A Beautiful Baptism and I got Transferred...well kinda

This week was great!! First things first! T-ia got baptized on Saturday and it was beautiful! She has such a strong desire to follow Jesus Christ. 
We had divisions with the sisters from Coimbra 2. Sister Scott and Sister Pastana and they were great. We actually had a baptism that Tuesday night in our chapel from an area that doesn't have a baptismal font. It was a baptism of a little girl. It was super cute and G-a invited her cousin, I-a, to come and she came and then the next day we were able to teach I-a with G-a. 

The next day we had divisions with Sisters from Castelo Branco. Sister Shipp and Sister Bastos! I love those sisters! We had another nice lice experience. 

Then on Friday we had the family night and a ton of our investigators and our ward members came! It was a blast we had food, games, and a spiritual part of course! 

Well, my time is up! I love you all and oh yeah, I am being transferred to Coimbra 2! haha we have two wards in Coimbra and I am just moving next door to the other ward. I will be in a trio with Sister Scott and Sister Pastana. I am super excited! 

com amor,

Sister Sampson

Last Week in Coimbra!!!

Wow! So many miracles everyday:) This week was really great. I feel like it went by soo fast! I can't believe this transfer is already coming to an end. I feel like it just started.

This week we had some great appointments with T-ia! We went back after we invited her to baptism to teach her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and she was just so excited to tell us about what had happened to her. She told us that after we left last time she did what we asked and she said a prayer to ask Heavenly Father if being baptized on the 27th was the right thing to do. She told us that she already knew it was right, but she just wanted a confirmation. Then she told us the next morning her friend from Brazil called and told her about a dream she had about her. She dreamt that T-ia was walking down a path and that a man told her to not look back, to not look to one side or the other, but to continue on the path she is on and to keep moving forward! She was so happy cuz it was just a confirmation to her that she is doing what is right. 

Then we also had an appointment with A-ra and we had the chance to talk to her whole family! We taught her mom and dad. It was greatl. The dad is super catholic and at first he wasn't really interested in what we were saying and was super objective, but as we used scriptures from the bible to teach him the plan of salvation and by the end he was paying attention and he told us that he wants to come to church to see what it is like. It was incredible because we had the chance to testify how we know that we have life after death and that families can be together forever. They lost their first son when he was two years old and the dad is still struggling with it, but I was able to testify that I know that he will have the chance to see his son again and that I too will be able to see my little brother. 

Also, last Sunday Sister Guerra had a goal to find two new people to teach and it was about 8 at night and we still hadn't found anyone. We just kept praying and praying. Well, Sister Guerra felt prompted to find this lady that she had contacted on the street about a week before. We had a general idea where the street was, but didn't know for sure. So we just started walking and before we knew it we ended up on the street and then the first house that was on the street was her house! We knocked on the door and we asked if A-ra lived there, but the lady that answered said she lived in a house behind her house and she told us to come inside and she would go get her. Well when we walked inside we saw a picture of L-na! I don't know if you remember the family that we were teaching, but L-na is the mom! Turns out the lady that let us in is L-na's mom!! And A-ra is her cousin! We taught A-ra, An-io (son of A-ra), and Cl-a (mom of L-na)! We then marked a day to go back, but then the next day L-na called us and invited us to have dinner at her house with the whole entire FAMILY and that we could share a message with them after. So, this week we went over to L-na and J-e´s house and we were able to teach the whole family. It was great:)

And this week at church so many of our investigators came! S-ra, L-a, T-ia and her husband, A-ra, A-a, and A-ne. I love when people make the time to come to church and feel the love of their Savior there. It makes me so happy. And I know that Heavenly Father is even more happy than me. 

Well I love you all! Have a great week and

stay tuned to find out what happens with transfers:)

com amor,

Sister Sampson

Pouring down Blessings....and Rain!

Wow. I just loved this week. I would probably say I learned the most this week than I have any other week in my mission. I don't have a lot of time today and even if I had all the time I needed I don't think I would be able to write it all.  So, I will just share the best parts. 

First it started out that on Monday after pday I had to go to Porto for a leadership meeting. Sister Guerra stayed here with the other sisters and went with the Zone Leaders to Porto. We got there late, but I got to stay in the house of Sister Huntsman my long lost sister! I was so happy to see her cuz I haven't seen her since we were living in Leiria together! 

Tuesday morning we had our lovely Leadership Meeting. It was great! We made lots of goals for our mission and we talked a lot about President Monson and the example he left for us and how we are going to apply his example in our work as missionaries. My favorite thing about him is how he was such a great friend to all those he talked to and he really cared about each person individually. And he was always happy. Through the good times and the rough times. Then lucky me got picked to do a practice in front of everyone by myself. After the meeting we headed back to Coimbra.

Thursday we had Zone Meeting and basically we talked to our Zone about all our goals for this year. It was great. That night Sister Guerra and I had an appointment with T-ia. It was great! We watched the video finding faith in Christ and we talked about how important He is in God´s Plan and how He is central. Through Him we can return to Heavenly Father´s presence. In the end she bore her own testimony that she believes that He is the Savior of the world. It was incredible! And she excepted baptism! She is going to be baptized the 27th. 

Afterwards we had an appointment with S-ra who lives right next door. We talked about faith and the story of Peter walking on water. She wants to be baptized, but she is afraid to talk to her mom. We talked about how she can do it and she told us the next time she goes to her mom´s house she will talk to her. Then after that appointment Sister Guerra had a really strong impression that we needed to go see A-ra. We got there and she told us that she had been praying for us to come and that she really needed us then. It is incredible how the spirit works. She is doing soooo good with stopping to smoke! She said that the schedule is helping and that she has completely stopped. Now she just needs to continue! 

Well, my time is up, but so many more miracles happened this week! Heavenly Father just keeps pouring down blessings (and rain) on us over here. I love it here in Portugal:) Love you all and have a great week!

com amor,

Sister Sampson

Found a new friend here in Portugal!

Well, we just had another lovely week here in Portugal! Can I just say I love it here! I just feel so blessed to be called to serve here in Coimbra with Sister Guerra. We see miracles everyday! Big and small. This week was great though! We found lots of cool people. 

Update about some of our investigators... S-ra was super busy this week and couldn't meet with us. We were really sad about that, but she still came to church! T-ia was also really busy too and she wasn't able to meet with us either. She also came to church:) And B-z was sick during the week and couldn't meet with us. We were sad about those things, but we still had a great week and found other people that needed us:) 

My favorite part of the week was we were walking down the street just talking to everyone and we found this cute lady A-ia. She had two big bags of groceries and so we snatched them from her and walked her home, which was a miracle in itself because people never let us help them with their groceries. haha. She was just so open to talk to us. When we got to her house we asked if we could share a message with her. We taught her the restoration and she just loved it and told us how she has never felt love in her life and that she had had a lot of challenges. We were able to tell her that she has a Father in Heaven that loves her so much and that we too love her. The spirit was so strong. 

Right after that we were walking down the street and we saw these two teenage girls. We contacted them and one didn't want to talk to us and left, but the other named A-ra was so excited to talk to us and asked us to walk her home and share a message with her. She is only 15 so we told her that we had to talk to her mom and she was like okay:) We walked her home and her mom told us we could teach her and we invited the mom to join, but she told us that she is too busy. The second her mom said yes the girl was like okay can you teach me your message! I have had so many doubts and I don't know if God exists anymore. We taught her how to pray and we taught her the restoration. She loved every second of it. At the end she prayed to Heavenly Father telling Him that she knows He exists and thanked Him for sending two girls her way to help her. She told us that she smokes. It just broke our hearts and she told us all about how she needs help stopping. The next day we went back with this program to help her stop and she loved it. She is working so hard to stop. She knows how bad it is for her and she hates it. She put all of our pass along cards around her house to remind her to stop:) so cute. Sunday night we were able to pass by again and she was sooo excited to hear the Plan of Salvation. I have never met someone with so much faith and hope and maturity at her age. I feel like I have found my best friend in Portugal. She is darling. When we shared the message with her she was so excited to share it with her family because maybe it will help them and they will have interest in hearing our message too. Anyways, I loved every second of this week and I am so grateful to be here! I love you and know Heavenly Father loves you too:)

com amor,

Sister Sampson 

Feliz Ano Novo!!!

Hey everyone! Happy new year! Man, I can´t believe another year has come and gone! Time flies when you are having fun;) I will give you all a quick summary of what happened this week. 

We didn't have a chance to see S-ra, L-a, or T-ia because they were traveling. 

We had an awesome district meeting with our whole mission through zoom (video call). It is soo cool how technology works and helps us with missionary work. President talked a lot about goals and the importance of not just making huge goals, but small goals every day or even hours to help us accomplish our big goals. We also got to help the Elders move A-ia some more. We are almost done! haha. We had quite the experience trying to fit all of her stuff in the car and all the missionaries. I wish I had a picture of how squished we were. 

Even, though we couldn't meet with T-ia this week she came to church and she asked us if she could buy a bible like our bible that has all of the references from the Book of Mormon. That is one of the coolest things when an investigator has such a strong desire to learn more and wants to know everything. I think one of my favorite experiences this week was when we got to teach B-iz and her daughter M-a. They are so awesome. They came to the chapel for the lesson and every time we are talking about how much Heavenly Father loves them M-a starts to cry. She is just so pure and can feel the spirit so strong. She is only 8 years old! B-iz was so excited about the BOM! I love when people get so excited about the BOM and haven't even read it, but they still understand the importance of it. It is incredible. 

The next day we had this feeling we needed to pass by their house and so we did and we asked her if she had a chance to read and she did, but she told us that she didn't understand it very well. So, we read it with her and she had a pencil there to mark it and then M-a wanted to follow along so we gave her a BoM and she was so excited to mark it like her mom´s. It was the cutest thing!:) 

Anyways, that was our week! New year´s was just another normal day for us and we didn't see anything too crazy:) I am so grateful for the opportunity I had to be serving the Lord in 2017:) And I know that this year is going to be great! I wish you all the best in 2018!

    com amor,
Sister Sampson