Cross Country Ice Cream Run

Olá a todos! Tudo bem?


This week was probably the craziest, but most fun one I have had in a while. The mission zone conferences have started, so as the office tech elders we go to all of them to take pictures, videos, and we also give a training at each one.


This past week we had zone conferences in both Porto and Coimbra, which are both north of Lisbon. I got to drive all the way up to Porto which was fun, but it was a bit weird at first since that was my first time driving in over a year. It went well though, and we got up to Porto just fine. It was so cool to see all the stuff up there. There are lots of awesome things to see up there since the north is an older part of Portugal. 


After the Porto zone conference, we went up to a little town on the border of Spain called Chaves. It's a super old Roman town. We got to film a video there with the elders that were serving there. We got to go and see a castle and an old Roman bridge that was built when all the apostles were still alive, which was insanely cool. It still had lots of the original Latin engravings on it. 


After we were done in Chaves, we headed down to Coimbra for that zone conference. I got to meet up with some friends and old companions which was awesome. After that conference ended, we went to go get some gelato from the apparently best gelataria in all of Portugal. And it definitely earned that spot. Heres the craziest part of the week. So we promised to bring back some of that gelato to the missionaries in our district, so we had to find a way to get it back without it melting. We weren't able to find any coolers, so we just got a box, and lots of ice. The guy working there was a homie and put the gelato in insulated containers, and he also blasted it in the -40⁰ freezer they have. We then drove it back all the way across the country to Lisbon. To our amazement, it did not melt a single bit. It didn't even soften at all. So that whole thing was just amazing.


For our pday today, we went to a ward picnic over in Cascais, which is a really cool coastal town. We walked around a bit and then went and got one of the best burgers I've ever had. The shakes were really good too. 


Quick spiritual thought: One of the things that stood out to me at the Coimbra zone conference was something an elder pointed out in his departing testimony. He said that one of the biggest things he'd learned on the mission, is that the most important thing in serving a good mission, or living a good life is to have love and charity a dominant part of everything you do. They are in fact part of the two greatest commandments to love God with all your heart and also  your neighbors. So I invite all of you guys to try and grow those attributes in your life, and even if it is just a little bit, I promise that it will change your life, and you will be blessed for it.


Hope you all have a great week!


Elder Howard 




I have a lot more pictures than I can put here since I've been going around with a camera now, so if you would like to see all that, I'll be putting a lot of those in the Google photos album I linked above.


- Burger from Cascais 
- A cool rock bridge in Chaves
- Cool building in Cascais 
- Old Roman bridge and the cool Latin inscriptions
- Doppos Gelato
- Sunset 






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