I don´t have much time today because of transfers, but I am staying in Vila Real and I have a new colega! Sister Jumua from Mozambique. She doesnt speak English, but I am excited to be "fully" immersed in the language.
Sorry for the short post!
LOVE, Sister Jarnagin
These last 2 weeks so much has been going on!
A miracle we saw was when we did a fast for our zone and we met a man named Jesus on the Street. We set up an appointment to meet with him later that week and he kept it! We taught about the Restoration and gave him a Book of Mormon. We called him later in the week to follow up and he told us that he had been reading the Book of Mormon and felt so "Free" when he read it, so he shared it with his friend. She loved it so he gave her the book. It was amazing to see how he shared it with his friend even though he didn´t know much himself. And it was totally amazing that his name was Jesus :)
It has been raining a lot this week which gave us an opportunity to take the bus. We were waiting for the bus and we started talking to this nice older gentleman. We told him about our church and gave him a card with Christ on It. His face lit up when he saw the picture of Christ.
We went to visit our Investigator Maria, and she and her sister are trying to plan my wedding with Maria´s son, Miguel. They want me to stay in Portugal and marry him and then go to the United States to visit and send them lotions and perfumes haha. They are crazy!
All the college kids have capes for their college with patches on them. Sometimes I feel like I am in Harry Potter walking around the tiny streets with teenagers in capes. It is awesome!
I am so excited to see that so many of my friends back home are going on missions! I love the joy that comes from telling people about Christ! :)
I love the people here. They are so humble. They don´t have very much, but yet they are willing to give so much! And sometimes we as people have so much and are willing to give so little. But most importantly, I like to ask myself, what more can I give to the Lord? Can I give him more of my love, more service, dilligence, kindness, or obedience? There is always more that we can do to be better disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ and continually use his atonement.
"Blessed be the name of our God; let us sing to his praise, yea, let us give thanks to his holy name, for he doth work righteousness forever." I have continually seen the humble portuguese people give all they have. There food, their time, their small income just to come to church. And yet they give no excuses. They love their God and they know what it means to put him first. They do not even have a temple, and they save their money, sometimes for a long period of time, just to be able to visit the temple in Spain. I am so grateful for their humble example. And I am grateful to be surrounded by people who love Christ and are continually happy! I know that happiness in life comes from truly living the gospel and loving it!
Tem uma boa semana amigos :) Eu amo vocês!
Com Amor, Sister Jarnagin
First, To address the questions of my mom :)
Sister Cardoso is from Sintra which is close to Lisbon. She LOVES ice cream and the color Pink and especially Magnum Pink Icecream which we like to get often. She says "Basicamente" a lot and we have a lot of fun together!
There are about 8 members in our branch. Vila Real is beautiful and there are cobblestones everywhere. There are cute shops and cafes and people sitting in the outside cafes. Almost everyone here is Catholic so there are many catholic sisters and Catholic churches around which have a beautiful old design. There are many cherry trees and olive trees and vineyards, especially on the country mountain sides where people have their vineyards and gardens.
This week was amazing! We have 2 investigators, Helena and Jorge, who are married that want to get baptized so we are so excited! They are the friends of one of the couples in our branch and they come to church often with them but when we talked to them they said they weren´t ready to take the missionary discussions. But Irmão called us last week and he said that they wanted to be baptized! We are so excited!
This week we got to travel to Porto for our zone meeting. Porto is HUGE and it is so busy out! People everywhere! It kind of reminds me of what I picture New York to look like. We went inside the shopping mall while we were waiting for our bus and they have an "all american" store. Things that you can only buy in America. A big box of Reeses Puffs was 16 Euros which is very overpriced for a box of cereal in America. It was funny to see :)
Easter and conference is probably the best combination in the world! All the speakers and topics were very specific and very to the point. I loved it! I loved how so many talks were focused on the atonement of our brother, Jesus Christ. I loved how Elder Holland talked about how the Savior still extends his unfailing help to us imperfect people with pierced hands and torn wrists. And I loved Elder Pearson´s talk about how "Giving in , giving up, and giving out are not options." Ans also how our daily discipleship will determine our eternal destiny."
I know that we have just recieve revelation on what we can all do to be better disciples of Christ as his coming grows closer and closer.
For Easter we had the opportunity to have lunch with the branch president and his wife. They live in a very old beautiful house that looks like a castle. On Easter day here the catholic children went around with a cross, bell, and other symbols into the open gates and doors of houses. All day was filled with the ringing of bells. We stayed the night at President´s house because they live so far away and while we were sleeping, their cat peed on my companion and when we woke up.... haha it was smelly but funny!
