I can't explain how great it was to see the family and hear all of you guys! I am just so happy all of you`re doing well and i loved hearing about everything! And really, it was the best mothers day EVER!
I feel like I kinda already talked about my week, actually i forgot a lot of what i said to you guys so sorry if i repeat myself. But this week has been pretty amazing and i have learned just so much.
So in my area now we have two duplas of sisters which is really the best ever. We decided to hold a Noite Familiar (ward activity) with all the less actives and recent converts in the branch. So that day came and i honestly was hoping people showed up because sometimes not that many do. Right on the dot around seven 3 families walked up the church steps and my eyes lit up! haha. These families that came were members that refused to come to church and were not active that much my first week. As the weeks have gone on and many visits later they showed up to an activity! My heart was overwhelmed with love and peace. More and more people came and the night was great ! We had a spiritual thought and then played games. We played the "do you like your neighbor" game and when we were playing everyone was changing seats so fast , all of a sudden we see Noemia (an elderly lady) and sister Lacey (my new comp) going for the same chair and sister Lacey almost threw her off the chair with a booty bump and everyone was laughing so hard. It was an amazing turn out! We are going to start doing that every week now.
This week has also been filled with just a roller coaster of learning! Sometimes companionship's dont go well at first but I have really had to dig deep with this. I have learned the absolute meaning of service. Service goes such a long way its unreal. We have both noticed that we have just been stressed like none other and really needed to relax. There's no need to worry so much. Whenever i would serve, my mind after would be clear and of good thoughts. I would then go out and work 10x harder and we would come back happy form how our lessons went. Really though, what i've been taught about being a peace maker has really stuck with me in this situation. Besides this is not my work, its the Lords work. I am super glad that things are going up hill with us. People that haven't been coming to church, are coming now and we had 1 investigator come as well. Sometimes we get sad when only one comes, but really we have to look at the positives! 1 is better than nothing and its their agency. We can't be there parents even though we want to at times haha. People come to the Lord when they are ready, not before. But guess what?! This Sunday we had around 40 people at church! Our usual is around 25 people in or branch...I am just way happy and hope we can keep that a constant thing every sunday.
We have about two really neat Investigators right now. S. is from Cape Verde, she is married and has 1 kid. We taught her last week and she accepted the message super well, but the problem is that she has to work on Sundays so she can't come to church all the time. But, we are going to be talking about that this week so wish me luck! We will be teaching her husband as well. The next Investigator is Sil. he is from Africa and is very sweet! He is the one who came to church with us on Sunday and he said he liked it, but it was super different for him. He went to all 3 hours! He has 3 of the cutest kids whom all play soccer, so we are hoping to have them all come to Noite Familiar this week with us! He has been in a rut for a while and one day he saw some of the other sisters on the bus and actually contacted them, so since he is in our area we are now teaching him. I will update you guys next week about him. Language wise, i feel like i am progressing at a pretty good pace. The members have been saying that i have been better with talking and with the accent as well. So, obviously that makes me feel 10x better haha. It's going well and man it's getting toasty up in here!
Oh my heavens, today sister Lacey and i found an amazing burger restaurant and i wanted to cry because it was so good!! Guess what?? ...It was only 4£, bless my soul it was amazing. Okay, Madi this story is for you since you asked about random things happening on the streets. When we were window shopping and looking at cool things this guy walks by creepily staring at us and awkward enough, when he was walking past his pants got caught on this fence thing right next to us!! hahhahahahaha He said in portuguêse "oops i'm imprisoned" ! my goodness we were laughing so hard. That's what he gets for starin. But ya other than that the sun is shinning and everyone is happy so that means more contacts for us! Another fun thing that everyone does here is they hang out their windows to talk to one another. There are little balconies and the men will talk to eachother and smoke their morning cigarettes. When we pass by, they will always be sweet and say " Goodmorning Sisters, do you know where you are going today?" Yhey want to make sure we don't get lost. My companion hung out the window this morning and talked to a gal she saw walking by. She is in our church and they/we talked for about 10 minutes...ahhh, we are Portuguese!!
I am glad the week ended up looking up, I know without a doubt we are never alone in any situation. But its our choice to act on the faith to get out of it because when we do our part, the savior does his.
Thanks for all the love and support it really means the world to me! Happy Birthday to my cousin Seth on Sunday "big number 8"!! I hope you eat lots of cake!
Love Sister Elliott!