Hi family. I'm glad to hear that you are all doing pretty well... as far as I can tell through the emails you seem to be doing pretty well. :) This week... ummmm..... lots of stuff happened. On Monday we did responsible p-day things and we ran errands and Sister Runyan cleaned the apartment again. On Tuesday we walked out to the other side of Oliverio do Douro to try and find a person that Sister Parkinson and I had contacted in the street a few weeks ago. Turns out his mom was taught by the missionaries last year and she's already been to church before. Fixe. The only problem is that when we went back for our compromisso with them they weren't at home. After that we went and visited some members that live on that same road, Ulisses and Tatiana. They have a pretty cute little family. They asked us to stay for dinner because they made a very Português kind of food: Octopus rice. They thought it was really funny when I saw the octopus on my plate. I had never seen octopus before my mission but every one here loves it. It's pretty expensive, but it tastes really good.... I just can't look at it while I eat it. Ulisses and Tatiana couldn't stop laughing at my face. They enjoy inviting me over for dinner and fixing strange food for me. :)
Then on Wednesday.... not much happened. We talked with a ton of people but nobody wanted to listen so we were pertty worn out at the end of the day. We had our reunião de correlação with the ward missionaries and then we went to Xeca and Avelino's house. On Friday we had a zone conference here in Gaia. When we had transfers, Presidente Amorim split our zone and created the Porto Zone and the Gaia Zone, so we had the first zone meeting for the Gaia Zone. Hooray! It was a really good zone meeting. We actually have three zone leaders right now because one of them is leaving to go home in just a few weeks. Que triste.
After the zone meeting on Friday we had a lesson in the afternoon with our investigator Gabriel and a member, Ana, who just came back from her mission in Brasil. She was the perfect member to have with us for that lesson. She talked about how she gained a testimony and how she decided to be baptized. Then we talked to Gabriel about how he actually has to read in the Book of Mormon and how he actually needs to pray and ask Heavenly Father if this is all true. If he doesn't do that he will never know, so we invited him again to pray and ask Heavenly Father about the things we've talked about. He came to church on Sunday and Presidente and Sister Amorim came to our ward to speak during Sacrament Meeting. It was really great. Afterwards, they went to Princípios do Evangelho and they talked to every single one of our investigators. Presidente Amorim talked to Gabriel and asked him why he wasn't baptized. Gabriel said that he just didn't have the "vontade", so Presidente Amorim told him, "Well, get some 'vontade' then." It was a pretty good moment. Afterwards Gabriel told us that on Saturday he prayed and that he did get an answer but he still won't agree to baptism. I think he's afraid of something or that he just doesn't quite have enough courage to do it yet. So if you could all include Gabriel in your prayers I would really appreciate it.... someday Gabriel will too. We also had two other investigators in church as well; Zé and Carlos. Carlos has been coming for forever but he's progressing super duper slowly and Zé, we discovered, is actually friends with several members. Que benção!
I'm running out of time, but I love you all and you should all remember to read in the Book of Mormon every night as a family. Xeca and Avelino said that they noticed a difference when they stopped reading for a few weeks. It really does make a huge difference to read in the Book of Mormon together as a family every night, and that's because the Book of Mormon really is the word of God and it has the power to change us.
Love,
Little Sister Smith
P.S. I have been informed that I have some of the best tan lines in the mission.... I am super duper tan. It's a little weird. I've changed colors. Also, every time we go to Xeca and Avelino's house, Avelino is usually doing something electircal or robotic... he reminds me quite a bit of Eric.
Also, this week in his letter to me. Presidente Amorim told me that I have some of the best written Português in the mission. That's really nice because all week I ahve telilng myself that I need to do more and more language study because I feel like I amd the worst Português speaker in the world. Presidente Amorim doesn't think so. Hooray!
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