So We Found Where the Elect Are...In the Elders' Area

Hello family!! Thanks for the emails and for everything!

This has been a week of transition for us. Irma Lister came bright and early Thursday morning and we've been adjusting to making our tripla the best it can be, but we're happy to have her with us.

General Conference was amazing, wasn't it? We are so blessed to be able to listen to the living prophets! I was so sad that it was my last time to watch conference on my mission. I feel like their words are so much more applicable to my life, or I guess, I am applying them better to my life now. It was so wonderful and I'm sad that it's over. I forgot to mention the last two times that I've been able to watch the Priesthood session. President Terry encourages us to watch it, so I've loved those sessions.

On Saturday before Conference, Irma Lister and I had the opportunity to do some finding! We went to the only street that I knew where it was in the area we were to look up some potential investigators. We had two in one building, 1st floor and 2nd floor. So we were able to enter the building and I was going to start with the 2nd floor and work down. Apparently, we only walked to the 1st floor and I accidentally rang the wrong apartment. Good thing I did! A man opened the door and said, "Seesters!!!" Don't worry, we found Rui Ribeiro, a less-active member who had moved. He was very warm and excited to talk to us. We invited him to conference and although he didn't come, I'm sure we'll be able to get him to church. It was great to be lead to where we needed to be!

Yesterday we headed up to Lisbon for Irma Vega to go to the doctor. Unfortunately, our train was very late and so we had to wait, but we ended up talking to Lina, a gal from Estonia. She ended up sitting by us the whole 50 minute ride up there. Her English was pretty good and I had a great time talking to her about her life and telling her about ours. I told her about how happy I was with our work here and what we do. She paused for a minute, really looked at me and responded, "You are happy," while nodding her head. That was the best thing she coul dhave said and noticed. She was able to see who I really was and what I really had. I hope that she talks to the missionaries in Estonia when she gets back. She could see how the gospel has really blessed my life.

Yesterday we did a division with the irmas of Lapa (Lisbon), Irmas Machado, McKee and Andrus. I got to walk with Irmas Machado and McKee all day yesterday and it was so great to see them! Irma McKee is the best missionary ever! Wow! We went to an area called Azeitao, which is outside of Setubal. Missionaries haven't really worked there, so it's a great place to work! They aren't sick of us! We ended up knocking for a couple of hours and getting into three houses! It was amazing! All of hte people we talked to were so nice and so open. It was great! We marked return appointments and were very excited about our day. Unfortunately, the elders informed us that Azeitao was there area. Hopefully we'll be able to work with the great people we found out there, as they are all women and live alone...I'm sure that either way, they'll learn more about the gospel and that's really what matters. I'm just glad we found them!

Well, we just went to a beautiful castle in Palmela and I was impressed that it was free and well kept-up. It's been beautiful here for about a month and I'm already getting pretty tan. Things are starting to look up here and hopefully we can continue working hard and can discover the cause of Irma Vega's headaches.

Have a great week!