I like being a missionary better than being a tourist. :)

The Explorers Statue

Olá! Esta semana nós aprendemos muitas coisas mas a coisa mais importante é que nós precisamos confiar no Senhor. O plano Dele é muito melhor do que nosso plano. Temos que confiar Nele, e Ele via nos ajudar cada dia por que Ele é nosso Pai. Ele tem um grande amor por cada um de nós.

This week I don't have a ton of time because we went touristing.... touristing is exhausting. I much prefer being a missionary. Touristing is fun enough, but I prefer working and talking to people or just walking around taking pictures and visiting things(definitely not the same person I was before the mission). I do like going places, but by the end of P-day I'm ready to go back to work.

This week we started with the Páscoa initiative... Easter. Yeah, that's the word in English. The Church made a new video for Easter and we have pass-along cards with the website to invite people to go and watch the video. Pass-along cards are wonderful ( I like the new ones... I don't particularly care for the old ones). I love the video though. In Portuguese the site is elevive.mormon.org and in English it should be helives.mormon.org. I love the video though. I haven't seen it in English but it's so cool. We showed it at our weekly night with recent converts and one convert is a big tough guy (turns out he used to be in the Angola mafia... I didn't know) and it just melted him. He asked us if we could watch it a couple more times. Of course, we said yes. It's a good video. You should all go watch it. (*Hint, hint*)

Last week we went to Cristo Rei and this week we went and visited the explorer statue and the Torre de Belem. It's cool, but they're pretty touristy. (German tourists are every where and the weird thing is I can understand every single thing they say... I don't know how, but I can. Unfortunately, all I can speak is Portuguese. If you asked me a question about the German language I couldn't answer. I can understand it but all I can speak is Portuguese... explain that one to me Daddy). The touristy places are interesting and it's fun to visit, but I realized that those places really aren't "Portugal". Portugal is a special place and the members here are special too.

I learned this week that Heavenly Father must sure have an awful lot of love for His missionaries. We make so many mistakes and we are so far from perfect. Sometimes we fall so short of our callings, but He called every one of us to represent His Son Jesus Christ. I am proof that He calls the weak and the simple, but this week it just hit me that Heavenly Father has so much love for me. He took a little girl from Idaho and put her on the other side of the world just so that He could change me and help me grow, because He has a much better plan for me than I do. Every time I think that maybe the mission is too hard, I remind myself that I've grown so much closer to my Savior here on the mission than I ever imagined, and there is no price too great to come know the Savior. He did everything for us and we are more blessed than we realize. I'm so excited for General Conference. The only session we won't be able to see is the Sunday Afternoon session, but I'm so excited. General Conference is so special and I'm grateful that I'll be here for three conferences.

I love you all! Don't forget to tell me about your favorite General Conference talk next week! Happy Easter!

Little Sister Smith

Cristo Rei

The Catholics were doing midnight vigils passed our house for Páscoa... Easter, whatever you people call it in English... they were quite loud late at night. It was a little frightening the first time they did it. We took videos so you can enjoy it after my mission.

The Torre de Belem