I'm Melting!!!

HEY! How are you guys doing this week!? First I want to say HAPPY FATHERS DAY DAD!!! I hope it was the best one ever because you are the best dad ever! It wasn't fathers day here in Portugal, but I thought about you:)

This week was great, but it was so HOT! Oh my. It was like 110 all week and super humid, but it just made me really grateful for when it isn't as hot. haha. This week was so awesome though. So it makes up for the hot weather. 

On Wednesday I got to go on divisions with Sister Sivertson. It was so great. She came and worked in Leiria with me. She is in her third transfer and so she is still pretty new. I loved working with her. We saw so many miracles and found a lot of new people to teach! 

Friday Sister Foote and I were walking past P- (the lady that stopped us in the street last week or so) house and so we decided to call her because all the appointments we set up with her kept falling through. We called her and she answered and told us that she can't meet with us because she is about to leave for work. So we were about to leave when she called us again and told us that she can meet with us and go into work late. We were so excited. We taught her the first lesson, which was strange to do in English. I realized now that I was translating Portuguese to English. But besides that the spirit was soooo strong in that lesson. We were all crying the whole time. She told us about how she had seen us and then talked to her friend about us and her friend told her to not talk to us. But she told us that she prayed and felt like she really needed to talk to us and give a try and she thinks that is was God telling her that she really needs to talk to us because we called her after she cancelled on us like three times. We invited her to baptism and she excepted! Then we talked all about church and she told us she was so excited. Well Sunday came and we called her and called her and she didn't answer:( and didn't come to church, bummer, but she answered after church and told us that she got home from work really late and was asleep, but she did tell us that she wants to meet with us this week. So we will see how it goes:) She is super awesome!

This week we kept trying to meet with L- and her family, but everything kept falling through. We kept calling her to invite her to church too, but she didn't answer so we sent her a text and when we got to church they were there:) I love this family! They are awesome and we have an appointment with them today.

So yeah! This week was great! Super hot, but worth it.  I learned a lot about how sometimes we feel like we aren´t good enough or we can't do what the Lord wants us to do, but the scripture 1 Nephi 3:7 kept coming to my head. And I have a strong testimony that the Lord qualifies who He calls.  As long as we try our hardest to do His will, He will help us do what He needs. Those thoughts of inadequacy

never come from the Lord. So don't let them win:) 

Anyways, I love you all! Have a great week! Talk to you later gater!

Tchau for now!

com amor,

Sister Sampson

Had a great birthday!

Monday: We had an awesome pday and we went to eat a yummy lunch for my birthday. Then right when pday ended we had to get on a bus for Porto because all the leaders aka Sister Foote had a meeting on Tuesday. So we had a nice three hour bus ride. Then we got to sleep at Sister Sonntagg, Sister Maingot, and Sister Christensen's house. So that was a party! I love all those Sisters!

Tuesday: My bday! They woke me up singing happy bday and made me pancakes! Then Sister Foote, Sister Maingot, and Sister Christensen had to leave to the meeting and I got to work with Sister Sonntagg and Sister Burns who's comp was also in the leadership meeting. It was so great. They are just the cutest. We made a list of 20 missionary things to do on a missionary birthday and did them. We put pass-along cards in balloons with candy and would have people on the street pop them and then give them the card and invite them to church. Haha the people loved it. Then we wrapped a church movie and took it to L- (the Porto's sisters investigator marked for baptism). We had her open it and watched it with her and taught her about the plan of salvation. She cried through the whole movie. The spirit was so strong! Then Sister Foote and I literally ran around all of Porto trying to get to our bus and got on it and had a three hour bus ride to get home. That was our day. It was a great birthday. I loved every second of it!

Wednesday: The family I talked about last week who are from Mozambique. We went back and taught them again. They are incredible. Lil is the daughter and Lee is the little boy. We taught them about Joseph Smith and they were so excited about the BOM. And Lil promised to read it. Then we invited them to church and the kids were so excited and said they would come. Also, while we were on our way to this lesson. We were in a hurry, but this lady stopped us. She was like (in English), "Hey sisters!" Then she told us that she is from Africa and is looking for a church and saw tons of missionaries from where she is from and wants to go to our church. So we invited her and got her number. She told us she couldn't go this Sunday cuz she had work, but we set up a time to meet with her this week and she said she can go to church cuz she usually just works at night. So that was awesome too! We also taught T- and we have really been pushing baptism. She says she knows it is right, but she is too scared to take the leap.

Thursday: Sister Foote had a meeting over skype to get ready for our zone meeting and it was so long. I can't really remember what else happened. Nothing too exciting.

Friday: We had Zone Meeting. So we went to Coimbra. The Zone Meeting was great. We talked about our potential and how we shouldn't ever limit ourselves. Then we watched a video of this recent convert in our mission singing a song he wrote for the missionaries and told his story. It was really cool and now he is getting ready for a mission. Then we went back to Leiria and back to work:)

Saturday: we had lunch at a members house and we had an awesome lesson with one of our investigators I-. She was marked for baptism before I came and it just didn't work out so Sister Foote and I have been really working with her and we had a member there and she was testifying about how she needs to make a goal for her baptism and pray about it.

Sunday: We got to church and all of the investigators that said they were coming weren't there. I was so sad. They sounded so for sure. Then nope. But we called T- and she said she was just running late. I was so happy she was coming. Then we got a phone call from L- during the opening hymn. We ran outside and she was asking us for directions cuz she was lost. Then they got there and they were all dressed up so cute and ready for church. Lee was jumping up and down. They are the cutest family. They stayed the whole time and loved it. They actually know some of one of our members cuz she is from the same part of Mozambique! Then for lunch we went over to a members house and they made me a cake and sang me happy birthday! IT was awesome! I forgot to get a picture though;( forgive me!

Anyways it was a week full of meetings, but it was great! I love it here in Leiria! There are so many awesome people! 

HAVE A GREAT WEEK! I love you all! Thanks for the birthday wishes! We watched the restoration video this week and it just made me so grateful that I grew up a member of the church of Jesus Christ. I am so grateful that we have a prophet that lives and is guiding the church today. I know this church is true and I love being able to share it with everyone here in Portugal:)

beijinhos!

Com amor,

Sister Sampson

Thank you everyone!!!!

First things first, I just want to tell you all thank you so much for the birthday wishes and sorry that I didn't get to respond to them all, but I will next time! They made my day! :)

Mom´s questions:

we will be in Porto on my birthday. We leave tonight and will be staying with the sisters in Porto tonight and then Sister Foote has leadership meeting and I will be on divisions with some other sister who's companion is a sister training leader too. So I will be in Porto and teaching people there! The members here are awesome, but a lot of them live far away. We haven't really taught with any of them we need to repent on that, but the ward mission leader is so awesome and on top of it and always makes sure our investigators have rides to church. We have this one family that I just love! They invite us over every other Sunday for dinner and will sacrifice anything to help the missionaries.

This week was a good one:) ha ha, I think I say that every week. It did have a rough start though. People were just not that nice this week. Two times Sister Foote and I were in two lessons this week and the person just started yelling at us. I don't know why, but it was awesome to see Sister Foote just sit there calmly.  I mean even if I wanted to I couldn't even say mean things in Portuguese and Sister Foote just sat there and took it all and then replied so nicely. It was really neat to see the self control.

Then we just kept working and working and we saw so many miracles! Sunday was the day of miracles. We were knocking this apartment complex and we found this awesome family. The mom just let us right in. They had just moved from Mozambique because their little boy has heart problems and needs better medical. He is just the happiest cutest little boy though. We taught the lesson and then she talked about how she made her kids watch the video of Jesus on the cross. She asked them, "who did you watch a video of today?" and they (little African girl and little African boy) both replied, "Jesus." Then she asked them what they learned and they said, "To not treat others rude because the mean people were hurting Jesus and we shouldn't treat anyone like that." It was the cutest thing in the world. They are such a great family! I am so excited to go back and teach them! After that we found tons more people and everyone was just so nice! So the lesson I learned this week is that rainbows always come after rain. If we just keep pushing on through the hard times there is always light at the end of the tunnel and the Savior is always by our side:)

We also taught T- a ton this week! She is doing awesome! She has already read to Alma and pretty much teaches us about the Book of Mormon. She keeps having lessons with us and her friend and helps him understand our lessons. She just has a huge trial of faith because if she gets baptized she will have to quit her job and it is super complicated. So we are praying and praying and teaching her still:)

I LOVE IT HERE:) I love you all! Keep smiling and don't forget to say your prayers

com amor,

Sister Sampson