Amadora - Week 6

This week we had our divisions with the sister training leaders in Mem Martins. Other than the pouring rain they were really good and we learned a lot.

We have been trying to visit the less actives of our ward list because our Bishop wants to go through it and we found a less active, Joaquim, who has been less active for over 5 years. He came to church yesterday, and his friends from the Bishopric and other members were so excited to see him. They were all hugging him and he was so happy. Later after a dinner we had with a member, a member of the Bishopric was talking to us and he said that when Joaquim walked in he was so excited to see him because he and other members had been to visit him for along time trying to help him come back. He said we did a miracle, but the thing is that Joaquim was already to come back. He remembered the feelings he felt there and we were excited to see him too.

This week we were able to mark Jocilene for baptism for next Sunday and she was able to watch a baptism in church. She is loving church and loving having time with her long lost friend. But then this is where the sad part comes. We got a call that both sister and I are leaving and going to new areas :( and 2 new sisters are coming in. We are both sad to leave, but we know that the members and the next sisters will take care of Jocilene. I'm going to Setubal to finish the training of sister Olson.  I'll be living with 4 sisters again which will be fun. Now we are just using our p-day to clean our house and the area book to get everything ready for the new sisters. I hope you all had a wonderful Valentines day!

Com amor,
Sister Jarnagin
Pics:
-Our Valentine Day Selfie
-Sister de Souza´s birthday. I made her a cake ;)
-Our chaple
-Some of the elders at a dinner we had at a members house
-us, Jocilene, and her long lost friend Kady

Amadora - Week 5

Oiiii!
This week was really good and a little bit crazy! We had our zone conference with presidente and interveiws which were good as always. It´s always good to talk to prez.

We also had a special activity as a zone with the sisters of Cascais in their area. We all went there and did contacts all day just inviting people to come tour the chapel to an open house they were doing. It was a good activity and the pictures of the ocean were taken from the chapel.

I want to tell about Jocelyn who is in the selfie we took. We were walking and I sat down in front of an apartment building to sit by her. She looks like she is 10 because of health problems but is 22. I invited her to church and then she said, "I have to go and went inside." We didn't think much of it because we didnt have her address or telephone number, but we got a call from her mom 3 days after saying that her daughter wanted to go to church. We set an appointment to go back the next day and talk with them. We taught about the plan of salvation and how she could have a perfect body with out sickness. They are here from Cape Verde for treatment for Jocelyn who has a heart problem. We gave them a book of Mormon and her mom kept kissing it and telling us that God sent Jocelyn to sit outside and He also sent us to come and find them. Jocelyn came to church yesterday and loved it and asked if she could come every Sunday after. One of the families in our ward, their daughter went to school with Jocelyn in Cape Verde when they were younger and they were both so happy to see each other! God´s plan is perfect :)
Well I love you all!
Love, Sister Jarnagin

Amadora - Week 4

This week was really good!

We started teaching a family that was a referal from our member. Altair, Yolanda, and their daughter, who is 5 and adorable. We are helping Yoland to stop smoking and she even fasted for us :). Altair is a little more difficult, but he went to church with the member last week and then the whole family made it to church this week. Yolanda loved it, but Altair is having a some doubts. Their daughter loved the primary! Every time we go over to teach, she wants to say the prayer.

This week Sister de Souza and I worked crazy hard. We were litterally slammed all week with apointments which was amazing. We were able to visit so many new people and we were able to recieve many new references.

Yesterday we met a guy who said he had Jesus inside him and showed his belly with a big scar on it... and he said he was John the Baptist. So that's John the Baptist with Jesus inside of him... yep. Portugal.

The pictures are of the train station and of our p-day in Sintra today. First time in along time that I have heard English.

I love you all!
Love, Sister Jarnagin

Amadora -Week 3

This week was really good. Edna came to church and a member even offered her a ride to work so she could stay longer than just the first hour. We did find out though that she isn't married, and never wanted to be, but she still has the strong desire to be baptized.

The daughter of a family in our ward was baptized and they invited so many people and many non members and less active members came which was great because they loved it! One even came to church the next day and I have never seen so much talking from non-members in the gospel principles class than from this woman. Her questions were all very sincere and she loved the class and invited us to visit her this week.

Working with the members here is going a lot better. We have been making visits to the members bringing no-bake cookies and asking for opinions on different activities that we can do. We have recieved so many ideas and the members are all very excited. We are going to start piano classes every week and think that most people are excited for that haha.

The members are getting better at bringing their friends to church. Yesterday we had a member that brought his friend and he really loved the hymns that we sang in sacrement meeting.

We had world wide training from the missonary department this week and it was very uplifting. All the missionaries in the whole world attended via satelite broadcast and it was live.

I hope you all are doing well! I love you all.
Love, Sister Jarnagin
Pics:
Lots and lots of rain
Brazilian desserts we made for the baptism
(Brigadeiros)
Missionary brodcast :)

Amadora - Week 2

This week I got a little bit of a better feel for the area and it's a lot easier to get around now too that we have our train and bus pass. We have been getting to know our members better which has been really good.

So Edna wasn't able to be baptized this week because of her schedule. Of course when we mark it for her day off her boss decides to move her whole schedule for this whole week. So we didnt get any opportunities to teach her. :(

One of the families in the ward, their daughter is getting baptized so they asked us to teach her.  It's interesting to see how simple the gosple truly is that an 8 year old can understand things like the restoration, plan of salvation, and word of wisdom. All of our investigators are currently and actively reading the Book of Mormon which is exciting!!

Well that pretty much is it. Something funny that happened this week was that we were coming back from an appointment and sister Souza stops to talk to this older guy wearing one of those russian fur hats and they start talking about his hat haha and her puts it on her head to see how warm it is. Yep... we don't have lice or anything yet but I'm on the lookout. :)
I love you all!
Love, Sister Jarnagin

Pictures:
Stairs of exaltation
Bad picture of our area from the baby mountain
Portugals air force
Our members :)

Amadora - Week 1

Well it´s a lot different here from Barreiro, but I am already loving Amadora.

I´ll start with the details. Our area is made up of 3 areas:  Part of Amadora, Que Luz, and Monte Abraão which is literally a mountain haha. I have found I am not quite as in shape as I should be climbing all the big hills here. I am in a ward that is quite big of about 80-100 active members. We also have 2 sets of elders here so 6 of us all together in the ward.
This week it rained every day and didn't stop. It rains the most here I think.

Our apartment is small but super clean and doesn't have mold like Barreiro, and it also comes with a view of 10  fat cats that sit outside in the sun on the roof. We count them every day to see if there are more.

Sister de Souza is wonderful! She is a very powerful missionary for only being in her second transfer. She is from Uberlandia, Brazil and grew up in the church. She is also learning english and is very dedicated and so we have english practice sometimes in the street and I teach her hymns in english. She says a lot of words from Brazil, so sometimes I don't always understand haha but we are getting there.

Neither of us really know our area which is huge, so we have gotten lost quite a few times, said a prayer to help, and ended up finding new investigators. One was a Brazilian named Kika. She cut the elders' hair on p-day in Brazil and read the whole Book of Mormom just out of curiosity. We taught her and she is super cool. We have been having a lot of success just in our first week.

I am learning alot from Sister de Souza. She contacts people with vigor and they listen. We found a cool guy named Daniel who we taught, and he came to church and prayed about the Book of Mormon and accepted the invitation to be baptized. Also we marked a woman, Edna for Baptism for this Friday. She came to church yesterday too and loved it! It was interesting because when we did the baptismal invitation she said she had already been baptised, but understood clearly why she needed to be baptized again. When we teach by the spirit and focus on the people we are teaching, they truly are touched and understand.

Well I love you all! Until next week!
Sister Jarnagin

Barriero - Week 24 (and transfers)

Well it was my last week in Barreiro... My reign as queen came to an end. Our mission president actually changed our transfer day to Tuesday so I will be leaving tommorow for Amadora which is in Lisbon. I  will be finishing the training of a brazilian sister, Sister Sousa. I´m really excited!

I love love LOVE Barreiro and I know it will be hard to leave. We were at Conceição´s house yesterday and I told her and she got so sad. Some friends walked in to visit her and were almost bashing on the church and she snapped right back at them and told them how good the church is and they need to go to it! I was so proud. 92 and still has fire :)

I can´t remember what we did this week because I left my note at home, but we did have new years... and we celebrated by making guesses of what would happen on transfers. Our mission president gave us permission to stay up inside our house until midnight... but sadly I didnt make it. I turned over in bed to my companion yelling "Happy new year!" at midnight and that's the new years party we had :)

Sister Stegeman and I had this great idea for a new family home evening that we did on Friday. We set up the christmas tree my mom sent in the chapel with the lights on it and put yellow apples on it. Then we strung another string of lights from the tree to the door. We made a huge maze. We started in the scriptures reading about Lehi´s vision of the Tree of Life. We blind folded all of the members and likened our lights to the iron rod, and they had to go through the maze, find the rod, and then follow it to the tree to eat the fruit. They all loved it. Not to mention we threw a couple soccer balls at their legs to cause confusion. They still loved it :)

I had to say goodby to all the members yesterday and it was so sad. I have learned so much here. I am so grateful for the opportunity to meet so many new people and to share the gospel in different parts of Portugal. I think the biggest thing I have learned this transfer and here in Barreiro is to just completely trust in the Lord. I know that His plan is completely perfect. He does everything in his timing and we do absolutely everything we can and he will carry us and do the rest.

I hope all of you had a wonderful new year and you made goals for this new year. The adversary is working harder than ever. That means our goals have to be stronger than ever and we have to exercise our faith more than ever before! I love you all!
Com amor,
Sister Jarnagin
p.s. Sorry there are no pictures this week... the computor that im am using wont let me send them :(