Spoon-fed Chocolate

Olá everyone!!


Hope you all are doing well. Sorry for missing last week's email, it totally flew over my head. These last two weeks were pretty crazy. Transfers happened last friday. Our last week of the transfer was fine. Nothing too special. We have a tradition here in Chaves, that on one of the last days of the transfer, we go to an old Roman dam and have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch as we reflect on the whole transfer. It was super cool. Super calm. So that was cool. Another tradition we have, which is a whole mission one, is to open kinder surprise eggs to predict what will happen the next transfer. I ended up getting a goat, and so I was pumped about that. When we found out about transfers a couple of days later, I found out I actually was getting the Goat as a comp. I literally couldn't have been more pumped than I was when I found out. His name is Elder On, and he is really cool. It's gonna be a great transfer.


During transfers, I stayed in a town called Guimarães, which happens to be the "birthplace" of Portugal. I was there so we could do a little rendezvous and pick up and leave new comps. Anyway, Guimarães was super cool. It has a ton of history, and so there were a ton of cool buildings, cathedrals, castles, and other structures there. I don't know if I have ever been more amazed by the scenery anywhere else in Portugal. So that was cool to be able to be there for a bit of a day, especially since I got two member meals out of it. In one of them, the Irmã made a dessert with ice cream and chocolate syrup. There was extra syrup after, and she asked who wanted to finish it off, and the other elders pointed immediately at me for some reason. I don't even like chocolate that much, but she came over with the bowl and started spoon feeding me the rest of it. It was pretty funny. She was super cool.


Later, we arrived back in Chaves with Elder On and got all settled. He is a machine, and we were able to have some really good and some really funny conversations with people on the street. He has no fear and loves to talk and joke with whoever he meets, which is fun to watch. So it had been a good past few days.


For pday today, we walked around Vila Real a bunch. We found a cool trail that follows along the side of the huge valley here, so that was fun to walk. We hung out at the mall for a bit and went around to a few other places. It was a pretty chill pday, but it was super fun.


One of the scriptures that caught my eye while studying this week was Alma 37: 37. It's a doctrinal mastery one, but there's a good reason for it. It puts making prayers into a habit in a really good way. It says, "Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day."


Hope you guys are doing well!!


Até logo!


Elder Howard


Pictures
- Trail in the valley
- Castles and other buildings in Guimarães 
- PB&J on the dam
- We found an officer here that is legitimately named Elder, so we took a picture with him. He was super funny






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