Dear Everyone,
If you are looking for originality or creativity in your weekly missionary email subject lines, I would direct you to my friends Elder Gideon Benge or Elder Jacob Jackson. Otherwise, sorry for not being creative. :)
But it has been an awesome week! We taught João Paulo about all of the commandments, and he basically taught us all of them before we even got to talk to them! Ex. he stopped drinking coffee when he started meeting with us. Way cool. We are way excited to baptize him soon! He is leaving town for this whole next week, which might be a problem with the baptismal date, but hopefully it will all work out!
Portugal. The place where in the morning you want to die from the heat, and by 7 PM, you want to die because it's so cold and rainy that you can't open your eyes without being blinded by the rain, since you left your umbrella at the house. It's great! Love it %100! I feel like it makes the mission more exciting and it gives you fun stuff to look back on! :) Plus cool story - as we were walking home last night in our short sleeve white shirts soaked in the rain, a guy we didn't know pulled over his car and gave us his umbrella! He said he had met with the Elders in Porto (Which is just accross the river) and that he really felt good talking to them, so he wanted to give some service to the Elders that he saw walking in the rain! It was so cool! I love people!
Service - it's a topic that I have learned a lot about on the mission! I have really seen how important it is that we serve out of love, and not out of desire to gain recognition or a good standing with the people we serve. King Benjamin explains this perfectly as he talks to his people on the tower - he explains that his service to his people was not done to gain glory in their eyes, but to glorify God! And then he gives the well known verse of scripture Mosiah 2:17 - 17 And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.
God expects us to pay back a little bit of what He has already given us, and we can do it by serving! That man who gave us his umbrella did an act of service purely out of the desire to do good. Do we sometimes serve in the church or at work or among our friends to simply look good? Or do we serve because we really love God, and want other people to feel the same? I have really learned to love and serve people without recompense here on the mission. The feelings I get by serving of the love of God for me are more than enough of a reward as I serve! I truly love God, and His Son Jesus Christ, and I am so happy to be serving them. Pray for some opportunities to serve this week, and God will put people in your path for you to bless! Love you all! Have a fantastic week!
- Elder Valentine!
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