Super Powers

Dearest Family, Friends, and Fans,

LIFE IS SO GOOD. I wish that you could really just KNOW how good it is! In just 3 short weeks Oeiras is BOOOOOOOMING! Hello promised land. I feel like I´m in the spotlight of Portugal. Our zone, a zona de Oeiras, is one of the biggest and most productives zones in the whole mission. Not to mention the Oeiras stake is also one of the biggest and we´re in the Oeiras area of the Oeiras ward...let´s just say it´s an AWESOME place to be! The church is celebrating 40 years in Portugal this year and they´re doing this huge multi-stake celebrating in our chapel. It´s going to be amazing!!!

I don´t even know where to start with this week...like I said the area is just doing amazingly! We already have so many new investigators and people progressing and we have several people that are really close to baptism! (Stay tuned!) We FINALLY figured out the whole bus pass situation so we don´t have to walk as much and so we´re going to be even more effective! I LOVE working with Sister Hirschi, seriously Heavenly Father has been SO good to me in terms of my companions! Sister Blanco helped me so much with the language and it was really neat to start my mission of with someone with a lot of experience, Sister Brundage trained me more than I can ever say that I trained her, Sister Giberson was pure injustice that we were only companions for one transfer and she´s amazing, and Sister Hirschi is just spectacular! We have been going all over our area talking to EVERYONE and every night we just crash dead tired. It is SUCH a good feeling. It´s starting to get hot and so we white blondies have to carry sunscreen around like it´s our life. Everyone loves telling us how red we are which is a nice cultural touch haha :)

Calendars & Goals

We´re slowly getting our house and lives even more in order as well. This week we put up two calendars to track all of the people and our numbers here. It looks a little obsessive but it´s been really cool. Our district leader just got done from being an executive secretary with President and so he´s taught us a lot about looking at past numbers in order to make accurate goals and such. So since then we have started tracking almost everything on our calendars and white board...how many families we contact, how many other people we contact, how many lessons we have, how many new investigators, how many people said they´d go to church and how many actually came and how much we need to do to reach our area, district, and zone goals. Like I said, sounds a little obsessive but it´s been really cool to look at it! 

Getting our numbers up
and our house in order

The map ate me

 As for the title, I shall explain now. Guys, seriously I just feel at the peak of my mission yet I just want to keep going UP! I have so many goals to keep improving but overall I feel like I´m at such a good place in my mission! The language is going SO well (explain more about that later), I feel like I can really teach the people, we talk to so many people every day and we´re really getting some great work done! It´s amazing being a missionary, I feel like I really do have super powers! The Spirit just leads the way and helps us with everything! You feel so invincible because you know that you´re on the Lord´s errand. When I go up to talk to people I feel like there´s nothing they can say that can trip me up (not always true, but hey, Heavenly Father likes to keep me humble) and I just feel like Ammon (minus the arm cutting part). I want to just talk to everyone and tell them how good God really is and just BOAST, not about me but about HIM. He´s so good to us! He´s so good to His missionaries! He gets us through every day and leads our way and loves us SO MUCH. And lets not forget the best thing He did for us, that being that He sent His Son. This week when we were dying in the heat and I wanted to complain so badly I remembered a talk by Elder Eyring. He said something to the effect that when his body begs for rest, and when he thinks he´s finished a hard task he gives to himself this rallying cry- REMEMBER HIM. When I stop and I truly remember Him, NOTHING hurts, NOTHING bothers me, ALL I want to do is keep going!

Life is just good! Quick story about the language, this week I bore my testimony in sacrament meeting. After the meeting I had so many members come up to me freaking out about my Portuguese accent. They were all so excited about it and it really made my day! LIFE GOAL- REACHED. The gift of tongues is SO SO SO real!!! Like I said, Heavenly Father is so good to us missionaries!

But anyway, don´t forget to remember Him and I hope you all know I definitely remember you!!!!

Com muito amor e saudades,

Sister Swasey