then when we were walking out of the building we saw 2 black men just sitting and talking. I decided to walk over there and see if they happened to know who Etiandro was. Well turns out that we were talking to him and his friend-Toni. I didn´t realize but we had actually contacted Toni already before in January, but it was a super fast contact because he had just gotten out of the hospital and was on his way to the pharmacy. Well, we ended up being able to teach them both and Etiandro bore his testimony to Toni, and it was such a good experience. I invited Toni to prepare to be baptized and he accepted. He wanted to come to church yesterday, but unfortunately he had work, so he couldn´t this week. But I am super stoked to be teaching him. He is such a humble man with huge potential.

We also got to teach Denilson and his family again this week. It was so hard having to wait until Saturday to be able to teach them again! But Denilson is still super interested and has tons of questions. He explained to us that he started attending the Evangelical church for a while and had the desire to become a preacher, but then said he realized it was a lot more complicated than what he initally thought. He is incredible smart, and knows a lot of things! We set up another appointment to talk with him again, but this time we made sure we didn´t have to wait a whole week to talk to him, so we will actually be talking to him again tomorrow!

And the final people that I wanted to tell you all about are Sorin and Andreia. This family is so awesome! They are actually from Romania, but have been living in Portugal for 11 years. We contacted Andreia on the street, and it has been a few weeks, but we finally got to stop by and talk with them! Oh my goodness, I am so excited about this family I can hardly stand it! Ahhhh! We got to teach them the first lesson on Saturday, and invited them to church. They had a bunch of questions which I absolutely love! Sorin still has some trouble speaking and reading Portugues, so we were able to give him a book of mormon in Romanian, and I think he really loved it. Andreia didn´t end up coming to church on Sunday because she was at home with her kids, but Sorin came for all 3 hours and I think he really enjoyed it! The members treated him so well, and the best part is that our elders quorum president- Nicolae actually could speak to Sorin in Romanian and told him to call him any time.

I wish I had time to really explain all of the miracles that we saw this week. But basically my level of happiness was through the roof. So good! Thanks for all your prayers on my behalf. I am definitely receiving all the blessings!

I am especially grateful this Easter week for the sacrifice and resurrection of our Lord and Savior. I feel his presence everyday and I have seen his hand in this work, and because of that I know that he lives. I know that he lives for us. He didn´t rise the 3rd day just for him to live again, but he rose so that each of us through him might live. I know this is true. I know he loves each and everyone of us to an extent that we cannot comprehend. He truly is our living Savior and Redeemer.

Love you all! Feliz Páscoa!

Paz e Bênçãos

-Sister Selk

Noite familiar com familia simão!

Are you a Mary or a Martha?

Minha Família!!

Other than feeling like I just spent 4 hours straight yelling my guts out at a rock concert, this week was pretty dang good! Unfortunately Monday night I got hit hard with a fever and I don´t even know what. My tonsils exploded aswell, but the good news is that I think I finally have the 60 year old Portuguese smoker sound down PERFECTLY. 

#quebênção

I spent all Tuesday in bed quite miserable, but by Wednesday morning I was able to get working again! I feel like the Lord has definitely helped me to recover quickly here on the mission.

This week Sister Andrew and I went to discover another one of the secret cities in our area-Moita. We have just a few families that live there, and one of the members that lives in Moita invited to have lunch with her, so we thought it would be a good excuse to go work there for the day. Amalia is the name of the member, and she is just the dearest little thing! She is 60+ years old and I really just don´t even know how to describe her, but I just enjoy her personality so much, so it was fun to get to know her a little bit more.

Before our chapel was here in Montijo, it was actually in Moita, so we have a lot of lost members there, and records from past investigators. I think we are going to try and work there again this week to see what we can do to find these members.

I know I talked about richard in my last email, so I will give you an update on him! We went over to his house again this week (partly to give him a hard time about not coming to church, but mostly to encourage him to come again :) We actually had another lesson marked with Fernando right after we talked with Richard, so at the end of our lesson with Richard we invited him to com teach Fernando with us. I was super happy when he immediately responded that he would, and we all walked over to the church together. I can´t even explain in words how happy I was to see Richard walk in the church doors, and then it just got even better when at one point in the lesson I read a scripture and Richard bore his testimony to all of us about how he felt the spirit so strong in that moment because that was the first scripture the missionaries had shared with him. SOLID! So goooood!

So basically that lesson rocked.

We also found a family this week! Families are like gold here on the mission. It was a contact that we had made and had tried to make contact with these past weeks, but never ended up meeting up with them. Well we passed by yesterday, and were greeted by a guy in super swagg and baggy white sweat pants, gages in the ear, and kzumba going in the background, and that is when I really got excited! haha But in all honesty, I wasn´t exactly sure how it would go down. We taught the mom-sara and two rapazes- lenio, and Denilson. I was definitely expecting Sara to be the most interested in out message, because she is the one we first contacted, but in the end it was incredible because Denilson (the guy in the white sweat pants) was the one asking all the questions. We left the Restoration pamphlet with them to read and in the end Denilson was like, "So I can read this and then write down all of my questions for you to answer next time?"

This is the moment where every missionary secretly lets out a scream and says, HECK YES YOU CAN!

I am pretty dang excited about this families potential! 

As for a little sneak peak into what I have been studying lately. I decided to study the last week of Christ in preparation for Easter this year. There is a good timeline with tons of scriptures to look up in the Bible Dictionary. Today I was reading about Jesus at Mary and Marthas house. I love the differences in attitude between Mary and Martha. Martha is busy cooking and cleaning and doing all the things that need to be done around the house, while Mary is sitting at the feet of Jesus just listening to all the things he has to say to her. I realized extremely fast this morning that I am definitely more of a Martha when I need to be more of a Mary. Some times we get caught up in all the small details of life-Making sure our home is perfectly decorated, or the family meal is perfectly seasoned, or whatever it may be- that we lose track of the big picture. I know that the most important thing is that we are striving to develop a Christ centered life. This is really all that Christ asks, so that is going to be my challenge this easter season.

 I am so grateful for my savior and this easter season that we have to reflect upon him, and strive to better our lives to live in harmony with his.

I hope you guys have an amazing week! Thanks for everything you do!

Paz e Bênçãos!

-Sister Selk

Going Nonstop

Ok, I am going to try and quickly write a brief summary of all the things that happened this week, but this week was literally nonstop!

We have zone conference on Tuesday, which was combined with another zone. We actually had to go sleep in the other Sisters house because we really had no idea where we were going or how to get there and we live so much further that everyone else, so Monday we traveled to the sisters house, and then woke up bright and early at 5 to get to our conference on time. 

The conference was very inspired-at least for me and I learned a ton of things.

One of the things that Presidente Tavares talked about what the diference between "Por causa de...." (Because of) and "Apesar de...." (Despite of). I absolutely loved what he had to say about the difference between the two of them. He explained that usually when the scriptures say "Por causa de..." it is usually when the people are receiving chastisement for excuses. How easy it is to make up excuses in life, but he then went on to describe the fact that if we have a knowledge and faith in the atonement of Jesus Christ then we will not make these excuses. He explained that we need to be "Apesar de.." Missionaries. Despite all of our difficulties and trials in life, we can go forth in faith and do all things in the Lord.

Right after our zone conference on Tuesday, the Sisters from Barreiro- Sister stegeman, and sister Carver came with us to Montijo, and I did a division with Sister Stegeman. It was fun to be able to serve with her for the day! She is absolutely crazy and has no fear, so I learned a lot from her.

We went back to alcochete this week. We had some more success there because we found this darling less active family! Like I have previously explained, you just never know what response you are going to get when you knock on these doors, but when we knocked this door the conversation went a little like this:

"Quem é?"

"Somos as missionárias!"

"Ah Serio?!"

And then we got the most warm welcome from this family! The mom is the only member of the family, and she has 2 daughters that are 15 and 10 who are not members. She is super nice and basically explained to us that the reason that she hasn´t been active is that she likes the church feeling a lot better in America than she does with the people here.....strange I know. She is Portuguese, but says she thinks the Portuguese are too closed off and doesn´t feel much of a connection with them here. I am hoping we can help her understand the importance of church a little more, and help her and her family prepare to enter the temple! 

We also had another amazing lesson with a less active this week named richard. I had heard a lot about Richard, and have tried to get in contact with him from when I got here, but finally we were able to have a lesson with him and a member from our ward. We had an absolutely amazing and simple lesson with him. The spirit was so strong and I wish that I could really explain how I felt in that lesson, because there was something different. I truly felt the need for this man to come back to church. I felt a different connection with Richard, and a huge neccessity to help this man return to church. I left that lesson with complete confidence that he would show up the next day to church. Complete confidence. So I was pretty sad yesterday when he didn´t show up, but we are not giving up yet!

There is so much work to be done here, and we haven´t been finding enough time to do it all, so if you could help us with that that would be great! haha

I wish I could explain a little bit more about everything that goes on in the week, because this is really just a small taste, but hopefully you get an idea.

Hope you guys are all doing well! Have a good week. Love ya ´ll! Andem com Deus.

Paz e Bênçãos.

-Sister Selk

Belém

Ice Cream Anyone?

Played Soccer in the Park of Belém today with some of the people in our zone....plus an added member