Dear Everyone,
I really wanted that whole title to illiterate, but alas, I am not talented enough to make baptisms fit into the illiteration. Plus cut me some slack - I'm not even speaking English anymore!
So some pretty exciting stuff happened this week. I got moved out of Coimbra, and I am now serving in Gaia, which is this city on the other side of Porto where I started my mission here in portugal! I can like totally see my old house from the top of our 16 story tall apartment building! My new companion is Elder Bortolo. He is my first native comp! He is from São Paulo Brazil and speaks just about zero english, so this last week has been a lot of fun forgetting my native language. :) It's actually a way cool experience to talk in portuguese ALL OF THE TIME because normally, we speak Portuguese stuff related to missionary work, but now I have to do it with everything! I'm hoping for my Portuguese to get a lot better really quick! Elder Bortolo is in his second transfer, so I am training this transfer, and I am STILL on the training schedule! Let me explain. The training schedule has an hour and a half more studies during the day, one hour for missionary training material, and an extra half hour of language study. Let me tell ya, four hours of study a day is quite a lot. Especially when you've had that same schedule since you started your mission. :) But I'm way excited about it! Gaia is another bigger city, with another really big area, but I'm pretty excited for it! Elder Bortolo is super dedicated and likes to talk to like the whole world, so it makes training easy! Also, I'm a district leader this transfer, so I get to give four hour district meetings every tuesday and call the sisters every night. Yay. :)
Well that happened! Also Elder Bortolo and I totally marked a nine year old boy Emanuel for baptism at the end of this month, so we are pretty excited about that! He is the son of a less active sister who we will also be reactivating. I'm way excited about this transfer!
Quick spiritual message - obviously general conference happened, and was way good! Well, I hope it was. I watched it all in portuguese, which is funny with the translators, but I enjoyed it a lot! One talk I was particularly touched by was Paul V. Johnson, who related the story of his daughter passing away to his testimony of the power of the resurrection. I know along with him that we will gain our perfect bodies because of the love of God - and to apply President Monsons short talk on choices, I know along with the Prophet that our choices really do affect our destinies as God's children. The Savior performed both parts of the Atonement - the Resurrection and His suffering in Gethsemane, for us to be eternally happy! Paul Johnson testified about that resurrection that is given freely to overcome physical death. The Prophet talked about our choices and repentance, which will lead us to overcome spiritual death. Both of these gifts come because of the Atonement of Christ. I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father for sending His Beloved Son to allow us to partake of ALL of His blessings! President Monson talked about the chinese cat in Alice and Wonderland, and how Alice didn't know where she wanted to go. Well, we do! We KNOW our destinies, and can make choices and use the Atonement because we know we are children of god. I love the gospel! So good!
I hope you all have a fantastic week! Talk to you later!
- Elder Valentine!
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