Branch Conference = Full Chapel

Hey! I don't have a ton to write about this week, but this week was good and I do have some pictures of our cute ward members! I love them! Let's see...

First Sister Gilbert is all better. Yay! She had to eat a lot of soup this week, but she is better so that is all that matters. I can't image being on my mission and having to heal from getting my wisdom teeth out. Satan was trying real hard on that one because her mouth was literally bound... haha she couldn't talk for like two days. 

This week Sister Gilbert and I planned a family night at the chapel. We did a movie night and watched The Testament! It was a little sad when none of our investigators came, but it was good because we had a lot of recent converts and less actives there!:) They loved it. Super fun.

Saturday was such a good day. Nothing super special happened, but it was just so fun being a missionary. And tons of little miracles happened.  Like people let us in and would talk to us on the street and you know just the little perks of missionary work.

This Sunday we had the hour change... haha that was fun;) No worries we knew about it so we weren't late to church. We had an investigator at church too! It is one of our members friends her name is Lurdes, but she is one of those eternal investigators. She loves church and comes, but doesn't want to change. So who knows maybe Sister Gilbert and I will be the lucky ones to see the fruits of all those other missionaries and see her get baptized. 

 

We had branch conference and so our chapel was filled with people. It was awesome.  Our lovely choir sang! It was so fun and of course I had to lead the music. Irmão Pinto knows that I don't know how and so he thinks it is so funny to have me do it.... haha, but I enjoy doing it and I guess I look like I know what I am doing because everyone in the ward thinks I know how. 

This week was a good one! Have a great week and keep smiling!:)

Com amor, 

Sister Sampson

Sister Gilbert after getting her wisdom tooth out

Hanging out with the RS sisters

Sister Gilbert 9 month mark

A Trip to the Dentist

WOW! What a week! We had a crazy one, but it was super good and interesting!:) So the highlights first...

We got to teach this cute older couple Antonio and Maria. They are SUPER catholic. Haha, but everyone here is or says they are. So that wasn't new. They said we could come back and teach them this week so we will see what happens. They had missionaries over before a long time ago and told us how they were mad they never came back! So we will make them happy by returning:)

Second awesome thing we found a new investigator named Lilia. We found her in the area book. We called her up and she let us come over and teach her.  She is studying here in Portugal and is from Africa.  She is awesome.  We taught her about the restoration and the spirit was so strong.  This week I have gained such a love for the restoration of the Gospel, Joseph Smith, and The Book of Mormon.  We are so blessed to be living in the time that the Church of Jesus Christ is on the earth again and it will never leave.  It is here to STAY!

We had FHE with Mina and Ana and Sister Gilbert and I decided to change things up a bit. SO we acted out the story of Ammon and King Limhi while we read it. Mina and Ana really loved the part when I started chopping off Sister Gilberts arms. 

We had an FHE at another member's house. Her name is Clementina and it was with one of her friends that came to church on Sunday.  His name is Fernando and he has already had all of the lessons years ago, but he never got baptized. So we are going to teach him again and pray that the end result is different!:)

Every morning for exercise Sister Gilbert and I run to this outdoor basketball court that is about 10 minutes away and then we play basketball and it is super fun, but we always pass the same people and so now they know us and always say hi to us and laugh as we run by. But there is this one lady that when we see her later in the day she always yells run run run to us and then starts laughing. Haha, it's pretty funny.

Not so Highlights...

So last Sunday this old man in our ward passed away. He was so cute. Sister Gilbert and I loved him! That same day he passed away he was talking about how happy he was because he had done everything he needed in the church. He had been baptized, been through the temple, did the temple work for his wife that had passed away, and gotten his patriarchal blessing. He was ready! Well his funeral was on Wednesday and they asked us if we could go. So we went, but it was super sad because half the people there were all catholic and they don't have the knowledge that we have. Sister Neiva and Sister Pinto spoke about that we know where he is and we know he is happy and he is with his cute wife and we know that will see him again. I felt the spirit so strong there and I know that those people did too and they felt the peace that this gospel brings! I am so grateful that we have this knowledge.  I love being a missionary and being able to share this message with others! 

NOW THIS IS WHEN IT GETS A LITTLE CRAZY...

Poor Sister Gilbert has had a headache since Tuesday and so Saturday she just couldn't take it anymore and it was just getting worse and worse. So we called the mission office to ask what to do and the lady that is in charge of all the health things told us to go to the emergency room since it was Saturday and it was a pain in her head. So we got there and they had no idea what it was and just gave her some drugs and told her that if it doesn't go away to come back... So we left and the medicine helped her for a little bit, but she was in so much pain that night the worst she had felt yet! So the next morning it still hadn't gone away, but the most sensitive part was one of her wisdom teeth. She couldn't touch it and she couldn't sleep and couldn't eat because of the pain. So we called the lady again and told her the medication didn't help and she was still in a lot of pain. The lady told us to take Sister Gilbert to the emergency room again right after church. I don't know why they wouldn't just let us go to the dentist in the first place, but the medical here is weird and wanted us to go to the doctor first. So this doctor gave her a shot... and gave her more medicine and told her to go to the dentist in two days if the pain doesn't go away. The medicine they gave her made her really dizzy and so the medical lady told us that we couldn't work Sunday night. Sunday night we had a lot of time to study, which was nice, but I didn't like being in house.  Never mind about me... The pain still didn't go away! She still had a lot of pain in her tooth and so the lady scheduled an appointment with the dentist today... Well let's just say we went in there. The dentist hit Sister Gilberts tooth a million times... Poor thing... She was in soo much pain. The dentist told us that the doctor didn't know what they were talking about and she knows what will help the pain. 15 minutes later they had pulled out her wisdom tooth! We were like what!? So they gave her an ice pack and sent her on her way. They told us to come back on Friday to get the stitches removed! What!!?? Crazy! Way different than what they do in America. Let's just say Sister Gilbert is a solider! Hopefully she will feel better this week!:)

Well that's all folks! I hope you all have an awesome week! 

Quote of the week:

"We can't direct the wind but we can adjust the sails. For maximum happiness, peace, and contentment, may we choose a positive attitude." -President Thomas S. Monson

I love you all! Beijinhos! Tchau!

Com amor,

Sister Sampson

Sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite:)

Well this week was a good one, but it was also a hard one. I am not gonna lie:) haha. Sister Gilbert and I named it our Trial of Faith Week! First off I forgot to mention this little detail in my last email that I had been waking up with bug bites and turns out they were bed bugs! Woohoo! The saying good night sleep tight don't let the bed bugs bite became so real to me this past week! haha. I counted about 46 bug bites!!! They were really itchy! It was quite the experience, but lucky for us our Stake President is an exterminator.  So he came and sprayed down our apartment to get kill the bugs and then we had to take our stuff to get washed at this laundry place and then we got some itch cream to help me.  So now they are all gone! Yay!:)

Yep so like I said this week was a rough one... every appointment we had fell through and no one wanted to listen to us and we knocked a LOT of doors! But still this week was great. We just kept working and every time I felt a little discouraged or sad that no one was talking to us I was reminded that there really is so much to be happy about and to grateful for:) I know that we are blessed when we just keep pushing through and show the Lord our faith through our hard work. We really have so much to be smiling about!:)

We started this game in our branch with the members. We have two teams and they get points when they invite people to church and things like that. Well they are loving this game and it has really been awesome and helped our relationship with the members and has helped us find investigators. And this Sunday we had 4 investigators at church all thanks to our members! So we will be teaching them this week:)

I love being a missionary and I love this work! Keep smiling and remember we have so much to be grateful for.  Love you all! Have a great week!

Favorite scripture of the week:

D&C 121:7

"My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;"

 

Sister Sampson

What?!?! This train isn't going to Viana?

THIS WEEK WAS AWESOME! Haha. It really was a great week.  I just loved everything about it. I will hit the highlights:)

Tuesday: We taught one of our less actives that has been starting to come back to church and her boyfriends brother Fernando (he was one of the investigators that came to church last week) She was really excited to help us teach.  It was fun to see her testimony grow while she was helping us teach.

Thursday: We had district meeting and President has made a goal for our mission to get 40 baptisms this month, which would be the highest amount of baptisms that we have ever gotten in this mission in a month! So we all picked things we were going to sacrifice to get this goal. Our districts goal is to fear no man and talk to everyone and have one moment of WOW where we do something that seems scary to us. Haha as in talking to a large group of people or something like that. Then Sister Gilbert and I made a sacrifice to wake up 30 minutes earlier everyday to study more. For those of you that know me... you know that is a huge sacrifice for me because I love my sleep! Last year in the month of March they set a goal to get 35 baptisms and they did it! So we are stepping it up this year.

Friday: We had lunch at Marlino and Debora's house. They are this young married couple in our ward. They both served missions and they made a goal to give the missionaries lunch every week and so far they have been pretty good! I love it though. They are awesome and always tell us funny stories from their missions. Then we had an appointment with Joana. She is friends with the Cardoso family (the dad is our branch president). They don't live in our area and so we got permission to go to their house to teach Joana because she lives by them. Joana is also one of the people that came to church because of one of our members last Sunday. So we got on the train and while we were on our way to Barcelos (where they live) we met this lady named Teresa. She asked us how long we had been in Portugal and she was very impressed with my Portuguese for only being here for three months! So that was cool. Then Sister Gilbert told her that we were on our way to teach someone a lesson and slyly asked her if we could teach her the lesson to help me practice;) Good things come out of not knowing Portuguese! haha. And of course she was willing and nice. So we started with a prayer and once we opened our eyes she was crying. She told us that her husband had passed away. So instead of practicing the first lesson we taught her the second lesson about why we are here and where we are going and that she will see her husband again. Then before the lesson was over we were in Barcelos and we had to hurry and get off the train!:( We didn't even get a chance to get her number! We were so caught up in lesson we almost missed our stop.  But we were able to answer some of her questions, help her feel the spirit, and she has a pass along card with our number. Then we taught a lesson to Joana at the Cardoso's house. It was awesome. Joana is from Cape Verde and speaks Creole.... So that was fun. Sister Cardoso helped her when she didn't understand what we were saying:) We finished the lesson at 8:56 and we had to get to the train at 9:06, but we made it! When we got to the train station we asked this lady which train was going to Viana because two pulled up at the same time. She told us it was the train on the other side. So we got on and when the guy came around we asked him for two tickets to Viana... He looked at us like we were crazy and told us that we were on our way to Porto!!! WHAT! We were going the opposite direction... oops. haha that was the last train of the night too... So the guy told us that we just had to go all the way to Porto and then the train would turn around and go back to Viana. He was really nice and didn't make us buy a ticket for Porto he just had us buy one for Viana. So we had a nice 3 hour train ride to get to know each other better haha. Not like Sister Gilbert and I don't already know each other super well haha;) So we called the Zone Leaders and they just told us to call them when we got back to our apartment.  We got home around 12! Woohoo. haha.

Saturday: We taught that same family we taught last Sunday! They only let us teach them on Saturday's because that is the only day they are all together. So it kind of stinks how far apart our appointments are, but the dad is awesome! He read the Book of Mormon and he prayed and says he feels good about it. The rest of them aren't as interested. So since the rest of the family didn't do our invite from last week we decided to just read with them. We invited them to church, but the daughters have rowing practice every Sunday morning... So that was a bummer, but they are letting us come back this week, so we will see what happens:)

Sunday: I was a little sad this morning because we had worked so hard to get people to church and kept inviting people, but everyone told us no. Then we were sitting in church and this guy, Gonçalves, walked in! He was this guy we met on the street Monday night and invited him to church and he came! It was awesome! Then Sister Gilbert and I were in charge of teaching the Gospel Principles Class so that was awesome because we just taught him the first lesson and got help from all the other people in that class... which was Mina:) haha. Susana Pinto was there for part of it too. So we have a lesson with him this week.  Then after church we had CHOIR! BEST THING EVER! So they called Sister Andersen to be the choir director and it is awesome! Pretty much the whole ward went to choir. It was so fun. They were all having a blast and joking around and President Cardoso was leading us. He is a really good singer and he reminds me of my dad. It was so fun! And Sister Andersen brought chocolate zucchini bread. The ward went crazy! They loved that stuff! The Andersens have really strengthened this ward! It has been really cool to watch.  Then Sister Gilbert and I got invited over to a members house for lunch and we got to teach the first lesson to a less active, a recent convert, and a non member that were there for lunch too and we got to teach it with Claudia, Kimberly, and Debora. Those three are all returned missionaries and so we split up the lesson between all of us and taught.  It was fun to teach with them.

TODAY!:) We went to Valença to this Fort with the Andersen's.  It was lots of fun! And their cute little boy Sterling came and told us all about pokemon:) So fun!

Well,  it was an awesome week! I know that when you show the Lord your faith through your actions He always blesses you! I love this work and I love these people!

Beijinhos! Tchau!

Com amor,

Sister Sampson:)

The Andersen's took us to Valenca which is up North on the border of Portugal and Spain

We are pointing to Spain which is just on the other side of the river