The road less traveled

Hello everyone! MERRY CHRISTMAS! (almost) not a lot happened this week, but I will tell you what did! Beginning of the week we set aside time to visit a member and one of our member's ex husband in the hospital. Both hospitals were a little far away and out of our area, so we got permission and headed over to the first one but we get there and no one knows where our friend is! Finally, someone tells us that she was already sent home. (she was in church yesterday too! She had back surgery twice and then she just comes walking into church!) the next day we head over to the other much bigger hospital. All we have is a little slip of paper with the guys name on it. Some kind people help us find out where to go, but then it turns out he had already gone home too! So we visit two hospitals to no avail 😂 

We did a lot of knocking doors this week and our zone had set a goal to do 600 contacts! In the end we did well over 600 as a zone! Woohoo! It was cool. Then Saturday morning we had our ward Christmas party which ended up taking 5 hours. Actually, 5 hours in it still wasn't done but we had to leave for an appointment, but a member's friend came and we are going to start reaching him so that was cool! 

The appointment we left for was supposed to be an hour and 45 minutes away according to Google maps. But the bus didn't come so we had to go take a metro and then wait for another bus. Then we sat on the bus for 50 minutes and then it said to walk for thirty so we get going, and we are walking through all of these random small cobblestone alleys in the dark following our map until we reach the end of the road and the start of a dirt path. This has happened to me before and last time the dirt path only lasted for a minute or two and was a nice shortcut, and the map said we only had 10 minutes of walking left in total, so we decided to give it a shot so we turn on our phone flashlights and start walking (it was raining too by the way) but we are walking for way more then two minutes until we come to the edge of a literal river. And the map says to cross. We were a little nervous at this point and so we decided to turn around and go back to a bigger better lit road. We called our district leader too to let someone know where we were. We then find the road again and start taking the longer but better lit road. Eventually, the person we had the appointment with calls is and asked where we are. We had told him we would be late when the bus didn't come at the beginning, but by then we were an hour and a half late. So he tells us to just stay where we are and he and his girlfriend will come pick us up in their car. So they pick us up and we have a nice meeting and then afterward they drive us to the train station. As you can imagine, that night we got home wet and tired and fell right into bed! 

Then on Sunday the family we had taught came to church! And he brought his mom along too! After church we decided to go even farther out than we had the day before to visit a member and his non-member family. He was with us so luckily we didn't get lost this time! It was raining like crazy so after the 1hr train ride he got a taxi. We had a nice meeting with him and his sister (she made us lunch!) he is so cool. He is a recent convert who was baptized in Lisboa and then he moved up here to Porto with his family. For a couple months he couldn't come to church because of work, but then he finally got his one day off to be Sunday! So he works hard throughout the week (apparently he gets home from work in the early morning and then has to go back at like 7!) and then Sunday he gets up even earlier to walk, take a train, and then a metro, then walk more, to get to church! And he brings his mom and sister. Then his sister told us that every night he makes them sit and read the book of Mormon with him and pray. (Though she admitted she usually fell asleep) and he is only 24!! He wants so badly for his family to be members too. At the end of our visit he prayed that they would one day be members with him. I was very impressed by his dedication, and he really set an example to me of someone who truly has a testimony and lives what he believes, even if he is alone. I want to be like him! We really want to help his family learn the gospel. 

It has been and will be hard because we have a lot of people we are working with right now which means a lot of appointments, and they live very far away, but we are going to do what we can.

Another of our friends came to church on Sunday. He only speaks English so I translated for him, and then Denzel (who speaks English) and another young member from France (who speaks English as well) took him under their wings and took him with them to the young adult Sunday school class and he loved it! We have a lot of hope for him that he will continue to progress and learn more about Christ. He already has a lot of faith.

We are still teaching P. She is really sweet, and we love talking to her and we have a lot of hope and faith that she will continue to progress. But right now she is at a bit of a standstill so if you could pray for her to feel the spirit and to decide to come to church that would be awesome! Thank you!

I know that Christ's church has been restored to the earth providing us with a place to practice what Christ taught and receive essential saving ordinances. I am so grateful for the knowledge I have of Christ and I hope that all can come to know who He is! Not in general, but who He is to them to them personally. We can truly know who Christ is when we stop saying "He is the Savior" and start saying "He is MY Savior."

I love you all! Read the book of Mormon! Go to church! Pray!

Love

Sister Hardy

Unfortunately, this is the only picture I have of this week. If I find more somewhere I will send them!