Madeira!!!!!

São João de Madeira that is... Haha got ya :) So I'm in São João now with Sister Streadbeck! We're a little more south than Porto and part of my area touches the beach! We haven´t visited it yet but I saw a part from our area! It's so beautiful here AND warm again!! So it's pretty much the same as Madeira, right?

We moved houses again... My luck.. But our new house is super chicy and has a couch #blessed 

The members here are sooo amazing! They're all super old, apart from a few 20ish year olds. But they'll walk with us all day and help us even if we don't end up teaching anyone! One member, Vasco Almeida, walked with us all yesterday for about 6 hours in the heat, without water. And he's 75!! He's now my offical dictionary. I just point at things and he tells me the name of it. It's great!

We're going to be having a baptism on the 19th of November!!! Paulo!!! He has a super cool story. So a couple months ago, he was long distance dating a member in Utah and he started taking lessons from the missionaries. Turned out that his girlfriend got cancer and broke up with him because she didn't want him to join the church for her, but for himself. Then she passed away a little bit after. He got really depressed and stopped talking to the missionaries. Then this week, he decided to come back and he watched a member get baptized on Sunday and saw himself in the water getting baptized. He told us that he wanted to get all the lessons over again so that he really knew if this was the right decision. We taught him the first lesson and at the end, Sister Streadbeck said, ´Paulo, we have a special invite for you.´ And then I was about to invite him to be baptized and he said, 'I already know, I already know.' And he just laughed. Then I invited him and he said YES!! We're soo excited for him!!! 

Anyways, São João de Madeira is AMAZING!! We sometimes call it Saint John of Wood because that's it's translation in English. It's so great :)

Love you all!!
Sister Hillam

We were the coolest companionship ever!!!

The final pic of the Viseu District

And we are sometimes normal.......

Christ walked here....

And knocked this door!

Rua dos Missionários, Missionary Road

Choose the Right :)

Transfers are tomorrow!! We have absolutely no idea what will happen.. As usual.. But whatever happens will be what needs to happen!! 

So I don't have that much time but here's the best story from this week!

So were with a member going to teach this family, José and Inês. We got there to the appointment and they weren't there so we were kinda sad. We decided to stay there even though it's about a 30-45 minute walk back home and it was raining. But we felt like we needed to stay. So we went to a different family and they couldn't talk then. So then we called this other family that lived another 30 minutes away and the dad answered. He said that his family wasn't home yet but that they would be home in 30 minutes. We told him we'd walk over there. When we got there, we called and he said to come on in. He opened the door and we asked if his family was home. He said not yet but they should be home soon. We told him that we'd wait outside (we aren't allowed to but alone with a single man). He then got super super angry and ended up telling us that if we didn't go in now, the door would be shut forever. We were suck between a rock and a hard place. They're an amazing family but we wanted to be obedient. We finally decided to say no and he slammed the door in our face. We were so sad! I mentioned to Sister Pennock that there's a reason why it happened and that we weren't supposed to be teaching that family that night. So we decided to knock the first door we saw. We knocked. The door opened. They let us inside. They were a FAMILY. They told us to sit down and they all came and sat down with us. They listened, answered questions, they were PERFECT!! A mom, dad, 16 year old daughter, and 1 year old baby boy. PERFECT!! We walked out of the lesson shocked. I'm soo grateful for that experience!!! We'll be teaching them again this week! Lesson to be learned: Be obedient and you'll be blessed. There is always a blessing that comes with keeping the commandments. 

Love you all!! 
Sister Hillam

We took this picture about 30 minutes ago.. Oops.. Goal for this next transfer is to take more pictures :)

Saving Lives. Spiritually and Physically

This week was a blur!!! And next week will be transfers! Also I hit my 5 month mark on the mission last week and I'll hit my 4 month mark in Portugal this week!! How time flies!

So last night we went with an older couple, Augustinho and Natália, to teach this elderly lady, Laurinda. It was about 8pm when we got there and we went into Laurinda's house and she seemed a little off. Then we had a peak in the kitchen and I have never seen so much alcohol in my life!! She was so drunk. I felt so bad for her. The thing is that she wants to learn and change. We were there for about and hour helping her understand what we were teaching. She even said last night that she knew that she was killing her body by drinking. At a point, she was complaining about how old she is and she waid that she was 66. Augustinho said to Laurinda, 'Oh! You're only three years older than my wife! She's 63.' Then Natália looked and him and said, 'No. I'm 62.' Augustinho kind of just looked at her and then shrugged off that he was wrong but Sister Pennock and I could not stop laughing. I guess when you're with someone for how long they've been together, you kinda just forget little things like that. 

Last week we were teaching a lesson to this older couple outside their house and the husband was kinda just sleeping through everything we were saying but the wife just said that he's sick. Then by the end of the lesson, we tried asking him a question and he wouldn't respond. His wife started freaking out and pushing him to wake him up but nothing was working. Sister Pennock called the abulance and I had to try to wake him up. I've never seen someone so close to death before. It was super scary but eventually, we got him talking again. Great practice for nursing after the mission. We checked up on him a little later that week and he's a lot better. 

Also, random thing.. Apparently there have been murders in our area.. Yikes. They're about 1 1/2 hours away from where we are but ehh it's a little creepy!!

We met this amazing lady, Amélia, the other day. We contacted her outside her house. We visited a few days later and she is soo prepared!! She's older and lives alone. She wants to go to church and be baptized but she's afraid of what her family will think. They're all Jehovah Witnesses but she said that she doesn't like that church at all. She tried talking to her daughter and her daughter pretty much said that if she moves churches, then Amélia will no longer be her mother. When Amélia told us that, I just wanted to cry. We're going to try to talk to her daughter this week. 

President gave us a challenge this week to get one more new investigator (novo) that we had the week before. I had noo idea how we were going to do this but we had faith and we prayed so hard!! And in pretty much two days, we met our goal!! Miracles happen! It was definitly a answer to prayers. 

Heavenly Father definitly answers prayers. We've been calling all our members to pray for us and our investigators right before a lesson and Saturday nights to help them come to church. We've seen so many more miracles because of this! Members are the key to everything! They help so much with lessons and love the missionaries! I love the members here in Viseu!! 

Love you all!!
Sister Hillam

Random pic from today because we realized we hadn't taken pictures this week.

Really creepy looking picture from the elevator.....

We have matching 10£ boots!

This is our house!

We're kind of friends... (Quote from Sister Hillam)

Early morning running in the rain :) What has Sister Pennock done to me..?

Right Time, Right Place

Margarida got baptized yesterday!! President said that she could only get baptized yesterday if she walked to church and didn't have a ride because he wanted to make sure she understood the importance of church. And she still came! Of course she came! She was so nervous before the baptism but afterwards, she was so happy! And if she was happy, so were we!

We have a investigator that likes to give us herbs for herbal tea and she found out that we love this plant that smells like chocolate and mint, so she gave us this giant GIANT bag of it. When we told her that we couldn't accept it, she just said, ´It's just sticks!!!´ ...then we had to accept..

We asked President Amorim to come and give a training on missionary work with our members for church yesterday. IT WAS AMAZING!! He talked about how we need to have eyes of faith in everything that we do. He promised us that Viseu can become a stake if we all worked super hard! It totally could!!! He asked how many of us were under the age of 25 and Firmino, a member around the age of 50, raised his hand. He didn't really understand the question but kept his hand up anyway. President walked over to him and said, jokingly but with the giant, booming voice of his, ´Irmão, não mentimos nesta igreja!´ (Brother, we don't lie in this church!) Firmino just looked at him and pulled down his bottom eyelid with his finger. That is a Portuguese thing that means that both you and the person you're talking to know that you're lying. THE ROOM BURST OUT IN LAUGHTER. It was the greatest! I love the Portuguese people!!

This past week, I was taught once again of how the Spirit guides us in everything we do. We had walked about 30 minutes to an area that we usually didn't go to and just happened to be there when everyone in that town had mass. We definitely picked the wrong time to go there. Literally no one was at home and everyone that we saw that wasn't already at mass, was heading there. It was kind of sad to watch everyone walk into the church. After that, we found a lady at home and we tried to teach her a lesson but she wasn't really interested. Now that I'm looking back, everything that happened, happened for a purpose. After that lesson, we decided to walk another 20 minutes to a different town and while we were walking, we saw a lady throwing away her trash and felt like we should talk to her. Her name was Esther. We talked to her about how we know that families can we eternal and how important families are for us. We learned that 18 years ago, she lost her 10 year old son from cancer and because of this, she and her husband had lost their faith. She said, ´I was praying this morning for something different and new and then I met you girls. I know that God put me in your path and it's not a coincidence that I was throwing out my trash at this time today.' The Spirit was SO strong! She was so open to learn and we were able to testify that we KNOW that she will be able to meet her son again. We gave her a leaflet about the Plan of Salvation and then parted ways. At the beginning of our conversation with her, we had asked to visit her another day and she said no, but as we were walking away, we felt so strongly to go back and ask her for her address. She said that we could visit her again!! We past by the next day and gave her a Book of Mormon and found out that she had actually research a lot about our church and that she was actually interested! This experience really strengthened my testimony that as we follow the Spirit, we will always be put in the path of someone that needs us. There was a reason we walked to a town that we didn't usually got to. There was a reason that we went to that town during mass. There was a reason why that lady didn't really want us to teach her a lesson. There is a reason for everything. For each of us, there is a reason why we are here. There is someone who is waiting for each and every one of us to share the blessing that we have, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter if you're a missionary or a normal member. We can all make a difference. I invite all of you to think of someone you know and love and share them your testimony. I know that you will touch someone's heart and make a difference in their life.

I love you all!!
Sister Hillam

Margarida was baptized!!

I tried to be all artsy with my name tag and all but it didn't really work out too well.

How many cats are in this picture?

Enjoy this little clip from Marlie!  Her companion had permission to skype her family because of a marriage happening, so they sent a little message from Marlie to us!  It was the greatest surprise!

We Saw Samuel!!

Bom dia energia!!
This past week was AWESOME!! 

We've been really focusing on finding families this past transfer and at first, we had no outcomes but now... WE ARE TEACHING SO MANY FAMILIES! It's so amazing!!! 

So first, we have Luis and Marta. They have a little 3 year old daughter, Leonore. We showed up there for our appointment and Luis opened the door and let us in. He told us to go into the living room and he went and got his wife and daughter. We turn around a second later and they're all there. Marta and Leonore were wearing dresses and were adorable. They're a perfect family!! Our lesson was a little rough because we were so shocked at how perfect they were but I they felt the Spirit. It was AMAZING!

We also have José and Paula. They have two older kids. We went to their house with a member and it was cold outside so Paula just let us in. They were so interested in our message and our members went over last night to set up their computer to watch General Conference!! Go members!!

Then we have some other amazing families but I don't have much time to talk about them today. We have some appointments with them this week! yay!

We've still been teaching Margarida but she needs a little more time to prepare for baptism. She has a son, Samuel, that's about 14 years old and he literally just hides from us all the time. We've never actually saw him. That is until last week. We were talking to Margarida in the dining room and he thought we were someone else so he just walks in and starts talking and then goes white in the face and runs out of the room. We all just laughed and yelled, 'VIMOS SAMUEL! VIMOS SAMUEL!' (We saw Samuel!). He's such a cutie! 

Also, we were walking last night around 8pm to visit Bea and we contacted this lady and she got so mad at us and told us that we were going to get kidnaped and that we should go home. Very comforting thought.. But we know that the Lord will always protect us as long as we are obedient and follow the Spirit!

Also, General Conference was amazing!! We watched it in Portuguese so I didn't pick up every single word but the Spirit was so strong!! I love our Prophet and I know that he was called by God. 

Ahh it was such an amazing week and I can't wait to teach all the families!! 

Love you all!
Sister Hillam

We had divisions with the sisters from Coimbra last week! Sister Paulo (the one and only native Portuguese sister in the mission) and Sister Guerrero.

So there are these cats that live on the roof across from us and they're such a terrible distraction sometimes.. The white one fell the other day onto a balcony below where they were. I think someone is taking care of it now. 

Another beautiful view of the country side featuring a horse.

The lovely Sister Carter doing a handstand on the wall during lunch. It's okay, she's only in her second transfer :)

We found this family drying out corn on their next door neighbor's roof.. They use it for their chickens and pigs. They told us that they were killing a pig in a few days and I asked to help them but they really didn't want to talk to missionaries.. I was actually so excited to help!

We were about a 45 minute walk away from our house and had a beautiful view of Viseu. If you look closely between the two giant cathedrals, the little square in the middle is our cute little house!

5. Another beautiful view of the country side featuring a horse.