Funny as I typed out that title I was just thinking about the new
years eves that we would pass together in the Sandpiper house and I
was thinking about how all of the cousins would run around saying that
right before midnight doing random things and then do the same thing
right after with saying the first time for all that stuff this year.
Good old memories and I hope that you all have a wonderful time
together in Bear lake this week.
As for traditional portuguese food for christmas we ate a ton of
bacalhau com natas, bolo de rei, bolo de rainha, and random fried
deserts they love, one of which is called sonhos. they do not have a
ton of lights because it is all apartment buildings here, they also
have trees and all that good stuff. They do certainly have a ton of
chestnuts roasting in the streets and yeah it does smell wonderful.
The most common decoration they have here is a santa clause that they
hang from their balcony and it looks like he is a thief trying to
break into their house. That is all over the place and people often
leave it up for forever so you see them in July as well.
Ohh and I have had a tooth ache for a bit I dont know if i want to go
to a dentist or not here though based on the teeth people have here...
Hopefully I do not have a cavity.
Yesterday for church we were running around all over the place helping
people get to church and I pulled 3 young men out of bed, we ended up
being late for sacrament meeting but it was worth it to get all of
those people there. We should have a couple of baptisms here in the
ward this next week. Hopefully everything will go well with Otavio
the boy that we have been working with to get ready. he is super
excited and his mom is going to sign the form tonight to let him be
baptized so it is looking good right now.
Yesterday after church we were doing some street contacts on our way
to go teach the seventh day Adventist uncle and aunt of one of our
members when we stopped one lady and asked her how here Christmas was
and she told us that it had been pretty rough. I told her sorry and
that we had something that could could make her Christmas a lot better
still, and that is when she revealed that she is a member, one of the
first families baptized in Capo Verde was her's and her dad has been a
stake president and all sorts of stuff. She has been inactive though
for quite some time. Basically she told us that she has never been
stopped by missionaries in the street before in Portugal (having seen
them before) and felt a little neglected. She has a daughter that is
11 that she wants us to get ready to baptize and she also wants to
come back to church. It was really cool to see something so simple
turn into a miracle so incredible. It really went to show me that it
is the little efforts that make all the difference and that the Lord
will really make miracles happen as long as you give him the
opportunity and are paying attention to be able to see it happen.
Temos dois famílias aqui em cacém com quem vamos trabalhar muito esta
semana. Um é a família duma missionairo retornado que tem pais e
irmãos muito perto a serem batizados que estão aqui só para esta
semana de feirais. Vamos fazer tudo para conseguir a batiza-los este
fim de semana. Também vamos trabalhar com um família que vamos
batizar o filho este semana e continuar a preparar o resto de família.
Estamos a ver muito milagres a trabalhar com os membros e estou a amar
a trabalho aqui.
We have miraculously found several long lost members recently and now
we are teaching their newly formed families and working to bring the
entire crew back to Church. It is amazing how the Lord works.
I have been learning a lot about what it means to teach with great
power and authority recently. It is amazing how specific a lesson
needs to be for the needs of that particular person so that they will
be interested and feel the spirit. It is cool how we get people to
the point where they are all ready with the desire and worthiness to
be baptized and then we just have to get through the rest of the
lessons so that they hit the requirements because those things are not
quite what interested them. You really begin to realize how much
every little thing counts. We have even been filming ourselves in our
practices and watching them like film for football. It is awesome and
I wish that I would have started doing that earlier on in my mission.
It helps on the gridiron and in the missionary field.
Anyways we will be working hard bringing in the new year. lots of
food and partying this week is over with and now it is time to get
these people to take the last steps to be ready to do covenants with
God.
It really is a marvalhos work! Feliz ano novo!
Com Amor e muito saudades
Elder Hobson
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