Monday, September 9th

Family!!!!!

So this past week was so good!!!!! BIG NEWS!!! Sofia, the 15 year old who has been basically an eternal investigator. (I did tell you guys about her right???) Well, we were stressing about how we were going to invite her to be baptized. Because she is a 15 year old girl and we didn't want it to turn out bad.... And we just love her so much that we just want her to say yes! But we were on the bus riding back to Viseu (Cause we had Stake Conference in Coimbra and our mission president, the temple president, and the stake president all spoke to us) But we got a phone call from Bishop, (he told us on our weekly ward council last week that he would mark Sofia for baptism)-becuase he is her uncle as well. And we were so relieved!!!! So on the phone he told us that she was marked for the 20th of September!!!!!!!!!! Ah!!!!! We are so happy! But then he said, "And you know what else Sister? She marked herself!!!!!!!" She is AMAZING!!!! We were so happy!!!! Ah! I just can't believe she called her uncle\bishop and said she wanted to be baptized on the 20th of September! i love it so much!!! Though it is sad because that is after transfers.... So one of us won't be here. And I feel like it will be me. But who knows. So we secretly hope she will move it to this weekend. :) Haha. I know we are terrible. But we will see! Cause she loves us so much too! But it is whenever she feels ready and when the Lord wants it to be. Cause I am sure she prayed a lot about it. So this was funny, last P-day this is what Sister Brooks said "God knew exactly when we needed P-day! Because by Sunday we are sick and tired of trying to talk to people who don't want to talk to us. We just lose that desire.... And it just hurts too much to chance being rejected yet again. So then we have P-day and it feels like it has just been so long since we have talked to people that we just want to talk to everyone again! Ha" And it is so funny because it is kinda true. After a long hard week, it gets hard to keep talking to people when you know they probably will just tell you to leave or if they are at least nice about it that they aren't interrested. But P-day is just perfect timing! ha. Sometimes I wish we could have two! Haha. JK. I know I would be too distracted if we had two. It is just a nice thought. :) We had Divisions with the Sister Training Leaders again.  We did the trio thing again- which isn't normal but when I actually do it the normal way, that won't feel normal to me. Cause I guess it is supposed to be just me and a Sister Training Leader. So ya. You know. It is crazy cause I feel like we had only just had divisions, and then we had them again so fast. But when I truly think about it, It was actually sooo long ago and I remember every single hard long day up to this point. ha. I think we have a little time veil on our minds so that we don't go crazy. :) Cause it feels like I just started my mission where in reality it was almost ah!!!! Almost 4 months ago! I was going to say three. See what I mean! I can't believe it will have been 4 months on the 15th! So we are going to have a talent show this Friday at the church! And the Elders and the Sisters made me put my name on the list to clog! Ha... So... I haven't had anytime to actually make up a dance... So I might just use "Kiss Kiss" because for some reason it is the one dance that just won't ever leave my head. I think I will have it completely memorized my whole life. And I don't have cool music to clog to and I think we aren't allowed to anyways, so it will be acapela. (I think I might have spelled that wrong?) Anyways, ya. So we taught Ana Paula again (the less active recent convert) we taught her the word of wisdom. And she has never been taught it before! And so she didn't know that not drinking coffee was part of it. So when we taught it, she said she would stop right now. She is cool. Now we just have to get her to actually come to church! The thing is she really wants to and she knows it is important. It's just in the morning she lacks the will to actually get out of bed and make it there... It is so sad. We also had Zone Conference! This past week too! In Coimbra. So we went to Coimbra twice this past week. ha. A lot of bus time. yay! But we got to see Sis. Lofgreen!!! She was the other Sister with us last transfer. Sister Call's companion. And.... I got to see Sis Dumis!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! From the MTC!!! Because she is Sister Lofgreen's new companion!!!! Cause they are in our stake. It made me soooo happy!!! We gave eachother the biggeest hug!!! Ha. I only had to say the prayer at zone conference so I was glad. Because we always give a success story from Presidents weekly letter (he puts in success stories from the missionaries weekly letters to him each week) and we are supposed to tell one we liked and why, and I couldn't remember any of them that I had read! Ha. But before we got on the bus to go back to Viseu we stopped at the McDonalds by the bus station in Coimbra! I got a cheeseburger and fries! Usually I hate-  I should say don't like- food from McDonalds, but I miss American food so much it was just so good! ha. So we gave Mikaela the 30 minute Joseph Smith movie, and she already watched it with her dad when we saw her again! She said her dad was confused and didn't understand it, and so Mikaela said, " Oh dad.... It is Joseph Smith, he was a prophet. Duh." hahahaha. She is so cute!!!!!!! So we have been teaching this man Bruno english. And we were wondering how we were going to lead into teaching the first lesson. But we finally did and it was perfect! Cause we brought him two copies of the Book of Mormon. One in English and one in Portuguese. Same with the Plan of Salvation pamphlet. And we got talking about the Book of Mormon and it just led into the first lesson. it was so good! :) So the Portuguese are funny. If you stop by their house just to say hi. They have to feed you!!! Cause we stopped by Irmã Donzilia's house before we had a lesson with Conceição her neighber (the 82 year old lady who is just the cutest thing!) And we told her we weren't hungary. But she started getting out bread, meat, fruit, yogurt crackers-and she knows I like chocolate milk because of the last time I told her I love it and it has been so long since I have had it- so she got the chocolate powder and milk out for me. And just tons of food and we really weren't hungary! And I ate a lot I felt like and she said I hardly ate anything. Oh Portuguese. But I love them so much. They are funny. So Irmã Donzilia said she could come with us to teach Conceição. It turned out to be too long of a lesson. But she gets baptized this weekend on the 14th!!!!!! So we have to teach her everything before and she just lives so far. But after we taught her the word of wisdom, conceição said " Oh, I'm so sorry!" for drinking coffee. Ha. She is just too cute. We just told her it is ok. She didn't know until two seconds ago. So she had us take out her cereal with coffee- I don't know what it is, some powder mixture you mix with cold milk or hot milk. And she got out her black tea. After that she started asking us if other things were ok to do. Like dying her hair, watching tv. Ha. But she was so sincere and willing to stop doing these things if we said they weren't things we should do. And at one point we talked about the bible and irmã Donzilia started talking about the Bible and all the different translations and how not all Bibles are the same. But that the Book of Mormon is the most correct of any book. And things of that nature. Then Conceição asked if it was ok for her to keep reading the Bible. We responded right away saying of course!!!!! Ha. We believe in the Bible! Certainly. She is so funny. We just said we can clarify things in the Bible with the Book of Mormon because the Book of Mormon is easier to read and is more clear. And it just breaks my heart because when she said the prayer she talked about her son (he is in jail) and how she is alone and how she needs comfort and she just started crying. It hurts because she has such a loving tender heart. And she is 82 and she goes to town all the time to buy groceries and she just has to do everything alone. I hope that never happens to me! It just breaks my heart to see that with other people. She also told us that her church she used to go to was giving her a hard time and telling her that it is because she isn't going to church that God is punishing her and put her son in jail. How sad!? It is sad that they would tell her that.... she was really sad about that to. So we had a long talk on how god doesn't make these things happen. We all have agency, and that is a gift from God, but we can use our agency for good or bad things. It isn't always our fault when things happen. Things happen as a result of other people's agency. We can't do anything about it. it is sad, but it is out of our control. But what we can do is pray. :) Anyways, I am out of time. But I love you all so much! And I want you to know that I love my mission! I have days, a lot of days, that are really hard, but at the end of the day it is all better and in the morning I am ready to take on a new day! (Though sometimes I just wish I could take a two day vacation back home and just quickly come back. ha. No jk. I can't think such things) But I truly love it here and the people that I have been able to meet and work with. I have come to love so many people! It just makes me so sad to think I probably won't ever get to see them again-possibly- in this life. But we will have a fexta (party) after this life!!!!! :) Anyways, hope you all have a fabulous week!!!! And Cassy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I loved your email!!!!!!!! I love you so so so much!!!!!! :) 

Love Always,

Sister Amanda Stokes