This week was full of so much adventure and work! So now i will tell you about It!!!!
Monday
So for p-day today. We stayed in the Fort. It was a chill p-day. So when we were going to go shopping for food, we met some members. They were going to eat some pizza, they invited us to go eat pizza with them, it was super yummy. We got our shopping done and continued with our 20 min walk back home. Later today we taught an older lady named Odete. She was really nice to us. What was cool is we got to sing a hymn to her. She really likes church music. She was a sweet nice old lady.
Tuesday
Today I had a division with the zone leaders. We started with district meeting and then after I went to Odivelas (zone leaders’ area) with Elder Puriri who is awesome, and Elder Petersen stayed with Elder Fish (his trainer). We passed a lot of people and had great lessons. One cool thing that happened is that the Elders back in Povoa marked Alexandre for baptism. It was so cool to hear about that. Today was just a great day.
Wednesday
This morning all the missionaries in our zone had to go to Lisboa to have a meeting with the President. We talked about how we can be closer to the Holy Ghost. I got called on to share something about the Holy Ghost. This is what I said. It’s hard for our investigators to feel the spirit during a lesson if we don’t bring it with us. We need to prepare to bring the spirit with us to our investigators home, because without it, we cannot teach. We always need the spirit with us. I love Ch. 4 in PMG. It goes over how we can have the spirit with us and how to recognize it as well. Missionary or not I recommend this to all!
Thursday
Today was great. We had a lesson with Miguel. He is the one that is a little slow in the head. We taught the Plan of salvation. He realy liked it. We also tried to mark him for baptism like 10 times, but he kept saying he was already baptized. We explained about authority, but he just wasn’t understanding. We will try again with him in the future. We also had a lesson with Alexandre. We taught him the Plan of Salvation as well. He accepted it and said that this plan is true. I then shared the story of how my dad joined the church because of this plan. He really likes that story. Then we had English class. The Sisters taught it today. They decided to teach some Halloween words. It was really fun. Then we played duck, duck, goose, but Halloween style. Pumpkin, pumpkin, bat. It was fun.
Friday
We passed by Alexandre again. He really likes having us over. So today we taught him about the Gospel of Christ. Basically the 5 things we need to do here on earth. 1) Have faith in Jesus Christ 2) Repentance 3) Baptism 4) Gift of the Holy Ghost 5) Endure to the End. We taught that to him. We also found out that he is not married. So the rule is you can’t be baptized if you are living with someone and are not married. You have to be married or move out and then you can be baptized. We explained this to Alexandre and also taught the Law of Chasity. He understood it and wants to be married. So we will have a meeting with the Bishop to plan a wedding. That will be fun.
Saturday
Today we had our zone Halloween party. We had it in Lapa Lisboa, it was super fun. We had a lot of people there. We also got to dress up. There were some good costumes there. For mine I used my blue Dragon One-z. It was super funny. All the missionaries had to take turns going out to the streets to invite people to the party. Well when it was our turn we invited a lot of people. Note: (I’m still in my one-z) it was then time to go back to the party, but we had a fun idea before. We were right by a McDonalds, so I waited in the line to buy something on the dollar menu, lots of people were laughing it was so funny. I got a photo of it. I like making people laugh. Then we went back to the party. The party ended and it was time to go home. We got on the metro (subway) to go to the train station. But when we got there it was closed. So we tried going to a different one. We walked forever. Then we finally got to a different station in Lisboa (Oriente). Right when we got there our train left and that was the last one for the night. We tried to find a bus but no luck, at this point it’s like 12:30 am. Finally we got help from the office Elders. They gave us a ride back. We finally got home around 1:10 am, yea crazy night. And that’s not even half of the story, but we will leave it at that Ha Ha. That was a fun day.
Sunday
Today was an interesting day. We had four investigators in church today. One of them lost her job and asked me if we could pray for her and help her out. She also wanted a Book of Mormon to read. It was shocking because she didn’t really want anything to do with church before. She told us to come by and talk with her and her husband soon. Then after church the whole mission had an activity. In Portugal it’s called Dia das almas. (Day of the souls). Basically it’s when everyone will go to the cemetery to visit the dead. They had us go and try to talk to some people about family and other stuff. It was very awkward at times. This is a very fragile situation so we had to be careful not to upset someone. So we tried our best. Some missionaries got kicked out in another area. Well, after that we passed by Alexandre´s house. We watched the restoration with him. He really liked it. He said that he felt the spirit. Then I helped him tune his guitar. He was very happy about that. Then he taught me a song, it was pretty cool.
That was basically my week. It was awesome week full of adventures, fun, and lots of work. Hope you all like this week’s letter. Keep on smiling and have a good time.
Com muito amor,
Elder Rusnell
Monday
So for p-day today. We stayed in the Fort. It was a chill p-day. So when we were going to go shopping for food, we met some members. They were going to eat some pizza, they invited us to go eat pizza with them, it was super yummy. We got our shopping done and continued with our 20 min walk back home. Later today we taught an older lady named Odete. She was really nice to us. What was cool is we got to sing a hymn to her. She really likes church music. She was a sweet nice old lady.
Tuesday
Today I had a division with the zone leaders. We started with district meeting and then after I went to Odivelas (zone leaders’ area) with Elder Puriri who is awesome, and Elder Petersen stayed with Elder Fish (his trainer). We passed a lot of people and had great lessons. One cool thing that happened is that the Elders back in Povoa marked Alexandre for baptism. It was so cool to hear about that. Today was just a great day.
Wednesday
This morning all the missionaries in our zone had to go to Lisboa to have a meeting with the President. We talked about how we can be closer to the Holy Ghost. I got called on to share something about the Holy Ghost. This is what I said. It’s hard for our investigators to feel the spirit during a lesson if we don’t bring it with us. We need to prepare to bring the spirit with us to our investigators home, because without it, we cannot teach. We always need the spirit with us. I love Ch. 4 in PMG. It goes over how we can have the spirit with us and how to recognize it as well. Missionary or not I recommend this to all!
Thursday
Today was great. We had a lesson with Miguel. He is the one that is a little slow in the head. We taught the Plan of salvation. He realy liked it. We also tried to mark him for baptism like 10 times, but he kept saying he was already baptized. We explained about authority, but he just wasn’t understanding. We will try again with him in the future. We also had a lesson with Alexandre. We taught him the Plan of Salvation as well. He accepted it and said that this plan is true. I then shared the story of how my dad joined the church because of this plan. He really likes that story. Then we had English class. The Sisters taught it today. They decided to teach some Halloween words. It was really fun. Then we played duck, duck, goose, but Halloween style. Pumpkin, pumpkin, bat. It was fun.
Friday
We passed by Alexandre again. He really likes having us over. So today we taught him about the Gospel of Christ. Basically the 5 things we need to do here on earth. 1) Have faith in Jesus Christ 2) Repentance 3) Baptism 4) Gift of the Holy Ghost 5) Endure to the End. We taught that to him. We also found out that he is not married. So the rule is you can’t be baptized if you are living with someone and are not married. You have to be married or move out and then you can be baptized. We explained this to Alexandre and also taught the Law of Chasity. He understood it and wants to be married. So we will have a meeting with the Bishop to plan a wedding. That will be fun.
Saturday
Today we had our zone Halloween party. We had it in Lapa Lisboa, it was super fun. We had a lot of people there. We also got to dress up. There were some good costumes there. For mine I used my blue Dragon One-z. It was super funny. All the missionaries had to take turns going out to the streets to invite people to the party. Well when it was our turn we invited a lot of people. Note: (I’m still in my one-z) it was then time to go back to the party, but we had a fun idea before. We were right by a McDonalds, so I waited in the line to buy something on the dollar menu, lots of people were laughing it was so funny. I got a photo of it. I like making people laugh. Then we went back to the party. The party ended and it was time to go home. We got on the metro (subway) to go to the train station. But when we got there it was closed. So we tried going to a different one. We walked forever. Then we finally got to a different station in Lisboa (Oriente). Right when we got there our train left and that was the last one for the night. We tried to find a bus but no luck, at this point it’s like 12:30 am. Finally we got help from the office Elders. They gave us a ride back. We finally got home around 1:10 am, yea crazy night. And that’s not even half of the story, but we will leave it at that Ha Ha. That was a fun day.
Sunday
Today was an interesting day. We had four investigators in church today. One of them lost her job and asked me if we could pray for her and help her out. She also wanted a Book of Mormon to read. It was shocking because she didn’t really want anything to do with church before. She told us to come by and talk with her and her husband soon. Then after church the whole mission had an activity. In Portugal it’s called Dia das almas. (Day of the souls). Basically it’s when everyone will go to the cemetery to visit the dead. They had us go and try to talk to some people about family and other stuff. It was very awkward at times. This is a very fragile situation so we had to be careful not to upset someone. So we tried our best. Some missionaries got kicked out in another area. Well, after that we passed by Alexandre´s house. We watched the restoration with him. He really liked it. He said that he felt the spirit. Then I helped him tune his guitar. He was very happy about that. Then he taught me a song, it was pretty cool.
That was basically my week. It was awesome week full of adventures, fun, and lots of work. Hope you all like this week’s letter. Keep on smiling and have a good time.
Com muito amor,
Elder Rusnell