Monday December 31, 2012

Dear family and friends,

It is weird to think that it is already new year's eve and that 2012 has already basically passed by.

The mission cut us 150 euros on accident, but we still haven't gotten it. Ironically enough, we have never had to worry about food. We have nothing in our house, but out of the blue a member or investigator will call us and invite us over every day that happened. We didn't go hungry. What a blessing from above!

Monday we cut our P day short about 4 hours so that we could get some work done in our area. We haven't had much time in our area with all of our traveling for interviews and to Lisbon and to other meetings, so we took advantage of our extra time. We had a lesson with Filipa's family who has been coming to church pretty frequently. They told us that they already had plans for the 30th but on the 6th they would come. It is really neat to see them coming along. We told them to pray about a date for baptism and on friday we would return with a date. We then went over to Carlos Santos's aunts house and met two little old women who like to feed us. they gave us so much food, but it was good. They made us bachalhau, a kind of fish (cod fish), and it was good.

On tuesday we had christmas and we sort of stayed with Carlos the whole day. We went over for lunch, taught a lesson to his familiy members, and then played twister with the kids. Elder Harvey spoke with his family and then I spoke to y'all. it was fun. I am sad to see that was the last time that I will speak to y'all on my mission, and that here soon, we are going to be reunited. Jaime said that he would hook me up with a car deal.

On wednesday we went to a very inspired training by President Teixeira, the Area president of Europe. He taught us about taking care of our leaders and how to work with them. it is necessary here as we have a lot of support from the leaders we just don't have a lot of action or work from them. We got home that night and found Irmão cunha who is the keeper of the keys at our chappel. He is this short little man we call the hobbitt, and he is always emulating a sort of grumpy attitude.He came up and asked if he could take a picture with us. Which is a really big deal, he hasnºt accepted or taken photos with missionaries in over a year, he is just a little grumpy old man.

On thursday we laughed all day because we found out that the bishop in another unit told an elder to bless a dog with the priesthood. He is a greenie, and was on a division with a member, and he put his hands on the dog's head, and blessed it. Unfortunately you shouldn't do that in the preisthood. We laughed and thought it was a joke, but we found out it wasn't. I feel bad we made fun of him until we realized it was actually the truth.

On friday we had weekly planning at the church and took carlos santos with us to a lesson with filipa's family. He was stoked that we were going to mark them for baptism, that he litterally spoke too much, but in the end they were marked for the 13th of January. I am so excited for them.Carlos then invited us to his house for Lasagna.

On saturday we had a day that was not working. Half of the city is out of town for the holidays but we found a really cool brasillian lady from Forteleza that knew some missionaries in the past. She said she would come to church.

On sunday she came to church. For the first time in over 2 years we surpassed 30 people in church, having 31 people. And we were missing 2 families that are out of town. Israele (the brasillian) brought 2 of her friends with her to church from Paraná (Curitiba is the capital!) 12 of the 31 people were from missionary efforts!!! we brought a family of 4 back to reactivate them and we had 4 investigators and the ex elders quromn president that we are reactivating and 1 recent convert and us two. We are working on trying to reactivate some Melquesideck preisthood holders and families. the ward was so excited that most of the people that we brought have schedulded times to meet with other members to have fun with them or for home teaching.

Have a good time.

Elder Hope