Well lots of things are changing this transfer. This transfer was only 4 weeks instead of 6 because they are letting the missionaries who are going home go 2 weeks early so they can be home for Christmas. This means the next transfer will be 8 weeks long. This transfer we will only have two Elders for the whole area of Beja instead of four Elders. So me Elder Doxey and I have a lot of work to do now. But that’s ok we love missionary work. So because Elder Doxey and I are staying in Beja that means that we can Skype our family's for Christmas. Best Christmas present ever!
I don’t know if you have heard about this new video that the church has come out with, but it is called He is the Gift. It’s a short little video talking about the real meaning of Christmas which is Christ. It’s a really cool video and the church is having the missionary’s spread the word out like crazy about this video. If any of you have time you should look up this video at http://www.mormon.org/christmas and invite all your friends and everyone you know to watch this video and spread the word out like crazy whether it be through Facebook or Twitter or just by email get the word out. What the video talks about is so true, sometimes we forget the real meaning of Christmas and get caught up in how the world sees it. A little fun way to remember Christ in Christmas is that you can’t spell Christmas without the word Christ in it, look at it like this CHRISTmas.
The language is coming really well now. I have been listening to the natives of Portugal really closely and my companion and I have been practicing Portuguese a lot more. I am speaking a lot more in lessons and I’m at the point now where I can teach a pretty good lesson. I still have a lot more to go, but with God’s help I know that I can do it.
I don’t know if you guys have ever heard this, but there are a lot of Catholics in Portugal. Alot of them believe in Maria de Fátima, which is basically the mother of Jesus. And a lot of people believe that she is a God and a bunch of crazy stuff like that. So it’s sometimes hard to teach them about our religion and have them accept it, but usually they do. That’s another hard thing to work with other then a lot of people smoking.
We have a really cool investigator, his name is Alexandre and he is 12-years old. His mom is a member but is less active so we are trying to reactivate her and baptize her son. He actually wants to be baptized which is really awesome. Last Saturday we helped them move some boxes from her apartment to her car so she can take them to her work. After we helped them we were able to teach them and we had a really good lesson. We later asked if he wanted to pick a date for his baptism and he said sometime before Christmas. Another thing he said was that when he gets baptized he doesn’t want the water warm he wants it cold. The reason why is he said, “We aren’t taking a bath right? So the water shouldn’t be warm, it’s a baptism lets have it cold.” We all laughed after that. He is a really funny kid. We are excited to baptism him. This month we also have Paulo´s baptism as well on the 20th so we are also excited for that as well. Beja is doing well.
Well for Christmas here we are going down to Faro and having a Christmas dinner with our whole zone and have lots of yummy food. One of the main Christmas dinners that they do in Portugal is Bacalhau. In English it translates to cod and that is a type of fish. Bacalhau is really popular in Portugal. I’m really excited to have that for Christmas dinner. I hope all of you have a very Merry Christmas season this year. I love you all so much.
With all my love,
Elder Rusnell
I don’t know if you have heard about this new video that the church has come out with, but it is called He is the Gift. It’s a short little video talking about the real meaning of Christmas which is Christ. It’s a really cool video and the church is having the missionary’s spread the word out like crazy about this video. If any of you have time you should look up this video at http://www.mormon.org/christmas and invite all your friends and everyone you know to watch this video and spread the word out like crazy whether it be through Facebook or Twitter or just by email get the word out. What the video talks about is so true, sometimes we forget the real meaning of Christmas and get caught up in how the world sees it. A little fun way to remember Christ in Christmas is that you can’t spell Christmas without the word Christ in it, look at it like this CHRISTmas.
The language is coming really well now. I have been listening to the natives of Portugal really closely and my companion and I have been practicing Portuguese a lot more. I am speaking a lot more in lessons and I’m at the point now where I can teach a pretty good lesson. I still have a lot more to go, but with God’s help I know that I can do it.
I don’t know if you guys have ever heard this, but there are a lot of Catholics in Portugal. Alot of them believe in Maria de Fátima, which is basically the mother of Jesus. And a lot of people believe that she is a God and a bunch of crazy stuff like that. So it’s sometimes hard to teach them about our religion and have them accept it, but usually they do. That’s another hard thing to work with other then a lot of people smoking.
We have a really cool investigator, his name is Alexandre and he is 12-years old. His mom is a member but is less active so we are trying to reactivate her and baptize her son. He actually wants to be baptized which is really awesome. Last Saturday we helped them move some boxes from her apartment to her car so she can take them to her work. After we helped them we were able to teach them and we had a really good lesson. We later asked if he wanted to pick a date for his baptism and he said sometime before Christmas. Another thing he said was that when he gets baptized he doesn’t want the water warm he wants it cold. The reason why is he said, “We aren’t taking a bath right? So the water shouldn’t be warm, it’s a baptism lets have it cold.” We all laughed after that. He is a really funny kid. We are excited to baptism him. This month we also have Paulo´s baptism as well on the 20th so we are also excited for that as well. Beja is doing well.
Well for Christmas here we are going down to Faro and having a Christmas dinner with our whole zone and have lots of yummy food. One of the main Christmas dinners that they do in Portugal is Bacalhau. In English it translates to cod and that is a type of fish. Bacalhau is really popular in Portugal. I’m really excited to have that for Christmas dinner. I hope all of you have a very Merry Christmas season this year. I love you all so much.
With all my love,
Elder Rusnell