Email: June 26, 2017

Ola Familia! 

Thanks for the letter. I didn´t even remember that all those people are pregnant and going to have babies soon. That´s exciting! Glad your week went well! 

This week started off great. We did this huge like conference skype thing with all the districts in the mission and President gave us counsel and stuff. Something he explained is that we need to pray more. He talked about the way Christ prayed in the scriptures. I have been thinking about that as I have been reading in 3rd Nephi. Christ has so much love for us and the Father, and truly he is our way to the Father. Anyways, President said whenever we are feeling sad, lonely, or anything that we need to pray and ask Heavenly Father for comfort, and I promise, it works! 

We have been teaching Ana a lot, and she is progressing nicely. She loves church and stuff but just says she isn´t ready to be baptized. Also she doesn´t want to pay tithing but we are working with her and I know here soon enough she will be baptized. Her kids are so darn cute too and I just want to pick them up all the time. But I don´t. haha The branch has been really good to her and help her out in church and everything. 

We got to do service this week. We helped Lurdes prepare her carnival truck. We dusted all the lamps they put up. We are kind of sad though because she is leaving for the summer to do her carnival thing. We love Lurdes! 

Here in Portugal this week has been a big party! Everyone has been celebrating Dia do Sao Joao so they have this fair thing in the center so one night we went there and contacted tons of people. And got hit in the head with plastic hammers because apparently that is the tradition here ! Then on Saturday we had a church activity that was super fun! We had a Festa de Sao Joao where we ate sardines and rice and had karoke. We were able to get 16 investigators there! Our branch president was super happy and the members were too. We talked about John the Baptist and sang the baptism song. I kept wanting to say " in the river Jesus floats" (because of the way little Caleb used to sing it!). It was super fun and I absolutely LOVE this branch and this area and our investigators! Aldina even came to this activity and a member showed her around the church and she loved it! She said it is super different from what she thought (of course, we aren´t Catholic or Jehova´s Witness ). 

I cannot believe a year has already gone by and that I only have so little time left. I love being a missionary. I love my Savior and my Heavenly Father. I love the scriptures. This week I have been reading a lot in the Bible and I love the example the apostles set for us. They preached fearlessly about Christ. 

Love you all and hope you have a fabulous week! 

Sister Emma Hulsey