I absolutely love Elder Searle, it is such a great transfer already!!
Mom, i am trying to keep a good journal, I am better here than I was at home, but it is still lacking some things. I also write notes in my planner to help me remember. In the past, my nights were used to write in my journal, but now thye are used to call all the members in the district and encourage, support, and uplift them, as well as get their numbers. The mornings are used for calling the zone leaders and getting ready for the day, so I don't have much time, but I am trying.
There also won't be any pictures today because we are in a hurry, it is the first PDay of the month and so we can travel anywhere in our Zone with permission from the ZL's or anywhere in the District, with permission from the DL. So, we are going to Guimerães today. There is an actual castle there. I am way excited to go, I have only been to forts, but this one is an actual castle, if you want you can look it up on the internet. . . and by the way google translate doesn't work very good for big things. I seem to have a curse that every time that I am emailing, the ZL's call me and ask me questions and stuff. Today was a lot longer, and Elder Searle has been nice and has made some calls for me so that I can type more of an email to you.
The best thing about district leader is the Baptismal interviews. They are so spiritual. I never quite realized what The Spirit of Discernment was before I got this call. It is real. It is something that can't be described. I have only done 2 since my calling, and the first was Alberto. I knew he was ready from the beginning. The second was Paula, it was interesting because I didn't have the same feeling, but felt like I should ask another question. It turned out that she didn't understand a principle that was taught. And after explaining this principle to her she said, alright, I will do that, then after that, and only after that did I feel like she was ready.
I will just give 4 quick stories
So a lot of our time has been walking this last week because we had a few appointments in the middle of nowhere, but that is fixed since this month we got permission to buy bus passes!!! We were teaching a lady named Deolinda 2 (there is another one, so she is #2) and she asked us if we wanted Candy. We said, alright, and she came back and gave us candy. it was a sort of clear hard greenish candy, and she popped one in her mouth and told us how good they were, so elder Searle and I said, alright, we will try. Well, long story short, they were cough drops. . .
We were were helping a family move. He lives on the 8th floor and we put stuff in the elevator, it would go down, and then we would call it back, and had 2 groups of people. Well, the mattress didn't fit, so we had to carry it down the stairs. He told us to use the rail so we don't hurt our backs. It is one of the kinds of stairways that is in the form of a rectangle and goes up in a square shape. (sort of like ours in home, but keeps going up) So, we were on the 5th floor and the matress caught the rail wrong, and I lost grip, and Elder searle grabbed onto the plastic, but the plastic ripped, so the mattress went flying down 5 stories of stairs, and we got all the way down stairs the people said it is a lot quicker that way.
Also, yesterday we were praying and I felt like I should call Felipe. He was a name in the phone that none of us know and we didn't know anything about him, but we called him, and set up an appointment for an hour and a half later than when we called. He was cool, but there will be a lot of work for him. He is an atheist . . . even though we think that he really has some belief, and he said the purpose of life is Music. . . We will see, but it got us a new investigator!!
We were going to mark Deolinda 1 for baptism during chruch. We told our Branch President about it, and he was on board, and he offered to challenge her since she doesn't like us . . . she was just too attached to old missionaries. So he gave a lesson on eternal families, and then asked Deolinda if she wanted an eternal family. . . Her response was I don't know. He then asked if that would bring her happiness. She was saying how it is hard to answer. Our Branch president took us aside and in English (so no one else could understand. Here they understand English if we speak really slow) he said she knows it is true, but she is refusing to recognize the holy ghost in her life. The last hour we were all combined because it was the 5th sunday. Our branch President changed his entire lesson plans on the dime and gave one of the most powerful lessons ever about Recognizing the Holy Ghost. It was so cool, that he did that just for us. Long story short, she is still not marked . . . yet!
I must go now, but stay strong, I love you all,
Elder Hope
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