By small and simple things

Bom Dia Energia!!!

Olá tudo mundo!! I hope everyone is doing well and is excited for conference this weekend! I am so excited! We will be watching it in our church building with everyone in the branch and we have a few investigators that want to come so it will be a great weekend!

I don't have a ton of time but I will get the big updates in!! This was a crazy but wonderful week!

First off, this week we had zone meeting and interviews with President Amorim! Zone conference was great as always and we focused a lot on working with the members which Sister Smyth and I have been trying to do a lot more!  After that we had interviews which was really great! President Amorim is probably one of the best men I have ever met and had a lot of great advice for me, which was really nice! I even got a nice little Portuguese lesson. We started off the interview with a prayer and I may or may not have made a few errors but tudo bem! Who better to learn Portuguese from than your Brazilian mission president? 

Other great thing: Bruna came to church this week! It was so wonderful! She really enjoyed it! All of the members were super great at welcoming her and she had a great experience. We had a lesson with her last week and will hopefully have one or two this week! I love teaching her and love seeing the gospel touch her heart. It makes me so happy! 

We also have two other investigators named Cristina and Domingos. Cristina is Columbian and speaks Spanish but she is so great! How we understand each other I have no idea but the gift of tongues is real! She really believes in the church and is planning on coming to conference this weekend! Domingos is her boyfriend and he is really incredible. He really wants to find the true church and has been praying to know. We left them a chapter in the Book of Mormon to read and are going back later this week and I am excited to see how it goes!! 

All in all everything is wonderful in Portugal! Sister Smyth and I will sometimes stop and just say "We are in Portugal!! Portugal!" and then talk about how incredible it is that we are on the other side of the world, speaking Portuguese, and talking with everyone about the gospel. This truly is an incredible work and I am so grateful to be a part of it! 

I thought a lot this week about how through small and simple things, great things come to pass. I think this very much applies to our and our eternal progress. As much as we want to one day wake up and suddenly be perfect, that isn't how it works. It takes small changes, every day. But through those small changes, every day, we can become more like our Savior. It requires a lot of patience, and we won't even realize we are changing, but the more we try to be like Him, the more we will become like Him and the better we will know Him. 

Have a great week everyone! Enjoy conference! Love you all! 

Com amor,

Sister Morey

Bom Dia Energia!!!

Olá My Wonderful Family and Friends!! 

I hope you are all having a lovely week! This week was transfers and....you'd better believe that Smyth and Morey are sticking around for another transfer in Guimarães! We were both very pleased to see that and the transfer has gone off to a great start! In fact, this has been the best week of the mission so far! Want to know why? It has absolutely everything to do with Bruna. We knocked on her door a few weeks ago and ended up teaching a quick lesson about Heavenly Father and our relationship with Him. We left the Restoration pamphlet with her and went back this past Tuesday. Well it was absolutely incredible! We taught the Restoration and were inviting her to pray about it and she stopped us and said "What is this feeling in my heart? It is beating so quickly! I felt it last time you were here and every time I looked at the pamphlet!" As you can imagine Sister Smyth and I were just beaming as we told her that this was the Holy Ghost helping her know that the gospel is true. We went back again on Friday and when we asked if she had prayed she said "I know this church is true, I feel it in my heart!" And (it gets even better) She agreed to be baptized!!!! Oh it was absolutely incredible! I am so so excited for her! The Lord truly does prepare people to recieve the gospel and seeing the Holy Ghost touch their heart is a truly incredible experience. 

Our other investigators are doing well! We are teaching a family and their oldest son Ricardo (he's 16) has come to church twice and told us yesterday after church (without us even bringing it up) that he wants to be baptized! We are very excited for him and are trying to help his entire family come to church so that they can feel the same Spirit and excitement about the church that Ricardo feels. 

Other updates: 

A few weeks ago we had Mission Conference with Elder Zwick! It was such a great experience! It was so fun to get to see all of the missionaries, President and Sister Amorim, and see Elder Zwick again! (He spoke to my zone the second day at the MTC) It was a great reminder to me of the privilege it is to be serving a mission and the power that missionaries have. 

Another fun update: two weeks ago the elders had a baptism and asked us to make cookies for it (twist my arm to make cookies!) and all of the memebers loved them and are asking for the recipe. So don't worry, just because I am on a mission doesn't mean I have given up my love for baking :) 

Also, every third Sunday in our branch is "Missionary Sunday" and they have a few of the missionaries give talks. So who do you think gave a talk yesterday? That's right! Your's truly! I talked about prayer and how prayer is our opportunity to have a personal relationship with Heavenly Father. It went really well and overall it was one of my favorite sacrament meetings so far! 

Final update: Becaue I know you all want to know how the Portuguese is coming I will tell you my conversation with our investigator Lurdes at the ward picnic last week. Please note this conversation was in Portuguese.

Me: I love your shoes!

Lurdes: What?

Me: Your shoes! They're pretty!

Lurdes: Irmã, speak Portuguese to me. 

Me: .........

Lost in translation every day!!! 

I love you all and hope you are all having a great week! Thank you for all of you love and support! The church is true! I am so grateful to be serving here and so grateful for my opportunity to share the gospel!

Com amor, 

Sister Morey

Lord, to whom shall we go?

Well fam, this week was CRAZY!!! We had two divisions back to back!! Sister Smyth is Sister Training Leader and President decided this transfer that he wants the training leaders to do divisions with every companionship in the zone every transfer. So this week we had two! On Wednesday I went to Matosinhos with Sister Gouveia which was a lot of fun! Thenon Thursday, Sister Bastes was with me in Guimarães! That was an interesting day because both Sister Bastes and I are in our first transfer so we are both pretty new but thankfully she speaks Portuguese! We had a great time together! It was kind of scary being the one to get us to appointments and activities but thankfully I only got us lost once! Haha It was an insane two days! Both Sister Gouveia and Sister Bastes are from Brazil and neither of them speak any English which was quite an adventure. I was so nervous before hand but I was surprised at how much I knew! At the same time I realized just how much I need to learn. But that's okay! It was a great motivator for me to work hard at the language and learn all of the lessons in Portuguese. But I will say I was thrilled to be back with Sister Smyth! After divisions were over we just looked at each other and grinned and said "Backstreet is BACK!!!!" and had a great rest of the week together. We made cookies for some members (You know that made me happy!), practiced our musical number for the Mission Tour this week, and met some great people! 

Speaking of the Mission Tour, tomorrow Elder Zwick is coming for a mission conference! We are so excited! He actually came and spoke to my zone the first day in the MTC and was amazing so I am very excited to hear him speak again! Granted, he served in Brazil which means the conference will be in Portuguese, but tudo bem! It will be a blast Our district is singing "If the Savior Stood Beside Me" and we are hoping it goes well!

This week we had a lesson with a recent convert who was struggling with some doubts about prophets and other church doctrines. While we were teaching, I remembered one of my favorite scriptures in John 6:66-69. It talks about how Christ's disciples begin turning away from Him and so Christ asks His apostles "Will ye also go away?" And I love Peter's response. He says "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life." I love that so much! We all have doubts, we all have questions, but that doesn't mean we stop following the Savior because He has the words of eternal life. The gospel is a gospel of joy and a gospel of peace. It isn't easy to live, but it is worth every effort. There will be times we feel our testimonies are fragile and we are weak, but if we rely on the Savior, everything will work out. Our testimonies will be strengthened, and our faith in the gospel will grow. Every promise God has made will be fulfilled and we will be happier than we can possibly imagine. So ask your questions! But when you do, remember to continue to rely on Christ. Read the scriptures, pray, go to church, and in time we will find the answers to our questions. 

I love you all! Have a wondeful week! 

Com amor,

Sister Morey

Pictures:

Sister Smyth and I adventuring in the forest

A Portuguese parade yesterday!!