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