Last
week President Fluckiger held a zone conference on p-day so we didn't
actually have a p-day. We didn't have a chance to do our groceries so
we've been really grateful all week for the members that give us so much
food. All we did today though was run errands and go grocery shopping.
It was a really boring p-day. Last week was a great week though.
On
Tuesday we had a huge ward party at the capela. It was a festa de São
João. In Portugal There are holidays for the Catholic saints, but the
story I heard from the members is that the people in Portugal starting
taking breaks from work every time there was a holiday, so the
government assigned certain holidays to certain areas. Lisboa has it's
own holiday, Povoa de Varzim has it's own holiday, but here in the Porto
area we have São João. It felt a lot like the 4th of July
and it was so much bigger than Carnival was. The city shut down and
there were huge parties every where. It's got some pretty interesting
traditions though. There's some plant that they have at every festa de
São João and they eat sardines and they have dances with pretty cool
musica. Those traditions are all just fine, but there is one tradition
of São João that we decided is the most stupid idea ever. The biggest
tradition besides the sardines is that for São João there are these
plastic squeaky hammers that people run around and hit each other on the
head with....
Dumbest idea ever.
I
came home from that ward activity black and blue... São João is one
holiday I am not bringing back home. Not a chance. Besides the stupid
squeaky hammers it was a lot of fun. The bishop heard that I had never
eaten sardines before so every one made sure that I ate lots and lots of
sardines. They were actually really good. I liked the sardines. At
night they also had fireworks in Porto, and Sister Parkinson and I were
really excited because from our apartment we have a great view of Porto
across the river. We were in our apartment waiting for the fireworks to
start and we were so excited. Unfortunately there was an apartment
building blocking our view. Sad day. But it all worked out because we
could see the fireworks reflecting off the windows of another apartment
building... so it was pretty good. Also, turns out that people tend to
get robbed in our capela. :) After the party when we were looking for
stuff in our bags I noticed that I didn't hear any coins jingling. I
didn't think much of it but then Sister Parkinson looked in her little
money bag and she didn't have anything. So, yeah. We both got robbed....
at the church. I had money hidden in a couple places so I only had 8
euros stolen from my wallet and that's not too bad, but Sister Parkinson
had about 70 euros in her wallet. We called the executive elders though
and it's all okay now.
The next day there
was nobody in Gaia because everyone went up to Braga for the São João
parties and fairs. We were supposed to have a lesson with Avelino and
Xeca that night, but they went up to Braga instead. We were a little
frustrated when our lesson with Avelino fell through because he was
supposed to be getting baptized on Friday
but later that night they called us and told us that they had planned
his entire baptism and had already called everyone so we didn't have to
worry about planning anything. They are amazing people! On Thursday Avelino had his interview for baptism and on Friday he was baptized.
It
was literally the best baptism I have ever seen. It didn't work out
exactly the way we had planned, but we had so much member involvement
with Avelino and he was so ready that it was such a special baptism. The
Spirit was so strong. With people like Avelino, we can see so clearly
that the Spirit literally does everything. The only thing we did was
invite him to be baptized and go over the lessons with him. The
difference between Avelino and a lot of other investigators is that he
was so prepared that he already knew that everything was right. The
bishop and his family are really good friends because his wife was a
mission companion with Xeca, Avelino's wife. Xeca has been inactive for
about 10 years though and Bishop told us that Avelino always used
science to try and discredit everything about the Church. Things changed
a little over a month ago when Bishop felt like he needed to call
Avelino in and offer him a calling. For some reason a huge barrier
disappeared and Xeca and Avelino started letting the missionaries come
over.
When Avelino got baptized there was an
actual light in his face. I've never seen anything like that before in
my life. I wasn't the only one who noticed it either. Our investigator
Gabriel was at the baptism and he said that when he saw Avelino come out
of the water he saw how happy Avelino was and for some reason it gave
him a really strong desire to be baptized and have that same feeling.
We're trying so hard to help Gabriel. He's 20 and his family is from
Angola. He taught himself English by watching movies and he's a medical
student.... basically he's one of the most intelligent people I've ever
met. He's got some incredibly deep and profound questions about God and
the universe and the Plan of Salvation, but the problem is that he
doesn't see the importance of actually reading the scriptures or praying
to find out for himself if any of this is true or not. Avelino - who is
the most quiet person in the world - shared his testimony with Gabriel
and told him that if he will just take the step and pray that he will
find the answers that he's looking for. It was really cool and
afterwards Sister Parkinson and I both had the feeling that we need to
teach Gabriel's entire family and that will help us figure out what the
"iceburg" is. Unfortunately, Gabriel saw us yesterday in the road and
then today in the grocery store and he thought that we were following
him around.... *great big eye roll* He was a little weirded out, but I
was hungry and I wanted groceries so I wasn't too concerned about
whether he was weirded out or not.
I still
need to write my email to the mission president so I have to go now... I
kind of rambled on in this email. Sorry. I'll try to write a better
email next week, but I love you all and I'm so grateful that I'm here
right now. I wouldn't trade it for anything else in the world.
Little Sister Smith
P.S.
Here's a picture of all of us at Avelino's baptism... and a happy
Sister Parkinson with her sardine at the festa de São João this week.
No comments:
Post a Comment