Howard, Keaton

Oi everyone! We had a good week. Not too many exciting things in terms of missionary work, just the good ol' normal stuff. We had lots of success doing some of the work on Facebook though. It's a good way to find lots of people really fast. Pday was really cool today. There's a town near Caldas called Óbidos, and it's this really old fortified town. We were able to get inside, and walk around the wall circling Óbidos. There were some parts of the walkway that got a little under 3ft wide, and about 40ft up off the ground, and there weren't any guard rails. So it got a bit sketchy sometimes. But it was totally worth it. The town was really well preserved, and so it felt like I walked straight into the 1400's. They even had little shops and restaurants all around the town. It was super cool. Scripture of the week: Alma 34:38 That ye contend no more against the Holy Ghost, but that ye receive it, and take upon you the name of Christ; that ye humble yourselves even t...

Olá gente! Not a whole ton happened this last week, but it was fun! On Friday, I had the opportunity to attend a baptism in Alverca, a town near Lisbon. My companion was teaching someone last transfer, and they asked him to perform the baptism. So I got to hang out with some of the people in the ward there, and it was super fun.  Pday was fun this week. Our whole district got together, and we went around town. We also went bowling, finally. Turns out, after about 6-7 months without bowling, you lose every ounce of skill you had. It's not fun getting the lowest score out of everyone, haha. This last week, I read about the abrahamic covenant. In what I read, it talked about how Abraham was a very righteous man, and followed all of God's commandments. Because of his righteousness, God made a covenant with him that his posterity would be numberless, and that all his descendants would receive many blessings. But what about those that aren't part of his bloodline? Would they rece...

Olá! This last week was transfers, and I ended up getting a new companion. My other companion ended up finally getting to got to Angola. I will stay in Caldas for one more transfer too. My new companion is from South Africa, which is awesome. It'll be a fun transfer. This transfer, we have the opportunity to take a car some mornings to some of the other towns in our area, like Nazaré, and São Martinho do Porto. Our area is really big, but we never had a chance to use the car to go do work anywhere else than Caldas. So it's been really cool to go explore some of the different places, and to meet and share the gospel with new people. There was a devotional this last week that we had a chance to go listen to in Lisbon by Brother Erekson. He's a church historian, so we learned a lot of cool things about the church, and had some good discussions about some questions and other topics. He served in Brasil on his mission, so we also got to hear him speak in Portuguese which was sup...

Olá everyone! This last half of a week since my last email was great. Since my companion is leaving for Angola, lots of the members in our branch had us over for lunch and dinner. I don't think I've had more food in a whole week. It was crazy. For pday this week, we got to go back to Lisbon for transfers so we could drop my companion off at the airport. We got to go to the Colombo mall, which is one of the biggest malls in Portugal. Apparently Toys R Us still exists here, so that was fun to see. We also got to go to a store called the Liberty store, and they have a ton of american foods and drinks, so that was fun to buy some food there we don't have, like Mike and Ikes, and root beer. We decided to do some more sightseeing in Lisbon, so we went to the Praça do Comércio, a big square in the city with a cool gate and status and stuff Inside. We also went to the Igreja do Carmo, a really old cathedral that had a huge part of its roof collapse in the earthquake of 1755. There ...

Olá everyone! We had a pretty good last week and a half. The time between Christmas and new years was a bit slow, because lots of people were out of town, or celebrating with family. But we were able to get stuff done, so that was good. New years eve was fun for us too. The fireworks going crazy all over, and people screaming out their doors and windows in Portuguese was a fun thing to see. One of the things we do as missionaries here is teach English classes to whoever is interested. We posted a flyer in a local group, and we had tons of people come this week as well as last week. We were able to have 10 new friends to teach, and it's a blast. Teaching English is interesting too. It makes me realize how crazy parts of it are.  This p-day, we were able to go through the temple and do some ordinances. As always, the temple trips during the transfer are the best. The Spirit is always strong there. After we were all done, we headed to a mall in Lisbon, and we hung out there for a whil...