Sister Selk: Too Much To Handle!

Mafra was exploding with miracles this week! I couldn't believe it! This is the first time in my mission that I have experienced so much success in so little time. We were running the whole week from the last time I emailed you guys. Literally that day we got back to our apartment, dropped our bags off and sat down for one second to verify our plans for the day. We wanted to visit an irmã in our grupo that lives in Igreja Nova, so I checked the bus schedule right then and realized that the bus had supposedly left 3 minutes before that time. We decided to have faith, grab all our stuff and RUN to the bus station to see if we could still make it and by some miracle it was late that day and we were able to catch the bus to her house.

The whole week consisted of these types of tender mercies from the Lord.

We were able to finally get together and teach a lesson to Joana-the woman who showed up for church last week! Happy news! She is GOLDEN and we marked her for baptism in the first lesson for this coming saturday! We have been teaching in a new way where we mention or testify a little something about baptism in every point of our lesson, and within 5 minutes into our first lesson she was asking how baptism worked in our church! She has so many questions and is so excited to learn new things about the church. She has accepted EVERYTHING we have taught her! I can't even believe it sometimes. I didn't think these types of people existed in Portugal. She showed up for church again on Sunday and was actually there before us, which was another surprise! So now we just need your prayers that the baptism will go through on Saturday.

I got to see Tina and Silvio this week! Tina just about smothered me in beijinhos when she first saw me....I was a little scared for my life and Sister Tilton didn't know what to do hahah We only got to talk with them for a little bit because we had other lessons set up and they would be going back to Lisbon, but I still think if we just had a bit more time with Tina she could be baptized in the near future.

Oh....and just a warning for mom and dad.....I think she wants to come live with us in Canada....watch out! hahah She is crazy. I love it.

We spent a ton of time this week inviting less actives and members to our relief society activity that we had on Saturday. We did a ton of work for this activity but it ended up being absolutely incredible!!!! We invited irmã isabel (A member of our grupo here who has left the church because of some personal problems) to teach us how to decorate bolos. She doesn't really want anything to do with the church, but I knew that she LOVES decorating bolos and thought that maybe we could use that to our advantage to at least get her into the church to feel the spirit there again. Like I thought, she was super excited to be able to help us with this activity and it was so amazing to see her in the church interacting with all the ladies there again. I am hoping it will have some sort of an impact on her and she will realize what she is missing because she really is amazing.

We had so many ladies show up for our activity! We were a little bit worried because at 5:00 when the activity was supposed to start there was absolutely no one there, but Portuguese Mormon standard time is even worse than Mormon Standard time, so finally by about 6:00 we had about 16 ladies there! We couldn't believe it! Sister Tilton has already served in a ward here in Portugal and said that is was probably the best attended activity she has been to here in Portugal. I think everyone really loved it, and even better was that we had 3 people there that weren't members!

Church the next day was just as amazing. Like I said, this week was just bursting with miracles. We had 3 people show up for church. Joana, and 2 other contacts that we had made earlier that week. I am extremely excited to teach our other 2 friends- Roxo and Edinei. Both of them are Brazilian. Edinei is about 27 and super nice, and Roxo is the man that I think I talked about last week who was on a walk thinking about Christ when we contacted him. Both are so incredible, and so ready for the gospel.

We also showed up to the church and Kamila, Sebastiana, Luis and the rest of the family were there! They have been attending church in Odivelas, but decided it was time to attend church here in Mafra. I just got the hugest smile on my face when I saw them. It was the best surprise! They are going to be such a strength to this group, and that means we have one more holder of the priesthood! I have so much faith that we are going to turn Mafra into a branch by the end of the year. Altogether we had 26 people in church on Sunday! We were talking to Enivaldo (the president of our group) and he said that this is the most people that he has seen in the time that he has been there. Basically every seat in the chapel was full. I couldn't stop smiling in church looking back and seeing so many people, and then we got the announcement that we will be having the ground breaking of the temple here in Portugal on December 5th. Fam. I think I just about exploded with happiness. I think I understand a little bit better what the term pure joy means.

The Lord is preparing the way and preparing the people here in Portugal. It is incredible to be a part of the work at this time in this place. I LOVE MY LIFE!

Amo Vocês!! Ficam bem. Paz e bençãos.

-Sister Selk

Sometimes we like to make smores, watch church videos and camp out in our living room the night before pday. I am pretty sure Sister Tilton and I have way too much fun together.

to explain this picture: I have more value for my books than my body somethings and i´d rather be soaking wet than my books so this is usually what happens.