Tender Mercies!

This week was awesome!

Monday and tuesday were normal, but tuesday night i started getting a cold and wednesday we were walking around in the rain and i was really feeling sick so we came home for a bit so i could sleep some more. Thursday we had zone conference with president! he is a powerful man, i was inspired to do better. we were supposed to do divisions with the sisters in Setubal, but one of them got sick so it was just a mess. BUT then on friday, the adventures began.

So there used to be six areas in our ward, seixal A, the elders, Seixal B, us, and then a dupla of sisters in this area called quinta do conde. its kind of far away but everyone there has cars and houses instead of apartments and bus passes, so its a pretty rich area, and its also pretty difficult. because of that, it was closed this past transfer and the dupla of sisters out there got taken out. so we got the job of taking care of their investigators. so we got the house key from the office and went out there for the second time this friday. since we had the house key, and since this area is way far away from our house and you have to take a bus and a train to get there,  we got permission from president to stay in the house out there!!!!! hahahaha, it was so fun, it was like a sleepover. but it was incredible, friday night we met the friend of a member, elaine, she is brazilian and AMAZING. she went to church twice and loved it, she was given a gospel principles manual there and had been reading it every night without asking, and this second time that we visited her, we asked her if she had prayed to know if the book of mormon was true or if this church was true and she was like, i dont need to. i dont have any doubt that this church is true. BLEW my mind. oh my how Heavenly Father prepares people. she came to church again on sunday. pray for her so that she can over come some personal problems to get baptized.

then the next day we had a lesson with this kid named marcio. he was someone the sisters out there found like, the second to last week of the transfer. he came to church by himself the last week. so we met with him, he accepted everything we taught and accepted with out any hesitance to be baptized on the 1st of november. it was SOOO cool. and then we walked over to the bus station with us and we were talking about church and such and he was telling us about everything he learned in church and how he wants to serve a mission and will be a bishop one day and such... hes SOOO cool. unfortunately he studies a lot and didnt come to church on sunday because of homework, so pray for him that he can keep progressing!!

then SUNDAY night, we had a lesson with these kids of a member who just got here from capo verde. the 17 year old daughter prayed about the book of mormon and now doesnt have a doubt that its true. that was awesome. so we invtied her to be baptized on the 7th, and she accepted!

We are also teaching a little family, a mom and 4 kids, they are capo verdian also, and they accepted to be baptized too. pray for filomena, bruna, and andre. they are wonderful, but i think i will write more about them next week because ive written plenty for you to read haha.

please be reading the book of mormon. please. i study it everday and it makes an incredible difference.

paz, amor, casamento do templo,

sister briggs

Success in Seixal!

heyyyyy everyone!

where to start?

On wednesday we had zone conference and interviews with president, and they went really well. after that conference, we went to a house of a reference from a member and invited the little girl to be baptized ( she had been asking for weeks to be but we could never get a hold of her and her family) and she accepted! it was awesome. and sister lacey helped teach. the next night, we went over there again, and we marked the mom for baptism too. we walked out of there just on fire. there is a son in the family who is about 15 who is deaf and mute... but we assumed that he would want to get baptized with his family. so they all came to church on sunday and our district leader was asking us how many people we had marked for baptism for next week, and we said 2, but then the young man walks by so i grab him and wrote really fast in my planner wanna get baptized next weekend with your family? and he nodded really hard and gave me a thumbs up. so then i turned back to our district leader and said, hey elder! we have three people marked for baptism next week. and he was like, just now? what? it was pretty funny. a little family will get baptized! its such a miracle.

A few days later, it was raining like crazy, but we had divisions with the sister training leaders! these sisters will both be going home in two weeks and sister carroll, my comp in madeira was one of them, so it was a really fun day.

On Friday, Manuela, Vitoria and Euclides had their baptism interviews. Manuela, the mom, had hers and it was totally fine. So did Vitoria, the little girl. But the 15 year old boy, Euclides, is deaf and mute, so it was a struggle for the elder to communicate with him. Even though we had showed him the baptisimal font and gave him everything to read, for some reason he got freaked out about baptism and decided last minute he didnt want to. it was stressful. but later that night there was an activity in the chapel and we decided to try again. the elder did the interview on the computer and they basically just typed it back and forth, and this time, he accepted. it was a nice sigh of relief, and elder da veiga said it was the coolest thing he had ever done on his mission.

on saturday, THEY GOT BAPTIZED!!!!! Oh it was so wonderful. this little family was baptized by the moms cousin, who was the one who introduced them to the church. He is a recent convert, and it was his first time doing a baptism. When the little girl got baptized, the mom just started crying, and when she got baptized, she came out of the water just crying, and hugged her cousin for a long time, and i could hear him saying to her your clean now! its a new start! It was beautiful.

I heard once that we have no right to ask why me in times of difficulties if we dont ask the same in times of blessing, and thats exactly how i feel. We did nothing except teach and invite them to be baptized, the lord and the members did the rest. it was a miracle, and i dont know what i did to deserve it, but i am so grateful i was able to be an instrument in the hands of the lord.

There is a woman in our ward who is Capo Verdian, she was baptized about 2 years ago and is wonderful, she would be more active but she had kidneys that didnt work so she had to do her own blood treatment at home for several hours everyday so being super active wasnt a huge option. but, all in the same week, she was able to get a kidney transplant after being on the waiting list forever, and her kids that she left in cape verde were finally able to get to portugal. all in the same week. it was a miracle. and so we went there on saturday and invited them to church. its a 17 year old named silvana and a 10 year old named silvi. unfortunately, silvi doesnt speak much portuguese, because in cape verde they basically only speak their own language called criolo and learn portuguses in school. the 17 year old had a baby less than a year ago that she had to leave in cape verde. oh that hurt my heart when i found out about that. so they came to church and it was awesome, and we brought the elderes to teach them that afternoon because one of our elders is cape verdian and translated. they are prepared for sure, we are just reaping.

we have been working with this girl named Neide. she is a neighbor with a recent convert who really changed a lot for the better after his baptism, and she decided she wants that for herself. she read every page we left with her, and asked for us to mark more things to read, she said she missed her book of mormon during the day, she was talking about doing a mission, she just didnt get baptized yet because she doesnt wanna mess up after her baptism, she doesnt want to do drugs or drink again. she is incredible, i love this girl. i made banana bread for her, and put it on a plate, and then we went to walk to her place to have a lesson. well, in those 30 minutes it takes to get to her house from where we live, it rained like never before. i literally had to wring my skirt out after we got to her house. i was just doing everthing i could to protect the banana bread haha. but i would love it if you could all pray for her. Neide (Nayd)

this week in church, the first lady i ever visited in this area, a big brazilian lady who was coming back to activity, was called to be the second counselor in the relief society. i just started bawling. she will be amazing, and it was just soooo good to see. i love these people so much. i cannot put into words how much i love these people. how much these people have changed me. i cannot imagine my life without meeting these people and seeing their example of conversion. this church is true. i know this. after sacrament meeting, one of the women in the ward came and found me in the bathroom and wanted to know why i was crying. oh it was so sweet, so i started crying all over again.

WHOS PUMPED FOR CONFERENCE WEEKEND!!!!!!! i will make the same invite im making to all our members and recent converts here, bring a question to conference, and bring a friend. so let it be written, so let it be done.

sister briggs