Well it is starting to finally have some amazing weather out here
after quite a bit of rain and clouds up until this point. (really it
has not been that much rain, but Portugal is pretty well known to have
a ton of sun for being so close to the ocean) But right now it is
absolutely beautiful and I am enjoying being out and about with
nothing more then a white tee shirt finally.
We had a good week of work where we taught a ton of lessons even
without getting to be in our area a ton. We missed a day when we had
to go to the Assistentes area for a division. I did mine with Elder
Welch. He is a new assistente this transfer and he is also really
pretty new i the mission. It was a little strange to have an
assistant giving me advice and whatnot that was having a bit of a
struggle with portuguese, but he is a good missionary and a good kid.
I got to go back to Alverca again this week. It was fun to get to
seem some old faces and familiar places once again. We were there
because the areas there are definitely the ones that are struggling
the most in the whole zone, so we decided to make a zone activity and
go out to Alverca and work all together for a couple hours on Saturday
morning to talk to a ton of people and get it so that they will be
able to have a ton of people that they can teach and work with so that
they can get their spirits up a little and start to see some success
for the first time in months. Hopefully it will work out. It was a
good thing to get the missionaries to feel a little bit more united in
working for the same cause. I think that it was a major success. We
had to run to catch the train both going there and coming back.
Thankfully we all caught the train except for the sisters on the way
back. I was the first one in the group to get to the train doors and
so I had to hold them open as long as I could while all the others
piled into the train. I was getting slammed repeatedly by the doors,
but I managed to fight it to keep it open even with some complaining
portuguese people behind me long enough to get all of the elders into
the train.
So this week we got to continue helping João get ready for baptism.
he is making great changes and he is really close. We are going to
keep pushing to get him ready to get baptized next weekend if he comes
back down to the city again. Hopefully it will work out right. We
taught him the word of wisdom and the law of chastity over skype with
his girlfriend Veronica sitting right next to us. It was pretty funny
and thankfully he did accept. ( the law of chastity thing was already
basically on the table since Veronica had been good in setting the
standard when their relationship began. but it has been cool to have
her really doing a wonderful job to keep him reading and praying and
making sure everything is going well with him all the days that we do
not have the chance to talk with him.
We are still teaching a family that is really wonderful and are
accepting everything really well up until baptism. They are coming to
church all of the time, but they are not quite ready to accept the
baptismal commitment still. We will see how they are feeling after
having going to church again this week. They are getting some more
support and love from the members now more and more so that is really
going to help hopefully.
We had one lady come to church this week that was really cold to us at
first and made some strange proposition for us to come and talk at a
public event with some really strange religions in like an organized
bible bash, but we basically just invited her to come over to church
in the meantime while we thought about whether or not we would be able
to take her up on her offer. But it just happened that she showed up
right on time for me to teach gospel principles on what we believe are
important characteristics of the church when Jesus was on the earth
that we believe are still in place today. It was the perfect lesson
for her, it was just a little disappointing for me because I was
given 30 seconds notice that I would be giving the class so I did not
get to prepare and make it as good as it could have been. But she did
ask us to come by her house this week so I think that the spirit had
touched her heart.
One of my favorite stories this week was one of our investigators who
is about 60 years old and Portuguese named Carlos francisco that we
have been teaching for a little while now. This week he finally was
able to make it to church, but since he lives a long ways away and he
has to go and take care of his older sister on the weekends he had to
travel for over 3 hours to get to church for the first time ever. He
is a man that has always smoked and drank a lot of coffee. We taught
him the word of wisdom and he said that he was going to leave that
lesson to go and have his last ever cup of coffee and he is now
diminishing the number of cigarettes that he is smoking everyday. He
said that he has tried in the past to quit but has always failed
miserably and gotten really angry with himself, but I know that this
time he will succeed because now he is not doing it alone. He will
have the power of the Holy Ghost lifting him and making it so that he
can do things that he would never be able to do on his own. I am so
grateful for the miracle of the atonement and for the power of the
holy ghost in our lives. I know that Carlos is feeling it and that it
is more motivating for him to invite that into his life then any other
drug could be so he is managing to overcome age old habits. I love
when I get the chance to help make the difference in the life of
someone that really needs the changes and is willing to do everything
for the help of the Lord. when we put our lives in the Lord's hands
we cannot go wrong. that much I know.
Love
Elder Hobson
D&C 59:23
D&C 24:12
João 5:21 Lucas 20:38
Alma 42:22
2 Néfi 9: 51-52
Jacó 4:8
3 Néfi 28: 34
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