Roses and Thorns

This week was just full of learning experiences, but that is just how life is right?!?! That is why we are here:) We are always learning. I love it. 
Anyways, the Holy Ghost really is the best teacher! One of my favorite learning experiences this week was when Sister Marshall and I were walking past a bus stop and as we were walking by we decided to talk to this lady that was waiting for the bus. As we approached her I started handing her a pass along card she started signaling to us that she is deaf. She couldn't hear us. So we grab a Book of Mormon out of our bags. Sister Marshall started to write a note for her in the cover and I sat next to her and started passing her notes asking her name and getting to know her. As we handed her the Book of Mormon she looked so happy that we didn't let words be the reason we didn't share the message with her. I have never felt the spirit so strong as I did when we were with her. We walked away crying because we knew that the spirit taught her something better than we could have with our words.

I hit one year this week! I can't believe it! Feels like such a small amount of time, but like so much has happened. We were in Santarém for our divisions. The sisters decorated with some balloons to celebrate my one year in the mission. 

On wednesday and Thursday I got to work with Sister Marcedo. It was great to learn from her and find out ways I can be a better missionary and help my area here in Coimbra.  

This week all of our appointments with A-e fell through and so we went over to her house and heart attacked her door! And we got to see her at church:)

So the time change happened here on Saturday night. SO GUESS WHAT THAT MEANS! Our mission President surprised us and let us stay out one more hour to work! Sister Marshall and I had a great day and found two more awesome families to teach and so we were so excited to have one more hour to find one more person to teach. We tried to call to see if we could meet with this girl named C-a that we talked to a while ago and right when she answered her phone our phone died! It was 10 at night and we really so badly wanted to make the most of the hour. We prayed and decided to ask these people if we could use their phone. They told us no, I guess we come across a little sketchy;) haha. Then we saw this man looking for something in the grass and we started helping him. He was really cool but we weren't able to help him find his keys, but he let us use his phone. We called C-a but she was busy:( 

After that, we decided it was time to go home. As we were walking we saw this lady on a bench. We sat next to her and started talking to her. She had had a really rough day and we were able to testify to her that she has a Savior that knows what she is going through and is there by her side. It was neat to have that experience and once again reminded me of the love that Heavenly Father has for His children and the confidence He has in His missionaries trusting us enough to share the good news. 

Something that Sister Marshall taught me this week is something that her family does. What is your rose and your thorn from the day? So one good thing and one bad thing, but as we started doing this every night we started to realize that we are sooo blessed and we have a lot more roses and not very many thorns, but our thorns make us more grateful for the roses that we have. 

Bye! Love you! What are your roses?:)

com amor,

Sister Sampson

I Love the Book of Mormon

I don't have a lot to say about this week, but it was also pretty great.  

We had a zone meeting and it was all about the importance of the Book of Mormon and how it is the base of our testimonies and how important it is that our investigators are reading the Book of Mormon. I love the Book of Mormon! I love how it was written so long ago, but the stories apply to our everyday lives right now. It was written for us! How loving is our Heavenly Father that He gave us this book.

Another one of my favorite parts of my week was we had 2 lessons with A-e and her aunt. One of them we taught her about faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the holy ghost, and enduring to the end. She loved it. We had her look up all these scriptures in the Book of Mormon. So cute. Then after they were leaving to go to the store and so they walked with us for awhile and we talked all about missions and A-e talked about how she wants to go on one someday after she is baptized:)

So a week or two ago we started talking to this lady and we find out she is a member just a little inactive, but she said she wanted to come to church. We invited her to the baptism, but she didn't come. Then last week we started talking to this 14 year old girl and she was like hey I know the sisters. I know your church. We walked home with her and turns out she is the daughter of the lady we had talked to! They recently moved to Coimbra and didn't know where the church was and were just baptized a year ago. The girl came to church and the ward members invited her to start going to seminary and she wants her mom to come with her, but I just shared this story just because it shows how much Heavenly Father loves His children that He will do anything to help them back to the right path. He just keeps putting them in our path:) 

S-a and her family all came to church on Sunday. They are so cute! Her husband is atheist and isn't interested, but loves and supports wife so much that he comes to church every Sunday with her and the family. I think it is incredible! Then that night we had a family night with one of the families in the ward with S-a and her family and her husband came again! We taught the plan of salvation and all the little kids helped teach, it was so cute. 

I love the mission and I love you all! Remember that Heavenly Father loves you and is always sending blessings your way:)

com amor,

Sister Sampson

She got Baptized!!!!

Hey family! This week was GREAT! Seriously, I loved every second of this week.

Monday: So last week we saw this lady struggling with her groceries and we helped her of course and she told us that we could come back and teach her family. So of course we did and they are darling. It´s a mom and her two kids! I am so excited. 

Tuesday: We went to District Meeting and then we were working on the baptismal program and Sister Marshall was like, "Hey my head is itchy," then she moved her hair and yep you guessed it I saw a little bug run across her head #lice. I thought I was done with those! haha. So we had to pick out lots of lice out of Sister Marshall´s hair #5hourslater. We haven't found any in my hair, but just you wait until next weeks email;) We were really worried about G-a and so we asked the elders to give her a present for us. We did this thing where we gave her a picture or scripture everyday leading up to her baptism. They dropped off a picture of the temple for us and it made G-a sooo happy. We felt so bad that we had asked the elders to do that because we took away from their proselyting time and so when they left we felt that we needed to say a prayer for them. I asked Sister Marshall to say it and when she prayed she asked Heavenly Father because of the sacrifice the elders made for us that they would find a family to teach. That night the elders called us and told us that they found a family to teach! We told them about the prayer and we were all humbled.

Wednesday: G-a had her baptismal interview and after we were talking to her and guess what we found in her hair! LICE! Haha when you are a missionary you just want to share everything with your investigators... even lice;) so we helped her pick some out, but she went home after and got rid of them. We also taught S-a again in the chapel and while we were teaching her G-a came in and she sat through the whole lesson. After the lesson she told us of all the new things she learned that time hearing the restoration again. 

Thursday and Friday were good days. Talked with lots of our investigators and got things ready for the baptism. We also had interviews with president. Those are the best!

Saturday: Early in the morning we got a phone call from our bishop that we can't have the baptism

that day because the hot water was broken... We weren't going to let that stop the baptism from happening and so the elders and us went over to the chapel and started boiling lots of water in pots to put in the font. We asked G-a if she was okay if the water was a little cold and she told us about how much she loves taking baths in cold water. It was a crazy morning, but the baptism happened and it was perfect! She was glowing. After the baptism she didn't want to leave the chapel cuz she just felt so happy.

Sunday: G-a received the Holy Ghost on her birthday:) and S-ra and her whole family came to church!

Anyways, this week was great and I love you all.

com amor,

Sister Sampson

I Love Coimbra!!!

This week was great! Sister Marshall and I are just loving it here in Coimbra. We literally have just been running around everywhere and it has been awesome. I will just give you a quick run down on everything.

Monday: We found this really cool girl named S-a! We were trying to find this house way out in the middle of nowhere and we stopped this girl named S-a and asked her for help. She was really nice and asked us what we were doing in Portugal. We told her about how we are missionaries and she thought it was so cool. Then she told us about her job as a nutritionist and then we set up an appointment with her for later in the week so we could talk more about our message.

Tuesday: We had met this girl on the street one night and she told us we could go visit her so on our was to visit her we passed this older lady carrying her groceries and so we offered to help and she actually let us! Usually people tell us no. haha. So we carried her groceries to her apartment and she actually lived in the same apartment as the girl we were going to visit. So we went to visit the girl, but she was busy and so we went back to the ladies apartment and visited her! Her name is M-a de D-e. She is darling! It is so cool to watch how the Lord is always guiding us and putting people in our path. 

Wednesday: We had an appointment with that girl named S-a from Monday and she told us how she normally takes her car, but that day she decided to do something different and that is why she happened to walk by us that day. We told her it wasn't an accident:) Then we had an appointment with G-a and one of our ward members. G-a was really worried about her baptism because she doesn´t feel like she knows enough and so we had this really awesome lesson with her and Irmã H-a and we talked about how she doesn´t need to know everything and how we are all still learning as members of the church. Irmã H-a loves to sing and so she will just stand up in the middle of our lessons and sing hymns. It is awesome and G-a loves it.

Thursday: We taught A-e! She is this cute little girl that lives with her aunt that is a member and wants the lessons and so we taught her the restoration and she loves the story of Joseph Smith. She is darling. Then we also visited G-a again. She was still really worried about her baptism, but we talked about how Satan does everything he can to stop us from making the right decision and we asked her why she wants to be baptized and she told us that she wants to follow the Savior and receive the holy ghost and that she knows the church is true and then we asked her then what is stopping her? and she said nothing! She is incredible and has so much faith. She has such a pure intent to follow Christ. She now is so excited to be baptized. She then started singing this song. Deus é meu amigo, Deus está coming! (God is my friend, God is with me) haha so cute. We have been singing it all week long:)

Friday: Visited G-a again and taught her some of the commandments and she was still singing her little song! 

Well... I am out of time, but I love you all and just know that the rest of my week was great! I hope you all had an awesome week. Just remember that God is always putting people in your path for a reason so find out why and make the most of every moment:) Be the reason someone else's day is a little brighter because that is what Christ would do:)

Com amor, Sister Sampson

Welcome to Coimbra Sister Sampson

What a week! Seriously this week has been crazy, but awesome! 

Sister Shipp and I left for Coimbra early Tuesday morning and went to my new apartment where Sister Marshall and the other Sisters in Coimbra were waiting for us. Then Sister Shipp stayed with us until her companion arrived in Coimbra and then we sent them on their way! It was a crazy day and some tears were shed, but we are doing great! We had been running around all day long. Transfers can be crazy sometimes. We went out and worked and tried to contact a lot of references we received from the Elders. We talked to this really cute lady named B-a (reference from the elders). On Thursday we had District Meeting and we had a zoom conference with our whole mission! Those are always fun. 

Thursday was great! We had an appointment with one of our ward members Irmã Z-a and she is awesome cuz she loves to teach with the missionaries and she has such a strong testimony! And she also always gives us food to take home so that we have food during the week. Well, we had an appointment right after her that is really far away. She gave us a ride halfway there while she was on her way to work, but we dropped our food off at our apartment and we were running cuz we didn't want to be late. Anyway, no worries cuz we made it to the appointment and it was GREAT! It was with one of their investigators G-a. She is the nicest lady ever and has the purest heart. They have only taught her twice and she has a hard time reading so they printed the first five chapters of the BOM and she had already read it twice since their last visit! The Elders found a big BOM and so we took it to her and she was sooo HAPPY! I was so humbled by how happy she was that she could read the BOM. She told us all about how it blessed her day and how amazing it is and how her life is so much better when she reads. She just kept saying, "I love you. I love you. I love you." (in English) I thought about how I should be that happy and excited every time I read the BOM. We asked her if she believed it was true and that the church was true and she said yes! Sister Marshall invited her to baptism! She is going to be baptized the 14th! Well, as we were leaving our appointment we realized that we didn't have our cell phone... it must have fallen out of our pockets while we were running... it was late and G-a lives about 45 minutes away from our house! So we got out of the lesson and as we were walking away we were startled to see Elder Steffen and Elder Bortolo waiting outside of her house #tendermercy they had an appointment with G-a´s son who lives above her and they heard us in her house and so they waited and walked us home and tried to help us find our cellphone. It was lost for like three days, but a miracle happened and the guy called Irmã Z-a and she gave him the elders number and the elders got it from him for us. The elders thought it was funny and keep telling us if we needed anything to call them and they were like oh wait... haha. 

Friday we had an appointment with S-a and investigator I actually have already taught twice because of divisions! She is incredible and she wants to get baptized with her daughter L-a. We invited her to pray about a date:) 

Saturday was great too! HAPPY CONFERÊNCIA GERAL! One of our investigators came with her aunt:) Then we got to watch it in the other room in English. We also got to watch the second session even though it starts at 9 here and doesn't end until 11, but it is because we live sooo close to the chapel and so we got permission and the elders just had to make sure we got to our apartment safe. Conference was so awesome. I loved every second of it! 

Sunday morning we had an another appointment with G-a and one of our ward members came with us. She is 18 and preparing for a mission and is just the cutest thing ever. We taught about the plan of salvation. G-a was really sad she couldn´t come to conference because she hurt her leg and couldn´t walk. Right before conference we decided to go try to talk to one of our investigators M-e, but she lives in student housing and she wasn´t there, but her roommate was there and she let us in and we shared the restoration with her! She is so awesome and wants to have a stronger relationship with her savior Jesus Christ. At the end of the lesson she said the prayer and it was so pure. I could feel the spirit so strong. I knew with out a doubt that Heavenly Father was listening to her prayer and was so happy to hear from her. After that we ran to the chapel for conference again. And the last session was really fun cuz it was just the missionaries and M-a and we watched it in English with popcorn and treats:)

I loved everything about this week and I love it here in Coimbra! Sister Marshall is awesome and so dedicated to the work. Love her! There are so many amazing people here. I loved the talk in Conference that Sister Oscarson gave about changing the world by serving the people around you. I know everyone is in our lives for a reason and we are in theirs for a reason too!:) Bless the lives of those around you<3