Matosinhos: Still the promised land

Great week as usual!! LOTS AND LOTS of opening our mouths and now I feel like all of Matosinhos knows us and we know all of Matosinhos. It's fun! 

Last Sunday a member brought a friend to church and we marked an appointment with her and now she's marked for baptism!! Her name is Tatiana and she's 18! She's adorable and lives like 2 minutes from the capela so that's super convenient! She had some awesome questions and I know that the Gospel will really bless her life. We want to get to know her family this next week and get them in on all of these amazing blessings!! 

Last night, we went to go visit a reference, Maria de Lurdes, from a member. We get there and find Maria and her daughter. Maria is actually a less active member who had a stroke 5 years ago and it just got too hard to get to church. I think she just fell through the cracks of the ward. Her daughter is now 9 and when we asked them what they remembered about Joseph Smith, Leonore, the daughter, recited the whole story to us! She's so cute! Maria has read the whole Book of Mormon and loves the church. We're gonna get them back to church and help the whole family become one in the Gospel. I love them soo much just after 20 minutes in their house! I love working with less active members! They always have someone to bring back with them. 

ALSO, a little bit of a week of faca.. I read the talk by President Benson, "Beware of Pride." And man was my pride hurt.. But that's good. If ya'll haven't had to chance to read it, READ IT! Don't let your pride get in the way ;) 

Love ya'll!!
Sister Hillam

Last time with Sister Lyman :(

The blonde, red head, and brunette take on Porto's best ice cream

Six More Weeks in Matosinhos!!!

SIX MORE WEEKS WITH THE BEST REDHEAD COMP I'VE EVER HAD! 

This week was pretty crazy! In every city in Portugal, they have their own saint and they throw a giant party for them. Here in Matosinhos it's "Senhor de Matosinhos." In Viseu it was "São Mateus." And I just happen to always be in the right place at the right time. So, the giant party/fair is happening right outside the church building so we're having an Open House and every Friday night, we, with the members, contact people on the road and invite them inside the capela to have a tour! So for like 5 hours on Friday we were doing that and it was actually so much fun! We gave so many tours of the capela and a lot of people left with Books of Mormon! 

Also, there is this magical food here called fartura. It's literally just fried dough covered in powdered sugar and cinnamon. And we had at least one every day this past week. Maybe more. They're only .80 cents. Matosinhos is literally the best. 

We're still working with Mónica, Nuno, e Francisco but we're just having a little trouble getting them to church :( One day though!! We have faith!! 

Also, Manuela gets back this week!! She has scheduled for baptism a while ago but then she had to travel. WE MISS HER SO MUCH!!

Love you all!!
Sister Hillam

The biggest and best burgers ever!!

Elder Erhardt, right, finished his mission today. Now our favorite dupla of brazilians is no longer.

1. The biggest and best burgers ever
2. Dead gaivota
3. Elder Erhardt, right, finished his mission today. Now our favorite dupla of brazilians is no longer..

Sister Grillam and Strawberries

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!

Sister Griffin and I decided that we are now Sister Grillam because we're literally the same person and we're going to serve the rest of our missions together because it's just the best. We'll see if Presidente agrees next week because transfers are coming up!

Also, we ate strawberries with like every meal this week. We had:
Tuna fish sandwiches with strawberries
Cereal with strawberries
Yogurt with strawberries
Pancakes with strawberries in the batter with strawberries on top with strawberry jam
I don't remember the rest but we had a giant crate of strawberries we had to use. We'll be going through strawberry withdraws this week... 

Now on to more important things... 
Tuesday we had the most amazing district meeting that I've ever had. During district meeting, we read the letter that President Amorim sent us. It was about that new (in relative terms because I been out of the real world for a year now) movie about a soldier in WWII that wouldn't kill anyone but ended us saving so many people as a medic. The soldier, Desmond Doss, would save someone's life and then turn back to save others'. He would pray, "Senhor, dá me forças para salvar mais um. Mais um Senhor." (Lord, give me strength to save one more. One more Lord.) We talked about how we need to rely on the strength of the Lord to just help one more person. We were all really touched by that. I loved it. So now every time we find new people to teach (novos as we call them) we send a text to our district saying, "MAIS UM SENHOR!" Or mais dois, três, etc. It's amazing that as we rely on the Lord, miracles happen.

Speaking of miracles... Last night after skyping with our families, (which was great by the way) we went out to work, pois. We passed by some old investigators but no one was home. Then we contacted people and none of them lived in our area (tourist season!!). And then we went to contact some references the Elders had given us. On the way there, we missed the first bus, caught a later one, got stuck at the bridge that opens up to let boats through, went and tried some other people, who weren't home, and finally tried the last person, Conceição. We go to the address which turned out to be just a sewing store, which was closed. As we're looking around to see if we got the right address, a lady comes up and her daughter and we ask her if she is Conceição, and guess what, it was!! Then she takes us to her home and we teach her and her daughter, Joana. The Spirit was so strong! They're amazing! Joana is 20 and super sweet and after we left, we turn around to see Joana running after us. Apparently, I left my agenda there and both her and her mom were running around the streets of Leça to find us. They're the sweetest!! Anyways, moral of the story: So many things happened before us finding Conceição that made it so that we were in the right place at the right time. And MAIS DUAS SENHOR! 

I LOVE THE MISSION! Hitting my year mark last week was kinda super scary and it's just going to get scarier every day... But I can't wait so see all the miracles that will happen in the next 6 months! Here we go!

Love ya'll!!
Sister Hillam

Churros recheados com oreo e nutella

We liked the mirror at mini preço

"Amora de Deus" (blueberry of God)

Happy Portuguese Mothers' Day!!! 

So we have a new district leader! Elder Zanni! We used to have Elder Collins but Elder Zanni had knee problems in Madeira so he and Elder Collins switched places. Also, like the majority of our district has leg problems. Except I don't this time! Blessings!

Mónica e Francisco. They didn't come to church yesterday. We went to their house early in the morning to help them get ready but no one answered the door or the phone. UGH, it was so frustrating! So they can't get baptized on the 20th of May. But we'll keep working with them. We have an amazing lesson planned for tonight about the Atonement and why we need to keep the commandments. Everything is centered around the Atonement. We're super excited!! Also, we found out that Nuno and Mónica need to get married but they need to wait for Nuno to get divorced and that could take until the end of the summer. But they really do want to get married!! We asked them if they were married and Nuno just looked at us and said, "I keep on asking but she keeps on saying no!" They're cute. We love them. 

We had family home evening with them and talked about the armor of God. We made paper people with paper armor so the kids could have their own little soldiers. Sister Griffin and I were practicing the lesson and instead of saying "armadura de Deus" for armor of God she said "amora de Deus" which means blueberry of God. We had a good laugh about that one.                         
Yesterday we were sitting on a bench preparing for a lesson when three 16 year old boys pass by us, staring, of course... Then they turn around and yell, "És mesmo gira!" (You're really cute) and then in English "Give me your number!" We burst out laughing. If only we got this much attention back in the States... Quem me dera! Just kidding but man was it hilarious!

Also, the elders in our district started counting how many times I say "yeah." Apparently, it's a lot and I only speak Portuguese with them so yeah that's embarrassing. The goal for the week is to stop saying yeah.      

As we were preparing our lesson for Mónica e Nuno, we were studying a lot about the Atonement. I had never really understood it until then. I don't even know how to explain it but I am so incredibly grateful for my Savior. He suffered so much for us. For me. And He didn't have to. But He loves us so He did. And whenever we don't use the Atonement, we're showing Him that we don't care. That we don't love Him. He made it possible for us to repent and return to God. What a blessing!! I love my Savior. I know He lives! 

Love ya'll!!
Sister Hillam

Pics!                         

Our ward mission leader, Luis, and his wife, Daiane, think their baby girl, Elena, will look like us when she grows up. We bore our testimonies in sacrament meeting yesterday and they said they want her to grow up and serve a mission just like us. And get this: This couple was baptized only 4 years ago!!!

This was our Mothers' Day lunch from yesterday. And we redid it for breakfast today.

A million cats live above our investigator's house

I Have a Family Here on Earth....

I don't have much time BUT we went paintballing today as a district! It was sweet and I totally took a ball to the neck.. mas tudo bem! It was SO much fun! 

So the biggest thing that happened this week was....

MÓNICA E FRANCISCO
So that family that the elders gave us last week is AMAZING! The dad is Nuno and he is a less active. Mónica is the wife. Francisco is 8, Leonardo is 6, and Rodrigo is 3. THEY ARE AMAZING! I've never had lessons so spiritual with investigators until now. They really have a real desire to learn and follow Christ. They are marked to be baptized on the 20th of May. They, sadly, didn't come to church yesterday because the weather was so bad and Mónica had to walk with the three kids and a stroller for 30 minutes to get to the church. We visited them last night and talked about how important church is and we told her that we could have come helped her if we had known and she just said, "Oh! I didn't know!" She's so cute. Pray for them! They'll need to get married and stop smoking. They already stopped drinking coffee which is great! I LOVE THEM! My whole mission I've wanted to teach a family and now Heavenly Father has blessed us with this wonderful family to teach and bring into the Gospel. 

Another great thing that happened,...
Manuela! She's now marked for the 27th of May!! We asked her why she wanted to get baptized and she said, "Because I know it's right!" She's so elect!! I LOVE HER!

Now just some funny things:

I'm getting ready to leave and all I hear is Sister Griffin yelling, "I DROPPED THE WATER I DROPPED THE WATER!" I run into the kitchen and the water jug is on it's side on the table and there is water everywhere. I don't know how she manages it sometimes. 

We were contacting people on the way home and we contact this old man in a wheel chair and he ended up being really drunk and wanted us to hold the cap to his carton of wine and we told him that it's bad and he looked and me and said, "no. tea isn't bad." The carton totally said wine. Then later he told us it was juice. Then he drank the entire carton in a gulp. Then he told us we were pretty and that he'd married both of us at the same time if he could. That was flattering I guess. Maybe we'll find him when he's not drunk! That'd be great!

I love Matosinhos and the people here. I love the Gospel and the opportunity we have to change and become better every day!

Love ya'll!
Sister Hillam

Our well deserved ice cream 

Currently serving in one of the two sister areas by the beach #blessed

Matosinhos sunset

Paintball

Us after teaching Monica and Nuno