Feliz Natal!

Well I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas! We had a great Christmas here in Coimbra! This week was full of adventures. I loved having the opportunity to be a representative of Jesus Christ at this time of the year. 

We found this mom named B-z and her daughter Me-a during this week and they are incredible. They were a reference from the Elders and they opened the doors and let us right in. When we started to talk about Jesus Christ the spirit was so strong and you could feel the love the Savior had for this cute little family. We also had lots of activities with the elders where we sang for people and gave out calendars and gave presents to people like Book of Mormon:) It was a great experience! 

Sister Guerra and I were asked to speak in church. We spoke about being a light. Then we went Christmas caroling and delivered cookies to investigators and members or less actives that we knew didn't have family to be with this year. We visit one sister who´s husband is sick and sang to them and she told us we were a present from heaven. Then the elders gave the husband a blessing and it was so incredible I loved being able to do what Christ would do if He were here. 
We had special permission from our mission president to eat dinner at a members house from 9 to 11 on Christmas eve and so we spent it at the Cruz´s. 

It was a great Christmas and I loved talking to my family!:) Thank you for all of your love and support and happy new year to you all:)

Remember that Jesus is the light of the world and He is lighting the path back to our Heavenly Father. Because He was born and because He lives we can have eternal life. Remember that He didn't just light the way, but He is by your side every step of the way. Love you:)

com amor,

Sister Sampson 

Christmas in Coimbra

Well, I am staying here in Coimbra with cute Sister Guerra:) We are super excited for this transfer, it is going to be awesome! We had a great week this week and lots of awesome things happened! 

Monday: We had a lot of things planned for the night and teach a ton of lessons, but everything fell through and I was a little bummed, but in the end A-ia needed help moving more things from her house and so we got to help her and the elders. I learned that day that if things don't go as you planned it is because Heavenly Father planned something else for you. Haha:)  We were able to help A-ia because she was super stressed that day.

Tuesday: We taught T-ia and L-a the message of the restoration and it was awesome! At the end of the lesson T-ia was like, "thats it? don't you have more? I wasn't ready for it to be over." T-ia is a huge blessing to us and an answer to my prayers. I just kept praying that we would find someone who really had the desire to learn what we were teaching and was truly prepared. I love teaching people that really are willing to learn and have that desire to gain a testimony. After that we got to help A-ia some more. That was also fun:)

Wednesday: We got to teach T-ia and L-a again! We also had a member named F-na that came and I just love having members in our lessons. She bore her testimony about the atonement and it was just so sincere and real and you could tell that her testimony really touched T-ia. 

Thursday: We had ZONE CONFERENCE!! It was great as usual. We talked a lot about how blessed we are to be missionaries sharing a message about Christ at this time of the year. I also got to see Sister Shipp:) so that was great! We had a yummy Christmas lunch tool Then that night I had divisions with Sister Cabanas (who is currently on her way home cuz she finished her mission:(). We went over to see T-ia again just to talk to her because L-a couldn't meet with us that night. And we just wanted to see if she had any questions... and did she have questions! She told us she didn't want to ask us cuz L-a was there. But she goes off asking about tithing and polygamy and me and sister Cabanas look at each other like oh no. But we answered her questions with confidence and while we were talking to her about polygamy S-ra (our other investigator) walks in and bares her testimony on the importance of family and how that is why she is joining the church and that she knows it is true. And man it was so cool hearing an investigator bare her testimony to another investigator! Then she left. After we explained everything to T-ia she completely agreed to everything we had shared and said that she wants us to keep helping her gain her own testimony that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world just like us. It was awesome! Then we helped A-ia more with moving.

Saturday: We had our ward Christmas Party and it was a BLAST! We did 2 skits as the missionaries and the ward loved them. Sister Guerra will try to send the videos.

Sunday: Was great, but I am out of time...

Love you all and I promise my email next week will be better! Have a great Christmas and remember the Savior and everything He has done for you! I know He loves you!

com amor,

Sister Sampson

Another great week!

This week was great, well from what I can remember. The weeks just keep going by so fast and so much happens. I feel like it is a blur. Here are a few things that happened this week.

Monday: We were able to visit F-pa and her family. They haven't been progressing as much, but it was good to visit them and see how they were doing. They are super funny and they have this crazy dog named Ferious. We talked about light the world and invited them to participate.  The kids loved the video and told us that they are excited to be apart:)

Tuesday: We had a leadership meeting with President. Then we found this really cool lady named El-e! She is so awesome! She told us about a lot of difficulties she has had in her life and how she has felt that someone is always helping her and she knows that God has to exist. I think it is incredible how much faith she has. 

Wednesday: We did divisions with the other sisters! It was great! I was with sister Gomes! She was the first sister that I have ever done a division with and I did the last transfer with her because she goes home next week!

Thursday: We helped this cute lady in our ward move:) I love doing service. 

Friday: We had a family night in our chapel and it was SO FUN! All the ward members brought food and we had games and a spiritual part. Elder Bortolo talked about the importance of the Holy Ghost. It was great. Al-e was able to come and she had so much fun. 

Saturday: #throwbacktoleiria I got to go to Leiria! We did a zone activity like we did last week and we did it in Leiria:) It was so great to go back there.

Sunday: At church our stake president spoke and he talked about how we can be the light of the world when we choose to do the best thing. He talked about how everyday we have a choice to do the good, better, or best and how sometimes we forget what the best things are because we get distracted by the good things. And it is so true and exactly what I need to hear:) Also T-ia came to church!

Well, that is all! I love you and don't forget to do the best things:)

com amor,

Sister Sampson

#sejaaluzdomundo

FELIZ NATAL!!!!! #sejaaluzdomundo

I just love Christmas time and I hope that all of you are participating in Light the World. I just think it is so incredible that all of us all over the world are celebrating Christ´s birth through service. Our mission president gave us tons of material like calendars and pamphlets so that we can get everyone over here in Portugal involved! It is so fun singing hymns and talking about Jesus Christ at this time of the year! I love being a missionary at Christmas time.

Wow this week flew by.. It was a great week!

We talked to S-a about her baptism!! She said that she will be baptized on the 6th or the 13th of January. And then we made all of these plans to help her reach her goal. She wants us to teach L-a and since she has work we are going to start teaching her at their neighbors house, T-ia, who is also really interested in the church! S-a has already talked to T-ia all about the church, she is the best nonmember missionary! Then in church on Sunday T-ia came with S-a and she was soooo interested!! She tooks notes the whole time:) 

Also, we had a zone activity in the Baixa and we had our banners and sang christmas songs for everyone and handed out calendars. It was super fun and A-w the man we met at the store was there to look around and he was so excited to see the missionaries! It was hilarious he wanted a picture with us and stayed there listening. He told us that we were angels. And dad you would be so proud cuz I had to lead all the missionaries to sing. haha. Just thought you would like to know;)

Anyways, I am out of time! I love you all and hope you have week! Remember the Savior and be a light to the world!!

com amor,

Sister Sampson:)

This was part of her email from last week that I never posted:

Friday (24) HAPPY BDAY DAD! 

We did our weekly planning and we also had correlation with our ward mission leader and the elders. Then we visited F-a and her family. She was super sick and so Sister Guerra did her dishes for her.

Saturday (25): We contacted this lady our first week of the transfer and finally got an appointment with her! Her name is T-ha and she already has talked to the sisters. She has a lot of questions and she remembers a lot from the other sisters.

Sunday (26): So on pday sister Guerra and I were at the store doing our groceries and this old man comes up to me and asks me if I am from Poland (with an awesome english accent). Then he sat and talked to us for about 20 minutes about how he is from Germany, but then when he was like 14 went to New York and then moved to France and some how he ended up in Portugal two days ago. Well he was really interested in what we do and we invited him to church. Well, he came! And he loved it and one of our elders sat with him the whole time and spoke english with him. They are going to try to teach him. So that was really cool. 

We also found out that one of the families we found a while ago the mom had her baby on the 24th! Then later Sunday night we were walking by one of our investigators house, T-is, and Sister Guerra felt like we needed to visit her even though we thought she was out of town, but she wasn't and she was actually sick and so we were able to share a scripture with her to make her feel better:) 

Well that was my week! It was quite the week. Almost all of our appointments fell through, but Heavenly Father still sent us tender mercies and ways to serve people:) All in all it was a great week and I am grateful for all of you. Also, I read 1 Nephi 16:29 this week: Remember that by the small things God brings about great things. Keep doing the small things everyday in your life like saying your prayers and reading your scriptures, and serving those around you and Heavenly Father will bring miracles your way:)

com amor,

Sister Sampson