Happy Thanksgiving this week

Lisbon

My dearest family,

Happy Thanksgiving this week :)

Since there is no Thanksgiving here in Portugal, I don't think we are going to be doing anything on Thanksgiving itself, but there is a new senior couple that came into our mission and they invited us over for Thanksgiving dinner next p-day, so that should be fun. They are Elder and Sister Gale and they are from Utah. Elder Gale can speak Portuguese because he served in Brazil on his mission. They are called to help with the unemployment of the members, so they have a program that they are working to help the members find jobs quickly.

As for this past week, it was pretty good. Both of our marked baptisms fell through, but we marked two more baptisms for this weekend: Ruben and Luana. They are progressing very nicely. Our ward had the baptism yesterday of a little girl named Toya who turned 8. Ruben and Luana went to the baptism and they really enjoyed it. They are excited for their baptism this Saturday. We are excited for them. The ward is also excited to be receiving more youth (because there are not that many here in Portugal) and they are already loved by all. And they just look like members already. I love finding people like that. So, it has been a special week (even though it has been hard in some moments). Irmã de Almeida and I are seeing progression in the members and our investigators (even though sometimes it is slower than what we would like). But, I know that everything is happening for a reason.

Since there is no Thanksgiving here nor Halloween, Christmas things have been up in the stores since the end of Halloween, so I feel like Christmas is already here, but we still have some time before it comes. But, it is really cool because they string lights up all over the city and it is really fun.

Last Sunday, our appointments fell through, so we were walking down the street at 9:00 at night and I was wondering what we were going to do for another half an hour before we went home. All of a sudden I looked to the building at my left and felt like we should knock the building. Normally I don't feel strongly to knock buildings at 9:00 at night because it is kind of late, but I thought, “Hey, why not?” So we did. We walked all the way up the four flights of stairs and started knocking. We made it all the way to the bottom of the building with no success. We knocked on the last door in the basement of the building and a Brazilian woman answered. She said she was making dinner and couldn't answer us. We said we just wanted to say a prayer with her. She said she didn't want one. I was about to give up and turn around when Irmã de Almeida started talking to her son who was peeking around the door to look at us. The mother left the door to go continue dinner, but her husband came to the door and started talking with us as well as his son. The father invited us in. We sat down and said a prayer with him (João) and his son (Gabriel). We started to talk and teach them and the mother came in (Jó) and sat down and started listening to us. Then came in their daughter (Jordana). They are an evangelical Brazilian family. They didn't have much time, so we marked another day and went back yesterday to teach the first lesson. We watched the Restoration DVD with them and they loved it. We left Books of Mormon with them and they are excited to read and learn more, even though they already go to another church. We are hoping that their desire turns into action and that they really pray and read. Irmã de Almeida and I feel like this is a blessing directly from Heavenly Father because we have been praying not only to find the elect, but to find elect families. And right now we are teaching three families. And we are looking to find more...

Beyond that, we are looking forward to Zone Meeting this week and the many families that are waiting to hear the gospel from us...:)

Love you all. Happy Turkey Day and Black Friday (yay for shopping :),

Irmã Pérez