Santarem 8/28/17

Elder Maloy and our lunch, PIZZA!!

Aloha Família!

Novamente (Again), sorry for not writing you guys last week but I’ll try make up for it this week. 

Week #1 in Santarém:

Talked to a super cool Brazilian lady on the train about the gospel and she was very interested, only she lives in Lisboa....pois...

Santarém is HOT!!! Fogo (Fire)! Bate 40 graos até (It’s about 40 degrees Celcius here, or 100 degrees farenheit)!

Found a cool Syrian family, another from Paraguay, and another from here but are Angolans! Very cool!

Pumpiro that I talked to you guys about (via picture last week), that’s only in Santarém, is good! Kinda heavy though so no can eat um all the time, haha.

Other info: Santarém is a branch in the Santarém district. The chapel is SUPER NICE but super far from our house (see picture from last week). Also interestingly enough they have priesthood and relief society first, then gospel doctrine and princípios do evangelho (gospel principles), and the sacrament meeting. It’s been a while since I’ve seen it like that. Was funny, we walked into church and the first thing we do is give a blessing to a member. Later I get pulled out of gospel principles by another member to go pick up this other family for church; but we end up getting back late so we missed the passing of the sacrament; but all good. We did our best. Just running all over the place, it’s the life pa.

Week #2 in Santarém:

This week was a gnarly one. Presidente Moreira (he’s the area 70 for Portugal and is filling in for Presidente Amorim as Presidente Amorim is in the USA renewing his green card) gave us some fire challenges that pushed us really hard. Definitely keeps us on our toes. Nothing better than a week of hard work. Sadly, we didn’t meet one of the four challenges this week which is super bummer, but we really did our best.

Hot but not as hot this week. Kinda chilly, actually, at night. Our water heater isn’t working though, so yeah, cold water showers, cheehee.

We had zone meeting this week and it went well! The presentations went smoothly, the zone enjoyed it and participated and I feel that everyone left uplifted and excited to do better than ever. Was one of the better zone meetings that I’ve helped put on. We talked a lot about faith and the power of helping our investigators recognize the Spirit, and preparing marks for baptism. I really enjoyed it! I re-realized while preparing for the meeting the enormous importance of making the Spirit the professor in the lesson, and also how according to our faith and God’s will, ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE! The only limits are the ones we put on ourselves! So take them off!

Elder Maloy had to go to Porto to do his residency stuff, so I stayed with Elder Teixeira guys in their area. He too funny, haha.

We were able to give an Arabic Book of Mormon to the Syrian family and the dad of the fam said he’d read it! I honestly don’t know how much of what we say gets across cuz the dad speaks like only Arabic, and we communicate thru his kids who know Portuguese mais ou menos (more or less), haha, so it’s always interesting, haha.

The Paraguayan family came to church! They had committed to come but didn’t show up initially, so we sent them a text just reminding them about church. Latter as sacrament was starting, they showed up! Was awesome! Super sweet!

I got sick for the first time this week. Friday, I wasn’t feeling good, and kept getting up to go lua during the night, never really sleep. Next day I had fever, chills and the runs. Was no fun!!! But we still had to meet the challenges! We worked in the morning, I rested in the afternoon and the night time we went out and worked again. Was slow, but we knew that God would provide a way for us to hang in there. Right at the end of the day we were able to teach this lady and her husband and complete the challenge! Tender mercy! God works according to our faith, and He ALWAYS does His part if we will do ours, which means doing our best and keep His commandments. No exceptions!

Jonah, stay strong over there ok? Make good friends, put God first, study hard my brotha! Kuʻilua, I love you bro! Fight the good fight, keep the faith! Email me if can. Mama, stay strong, I’ve been praying for you! Family, I love you guys! Tende uma boa semana! Ficai bem! (Have a good week! Stay Well!)

com amor,

Elder Kim

The sun always sets towards my home.......