Bednar

I thought nearing the end of my mission I would be accustomed to how busy life is, but it always surprises me each week how much actually happens and how much I still have to learn.

This week Elder Bednar came to visit our mission.

Let´s just say that I don´t think that man ever sleeps, breaths or eats. 

I literally don´t know how he does everything that he does!

All the missionaries in our mission went to Lisbon on Friday to be addressed by him. We were all packed in the little Benfica chapel and it was ROASTING in that room. That´s what I can the refining fire of the spirit.....or just way too many sweaty missionaries in one little room. 

Elder Bednar arrived after we sang the opening hymn and said the opening prayer and left before we sang the closing hymn and said the closing prayer, so it was pretty clear that he was on a tight timeline. 

But during our 3 hours with him he asked us a lot of questions, and also gave us the opportunity to ask him questions. The whole 3 hours was just a question and answer period, which was super interesting. 

He is such a power house! He is bold and direct, but so loving in his words, and it was a bit unreal only being a few rows from him. 

I know I personally received a lot of revelation and answers during that time, and he helped me view and understand the holy ghost much clearer.

We were also super fortunate, because on Sunday he gave a conference especially for our stake of Setubal, so just the missionaries serving in the Setubal stake got to listen to him again yesterday. It was another amazing meeting, and I was especially excited because I got to see all my family from Montijo! And not only them, but I also got to see Sister Andrade! 

Not long after I walked in the door I spotted all the members from Montijo and they all gave me the warmest smiles. I was literally so happy.....AHHH I miss my Montijo Family! And what made me even happier is that 2 members who we were working to reactivate were there!! Both Dionisio and Bruno were there, and they were both as happy to see me as I was to see them. 

Sister Andrade spotted me when I came in and ran up and gave me a great big hug! I got to sit with her for the first few minutes, but then there were too many people and not enough chairs, so all the missionaries gave up their chairs and we stood the 2 hours along the walls. (That alone was a touching sight to see)

During most of the conference with Elder Bednar I was just writing down all the things I was grateful for, because my feelings of gratitude were out the roof yesterday morning. I honestly can´t even begin to describe how grateful I am for my mission and all the people and experiences I have encountered. I don´t want to believe that it is coming to an end.

As for other exciting things things that happened during the week.

We have been working in an area called azeitão this week. It is honestly one of the most beautiful places I have seen while being in Portugal. There are lots of vineyards and trees, and it is a whole other part of Portugal that I have never experienced. We were able to find some new people to teach there, and actually ended up marking a mother and a daughter (milia and sandra) for baptism. I think they are going to require a bit of preparation, so we have planned for their baptism in June, and we will see what happens! We had a really good lesson with them, and Milia was really interested in Joseph Smith, and just began to explain that she too has had the same questions Joseph Smith had in respect to there being so many churches.

I love humble people that just realize that this gospel makes so much sense.....today on the other hand, we interrupted our P-day to have a lesson with a couple who turned out to be 7th day adventists.....they were not so humble. :)

The work has not been super easy lately. I thought coming to Setubal where I have heard of there being a lot of success it would be a bit easier, but it has been a bit of a struggle trying to find people who are truly interested in learning more, but little by little we are building things up.

I am still having way too much fun living in a house with 4 sisters. It is such a party, We had our first french class this week, and it was good to be able to review some of the things in french that I knew and completely forgot when Portuguese entered my head. We will see how far I can get with that in the next 10 weeks! 

Sister Vanaquer is also teaching us how to break dance......haha Oh my gosh, she is the coolest human being! She is just way too cool for me, but I am trying to pick up as much french swagg as I can while we are living together. Sister Vanaquer and I have been running in the morning and then we have meet up with the other Sisters in the church and have about a 1/2 hour dance lesson. I will see what I can do to arrange a video for you guys :) The other morning we were learning how to spin on our heads.......watch out fam, Sister Selk is going to have some serious swag by the time she gets home!

Love you guys so much!  Hope you have have an incredible week, and just remember to count your blessing because there are many to be counted!

Paz e Bênçãos!

-Sister Selk

Montijo Members:

Minhas queridas! Rita and Matilda

Bruno, one of the coolest less actives we were working with! I was super stoked to see him.

It made my day when paulo had to run up to me as soon as he saw me to shake my hand. I Love this man, and the transformation I have seen in him.

                                                               Guess Who Else I Saw??

The adventure begins in Setubal

Nova Zona

Who knew I was entering a house where everyone loves sushi as much as I do......QUE BÊNÇÃO

Trains, planes and automobiles

Oh my goodness.....where do I even begin!!!

This has probably been the craziest week of my mission. Absolutely nonstop and packed with lots of excited news and new adventures! 

We will start with last Monday.

We didn´t have much of Pday last week because we were preparing everything for Toni´s baptism!!! Everything worked out according to plans, and Toni was baptized on Monday evening! It was definitely the best way that Sister Andrew and I could have ended our time together. We were so happy. We met up with Toni in Setubal because he works near Setubal, so we figured why not just make it easier for him and have the baptism there. It was pretty strange to be there in the church that I knew I would be serving in the next day. The baptismal service was really beautiful. We had a decent amount of members there who all bore their testimonies about what baptism meant to them. I think Toni was really touched by it. He wasn´t sure if he was going to have to work on Sunday or not when we last talked to him, but we really emphasized the importance of getting the holy ghost, and after the baptism he told us that he would be at church on Sunday whether he had work or not. I called him and Sister Andrew yesterday and sure enough he went to church in a nice white shirt with the tie Sister Andrew and I gave hime and some spanky white shoes......He´s so cool!

It was the best way to end our transfer.

On Tuesday I finished up packing, because I really hadn´t had any time to do it earlier, and then we headed to Lisbon......I am SO happy that this was the last time I had to haul all my luggage around Lisbon....just saying.

There I met up with Sister Bird and said goodbye to Sister Andrew. I was quite touched saying goodbye to Sister Andrew, because I wasn´t sure how much of an impact I have made on her during our last 5 months together, but it was REALLY difficult for her to say goodbye, even though we are still serving pretty close to each other and will still see each other pretty frequently. She cried a few times, and looked extremely stressed to be leaving me, but I know she is going to grow so much this transfer. She has already called me about every night this week......hahah she is cute.

Sister Bird is in her third Transfer, just one transfer behind sister Andrew. She is from Salem Utah, and is super nice! She already speaks really good portuguese, and is super on top of things for just getting done training, so it is going to be a solid transfer together.

As for driving....

I couldn´t believe that on Tuesday, they just stuck me in my car and left me to figure out how to drive in portugal all by myself! Before I knew it I was taking round about after round about, driving amongst tons of crazy portuguese drivers, and crossing the lisbon bridge.

BUT.

We made it.

All is well in zion.

I haven´t gone down any stairs like the last sister who was driving this car.

I have only had a few people honk their horns at me.

I still have managed to get away with not parallel parking.

And overall it hasn´t been as bad as I thought.

The hardest part is coming into an area that I have never been to before, because I still am just relying on Sister Bird to tell me where to go. Luckily I feel like I have a pretty good sense of direction. I can get to the church and back without her telling me, so now it is just getting to know all of Setubal!

It has been SO fun living in a 4 sister house! I have absolutely loved it so far. I was excited to find out Sister Vanequer would be living in the same house. She was sister Andrew´s companion in the MTC, and from the little things I had heard about her, I knew I would get along super well with her. She is actually from France, and is one of the coolest sisters I have met on the mission. She has been helping me remember what little french I know, and we have already decided that we will have french class in our house every thursday. I´m pretty stoked about it. I haven´t got as much sleep as I probably could use, because her and I just talk at night. She is so interesting and we have a lot in common, so it has already been determined that I am going to have to go visit her after the mission.

I am loving Setubal so far! It has been fun working with other missionaries for a change. In our ward alone we have 3 sets of missionaries, and then the other ward has 2 sets. I haven´t never been in areas with other missionaries, so I feel like I am starting a whole new mission!

We had to go back to Lisbon on Thursday for mission counsel, and we also had our zone meeting this week, so I haven´t had a ton of time in our area itself and with the people, so I will give you an update about that next week!

I hope you all have a marvelous week! Love you lots!

Paz e Bênçãos!!

-Sister Selk

BATISMO!

Sis. Andrew - missing her already

Sister Stegi - haha - I love this sister. Enough said!

May 9 - Time to say farewell again! Fotos of a few of the loved members of her "Ramo" and missionaries in her Zone

Familia Bernardo

Sergio

Irmã Leonor

DRENCHED!!

Nossas Meninas! 

Zone Meeting

Fotos

We thought we were going to go to Belém for Pday today, but on the train heading to Belém I turned to Sister Andrew and said, "Let´s go somewhere we have never been before!" So we just kept going and ended up in CaisCais.  Beautiful beaches, fancy cars, and huge houses.                

It was a pretty successful adventure if I do say so myself.

There is this park right next to our church that has this crazy pyramid thing with mini trampolines on it, so obviously we take advantage of that for our morning exercises. 

Let the Holy Spirit Guide

Well my head has kind of been everywhere since I received the most recent news. I am excited for a change, but at the same time I am trying to work as hard as I can to leave this area  better than I left it.

Like normal, this week absolutely flew by! We have had a ton of work to do which has been so nice! It has been pretty common for us to be sprinting to our house at night in order to get in by curfew. Makes for some interesting adventures, and extremely sweaty sisters.

Oh, have I mentioned that summer has officially started again in Portugal.....I guess we will see if I absolutely die of heat again, but the good news is, is that cars have air conditioning :)

So a bit of an update on the people we are teaching:

We made dinner for Luisa this week and got to teach her and her 9 year old son Miguel the plan of salvation. It was another super solid lesson and I think they really liked it. Miguel is only 9 but is SO intelligent! As we were asking questions in the lesson he was giving the most intelligent answers, and not only answering the questions we gave him, but also asking his own profound questions. They are progressing really well, but the only problem at this point is the fact that Luisa works almost every Sunday, so we are trying to come up with some way to get her to church! After finishing that lesson Thursday night I just wanted to cry thinking I have to leave all these people that I love so much! Luckily I won´t be going too far away.

Toni. My main man! Oh my goodness. Miracle of the week: Toni showed up for church on Sunday!!!! I couldn´t help but have a huge smile appear on my face when he showed up sunday morning in his striped T-shirt and blazer combo. He is just the best! We are planning on baptizing him this weekend if everything goes according to plan. We are still waiting to see if he has work or not, but I am pretty confident that he will be baptized this week. SUPER STOKED!!!!

So let me just say a big thank you for all of your prayers for the people I mentioned last week because we definitely felt the blessings. Not only did Toni show up to church, but we also had another man named Rui show up.

Rui is a bit of a funny story....

The other week we were on the way back from our district meeting on the bus, and usually I like to read scriptures or whatever on the way back, but this time I decided we were going to get up and contact people. Well, because of this we met Rui! He is 47 and kind of reminds me of Paulo in the fact that he is.....well....unique, but just so prepared to hear the gospel. We met with him the first day and he likes to talk A LOT, so we didn´t even get through the first lesson, but then the next day we met with him again and were able to control the conversation a little bit more, and invited him to be baptized and he accepted! He just kept smiling and said, "I think my life is going to get a whole lot better from here on out." I then asked him why he said that and he responded, "I think I finally found the right path."

Yes.

That is the right answer!

He has a bit of a problem with smoking unfortunately, so it might take some time to get him prepared. We took away his box of cigarettes and he was a bit anxious, but wants to give up smoking. We will see how we can help his this week.

We had to stop in Lisboa this week to get my eye exam.....

I definitely failed at that, but the doctor signed me off anyway haha so looks like I will still be driving?! Let the holy spirit guide, am I right?

From Lisboa we continued on to Mem Martins to do divisions with the sisters there again. It was a pretty quick division. We didn´t get to Mem Martins until about 3:00 and then headed back to our area at 7:30 the next morning. 

I thinkk I will save the rest of the details of the week for SKYPE!!! Whooo. Can´t wait to talk to you guys this week! I will talk to you soon!

Love ya´ll!!!

Paz e Bênçãos

-Sister Selk

To put a few faces to the names I am always talking about:

We made dinner for Luisa and her family this week! 

And we also made lunch for Toni...basically we are master chefs at this point.