Email: December 11, 2017

Hey Family! 

This week was AWESOME!!! 

First of all.... Liliana was baptized! I felt and indescribable joy! I was an emotional wreck haha and after the baptism Liliana just comes up to me and says, " you did a good job...a REALLY good job." She was in tears the whole time. I felt like I understood just a little bit more about Heavenly Father´s plan. I was filled with so much love for everyone in that room and I wanted them by my side forever. I thought about how that has got to be what the Celestial Kingdom is like.  Lots of members showed up and the young adults sang a special song for her. It was absolutely beautiful! We had actually lots of investigators there too. One member brought a friend with her and I was talking with her. She said she wanted to have her son be baptized in this church and I told her she should be too. Then I invited her to be baptized next month and she accepted! We are planning to go start teaching her this week. Today Liliana sent us a text and asked if she could come with us to teach anyone tonight. We told her yes and then she invited other members to come too hahaha SHE IS AMAZING! 

We went out caroling this week and at least 3 people tried to offer us money. Wtih one lady we told her the best payment would just be to listen to a special message we have about Jesus. She let us in and we were able to teach her and her grandchildren and they are excited for us to come back! 

This next week should be killer (haha pun intended)!

Love you all!! 

Sister Hulsey 

I made cinnamon rolls for the baptism.

Email: November 27, 2017

Dear Peeps, 

WOW I COULDN´T STOP SMILING DURING YOUR EMAIL MOM!!!! I'm SO excited for Spencer and Kenzie! Also that Megan went through the temple, that´s just the most wonderful thing ever. and I'm so excited for Quincy too! We are such a blessed family. 

We had a lovely week! We have been pretty busy lately and we always seem to just be eating lunch on the go and such. But I feel blessed to have so many people to visit. 

Liliana is AMAZING!!!!! She is helping me appreciate the gospel so much. We taught her about tithing this week and when we went to explain the uses of tithing she goes "it´s logical, it´s to build temples and such!". We snuck a peak at her Book of Mormon and everything is highlighted and underlined with tons of notes. She was telling us how she cried when Lehi died because he was such a good man. Heavenly Father has truly blessed us to be able to participate in Liliana´s journey. She´s going to be baptized on the 9th of December! 

Our appointments fell through one day and we had a little over an hour left so we said a prayer and felt that we should go visit a menos ativa(less active). We got there and her whole family was home so we watched the Joseph Smith movie with them! It was special and then one of her sons came to church on Sunday! 

Also at church, we were sittin there and then 2 of our old investigators walked in. A few weeks ago she had told me that she doesn´t believe in God anymore, but I guess she came to her senses. We´re excited to go teach her this week. 

Viseu is adorable right now! They just put up all of the lights and stuff and it is magical. We have been singing and spreading Christmas cheer. I'm glad I get to work for Jesus this December! 

I read about when Alma was visited by an angel and the sorrow and joy that he felt. The spirit emphasized once again to me the importancia of Christ´s atonement. I love the Book of Mormon! 

Love you all! 

Love,

Sister Emma Hulsey

Email: November 20, 2017

Hey Fam! 

This week was wonderful! 

Monday Night: Taught this super cool Catholic family who loved our gratitude in our prayers. They invited us back to have dinner with them sometime! 

Tuesday: We had zone conference in Coimbra. We talked a lot about the doctrine of the Plan of Salvation and I learned a lot. I am so grateful for God´s plan for us! Then Tuesday night we taught Liliana about the gospel of Jesus Christ. She LOVED it. We LOVE her! 

Wednesday : We met with an online shopping addicted old lady in our ward to get some references. She was sweet and gave us lot´s of people that we could try to pass by. 

Thursday: We talked a long time with This guy named Wender. He´s Brazillian and he really was interested in the gospel! He was super open and said he would most definitely come to church. Then we taught Liliana again about the Word of Wisdom and law of chastity; she is already keeping these commandments!! 

Friday: We met with Dejara and challenged her again to pray about baptism. She is sweet and comes to church every week- just still kind of likes her Evangelical church. After that we knocked and knocked but no one really wanted to listen. 

Saturday. We had a festa de magusto! It´s a Portuguese party where basically you just sit around and eat chestnuts. Miriam and Liliana came and had a great time! 

Sunday: We had noite de panquecas at our ward mission leader´s house and other young adults came to help Liliana feel integrated. It was awesome and Liliana said the prayer and she prays better than I do. 

Haha that story about Maren is hilarious! Also I am still just so pumped for Megan. I have been telling everyone. 

I love you guys! God is SO good! 

Love,  

Sister Emma Hulsey

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

Email: November 13, 2017

Hey! 

CONGRATS MEGAN!!!!!!! I'm so so so excited for you to serve! 

This week was awesome. Being in a trio is kind of funny but I have to say we have some serious power. 

We had the coolest lesson of my whole mission this week. I KNOW that truly the Lord prepares people. We taught Liliana who is a friend of a member here. She has been going to institute with him for some time now and this week she asked to meet with us. We taught her the Plan of Salvation and the spirit was so strong. We invited her to be baptized and she started crying and said she was feeling something inside of her. She told us it was an honor to be invited to be baptized! She grabbed onto our little picture of the celestial kingdom and held it close to her heart. It was so special! That night she sent us a text thanking us and telling us she had been waiting for this her whole life. She is amazing! Liliana truly strengthened my testimony. She is an amazing example for me. 

Other than that it has been the same ol same ol. We saw a dead fox on the side of the road, poor thing. I love being a missionary and I love the Book of Mormon. 

I love you all too!

 Sister Emma Hulsey

Email: November 6, 2017

Olá Familia! 

This week was craaaay because we did a division and I had to go to Porto (again!) but even still I am amazed at the way the Lord has been blessing us! 

I was working with Sis Bastian on Wednesday and we had a bus to catch but still had a little time so we went and knocked some doors and we found this super nice Brazillian woman! She let us right in and the spirit was super strong as we taught her about the truths of the restored gospel. We had to go to Porto to do SEF (our residency) and also I had a dentist appointment because my tooth was hurtin' real bad. Let´s just say me at the dentist in Portugal is even funnier than me at the dentist in the states. I was super nervous and talked a lot to the dentist and Sister Bastian couldn´t stop laughing. In the end he had to take out an old filling and fix a cavity or something. anyways ..

We got back that night and had a little bit of time so we knocked doors again and found a cool couple. They had a lot of interesting questions but still listened to us and said we could come back! 

The next day we got to go visit Orácio and Joana who lived in the elders area but just moved to ours! (we are SO lucky) they really want to be baptized and are so nice! They just need to get married, stop smoking, and wake up for church! They set an alarm and everything this week but still didn´t wake up. We´re getting them next week though! 

I was studying in Jacob 5 this week. I really learned a lot about God´s love for us. There was a part that explained that he worked with the trees and stuff the whole time, even when they didn´t give good fruit. I know that through Jesus Christ, our errors and mistakes can be forgiven! I loved the example that the lord of the vineyard and the servants worked and worked to help all the trees! I'm excited for a new transfer to work and work. I will be serving in a trio, with Sister Bushman (again!) and Sister Bastian! 

Love you,  

Sister Hulsey 

ps congrats Adam for the beard! 

pps Megan I'm so flippin excited for you to get your call!!!!!! 

Viseu is beautiful! 

Email: October 29, 2017

Olá! 

The time just keeps passing! We had a busy week but it was great. We had to  prepare a lot of stuff for our Halloween party and in between all the preparations we visited our investigators and tried to find new ones, and also tried to help the members invite their friends to come to the party. We actually weren´t able to teach that many lessons this week because I guess we always showed up at just the wrong time, but we were able to teach our investigator Dejara and respond to her questions! We talked a lot about the Plan of Salvation. She had some questions that truly we didn´t know the answer, but we just testified that we know that God´s plan is perfect and that in the end we will be happy. She was super sweet and before we left we helped her with some English homework. We also taught Miriam about the Word of Wisdom this week and she was shocked that we don´t drink coffee. She said she will try living it so we will see how it goes! On Thursday this week we had to go to Porto again. We talked with President and Sister Amorim.  I sure love them! They´re so funny! On the bus ride back I talked the whole time with this very proud, very well educated Baptist preacher. I asked him a lot of questions and he was super nice. It started a conversation with like 4 other people on the bus too! I invited all of them to our Halloween party of course and in the end I challenged him to read the Book of Mormon and he challenged me to open my views. haha I really do love meeting so many people and sharing with them what I know to be true and what brings the most happiness.  On Saturday we had our Halloween party! It was a lot of fun. (didn´t run nearly as well as they used to back in Lindon Utah but still was good) Me and Sis J had 8 investigators there and some less actives. We made a ton of sugar cookies and frosting and everyone loved decorating them! We had the Relief Society do a soup competition and it was awesome! The Portuguese people make the best soup! 

This week I have been reading a lot in the Book of Mormon. Something that impressed me was the way that Jacob and Joseph were ready to answer for the sins of the people they were teaching. They held nothing back and gave their everything so that in the end they would be clean. I love the  Book of Mormon and know it is true! It has the answers for everything. Truly in the Book of Mormon we see great example of how people trusted in God´s plan. Sometimes things really didn´t turn out the way they had expected and it even took a second before things got better, but the Lord knows the things that we are capable of and the things we need to learn in order for us to be truly refined. 

Love you all! 

Love Sister Emma Hulsey

We found a Mexican restaurant

The ward halloween partay! 

The view from our chapel

I fell asleep on the bus

Email: October 23, 2013

Hey Fam! 

SO much happened this week! It was a blast and I saw the hand of the Lord many times. Last Monday we volunteered at this supplies gathering place to organize stuff for fire victims and it was incredible to see the way a community comes together! We brought our investigator with us too and she loved it. On Tuesday I had to go to Porto for leadership council, which was super inspiring! But on the way there our bus broke down so we got there a little late even though our bus left at 6 am. But we talked a lot about how we need to use the Book of Mormon more so on the bus ride back I sat by this jovem (youth) and we talked the whole time about the gospel and he was SO excited to read the Book of Mormon. I felt the spirit so strongly on that bus. The Book of Mormon has great power! On Wednesday we went out to a part of our area that was really badly affected by the fires to see if we could help and to bring hope and peace. Lots of people were still hard hearted but we found one lady whose house was burning but they saved it and she was so grateful. We gave her a BoM and she said "I love to read and I love Jesus, how much is this book??" On Thursday we had our zone meeting which I always get a little nervous to present things in Portuguese but it went well! Friday and Saturday were wonderful days full of finding awesome people to teach! We found these 2 old men painting a fence so we helped them for like an hour and they were shocked that girls can paint just as well as guys! They tried to pay us and hid money in my comp´s pocket but we gave it back. They were adorable and said they will definitely come by the church sometime. They also said that we now have grandpas in Portugal. 

Something that I love is that when people start going off about things in our church, the spirit enlightens my mind and literally everything in this gospel starts to make more and more sense. I am so grateful for the Book of Mormon that teaches us so clearly! I am grateful for Joseph Smith and our prophet today that leads and guides us. I know that we have a Savior and that God is a god of love! 

I love you all! 

Love, 

Sister Emma Hulsey

Our crew who volunteered to help with the fires! Safety first!

We found a lizard!

This is what the viseu looked like when the fires were bad.