tylerdouglasporter.com

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is not a celebrated holiday over here in Portugal, so we will try to celebrate in our own special way. However, we have started listening to Christmas music. I can’t believe it is already this time of year again!

Transfer news- I will be staying in Sacavém for a 5th transfer. Meaning I will be in Lisbon for the entire calendar year of 2011. Also meaning I have been in the office, and have had a car for the entire calendar year of 2011. And I will have only served in 2 areas for the entire calendar year of 2011. Crazy stuff. Elder Crowther is finishing his mission today. Our new companion is named Elder Phillips, he is from England. Our companionship is now Rodrigues, Phillips, and I. Supposedly we will be training a new missionary as well. We don’t know who yet though. So our companionship has an American, a Brit, and a Brazilian. We are quite the mixture. Elder Phillips is a cool kid though, and we will have a lot of fun.

This week we baptized a lady named Angela. She is super awesome! She was so excited for her baptism. She is a mother of 3 kids (who we plan to also baptize in the near future). She has been going through a lot of problems in her life as of lately, including with her oldest daughter who just went through surgery because she is slowly going blind, due to a tumor in her head. She is an awesome lady though, and is always smiling and laughing. She was super happy yesterday.

Edimilson wasn’t baptized and neither was Cintia. Edimilson… we aren’t really sure about. He was good to go, and excited to be baptized. He left for his Aunts house on Friday… and kind of disappeared. His mom was/is super worried about him. Nobody could get a hold of him, and nobody was sure what was going on. His mom took a train out there yesterday… and wasn’t able to find him. Maybe he came home last night, we are sure hoping so. We tried to call over to his mom a few times last night, but she didn’t answer. We aren’t sure what is going on exactly, we just hope he is alright.

Cintia on the other hand is a different story. She came to church yesterday, and she even came to the baptism. She just isn’t completely ready to live the commandments yet. It was our fault that we were unable to help her clear all of her doubts. We are working worth her this week, and hope to baptize her this weekend.

So far we have 5 people marked for this upcoming week. They are: Diogo, Martin, Catia, Liliana, and Anicia. We have plans to mark quite a few more people as well. They all came to church yesterday, and they all really liked it! We actually had 13 investigators in church yesterday, so it was a good day. This week is transfer week though, so it means we have a lot of work ahead. All that work, as well as strengthening all these people is going to result in a hectic week. We really need all of your prayers!

Things have been going really well though! We have been finding some awesome people. I love this work, and I love these people. I hope everyone at home is doing well. I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving, and that you all get fat from eating lots of food. I love and miss you all! I would love to hear from some of you every once in a while as well. Don’t forget about me! And for those who have not forgotten about me… thank you :)

Elder Porter

I’m pretty short on time this week. I wish I could write more… but time is pretty limited.

This week we baptized a man named Ezekiel. He is super awesome. He is in his 50′s, and he is a gypsy. When we marked him for baptism on Monday, he about jumped out of his seat with joy. He was super excited for the opportunity to be baptized. The baptism was great, and he was super happy afterwards. It was an awesome experience for us!

We had a good week, and we have found some really good people. This week will be awesome as well! We have 2 people marked for baptism so far. There names are Edimilson, and Cintia. Keep them in your prayers! This week the mission broke the weekly record, and we baptized 36 people in the mission this week. It was awesome! We are hoping to do even better this week! We want to break 40!

Things here are going well. I am doing great. Time is flying by as always, so we better make the best of it. I love you all!

Elder Porter

I feel like the months are passing by way too quickly. Are there less days in a month than there used to be? It sure feels like it!

November is here. The weather is cooling off, that’s for sure. It has been raining a lot as well. There have been a lot of car accidents lately, due to the rain and the lack of driving skills that exists here. I actually had a lady rear end me a couple weeks back. Luckily, it caused no damage. If it would have, it would have been a real hassle. I was more worried about missing our lesson, than I was about the fact that the lady had run in to our car. Luckily our car is a tank, and received no battle wound. What a trooper.

Life has been moving along quite well as of lately! We had quite a few blessings poured upon us this week. We found more new investigators this week, than I have any other week in my mission. We have found some really awesome people lately! We were also able to baptize 3 people this week, which was really cool!

We baptized Mila on Saturday. Mila is Mario and Jussara’s sister. She was marked to be baptized the same day as them, but the baptism fell through because she didn’t want to stop going to her other church. She was super confused, and not really sure what to do. A few weeks passed by, and nothing really happened with her… and she didn’t really want to talk to us about baptism or anything anymore. But the other night Elder Rodrigues and I went by there, to “drop” her. Or in other words, to explain to her why we were going to stop teaching her. It’s something that we have to do when someone is not progressing. We were part way into the conversation, when she said, “Elders when can I be baptized? Can I be baptized this Sunday? Wait no, this Saturday!” Elder Rodrigues and I just looked at each other with surprised looks, not expecting that whatsoever. We prayed with her, to see when Heavenly Father wanted to her to be baptized… and we all felt good about Saturday. She was baptized on Saturday, and confirmed on Sunday! What an awesome blessing!

We baptized a guy named João Felipe yesterday. He had just moved from Cape Verde a little more than a week back. He is family with some of our members, and came to church last Sunday. We set up a lesson for the following day, and we went and taught him. He told us how he had been marked to be baptized twice in Cape Verde, but it never ended up happening because of some random reasons. We prayed with him, and felt good about his baptism. He told us he would be going out of town this weekend, so we marked the baptism for the 12th of November. Well we found out on Friday, that he did not end up going to Braga like he said he was going to. Elder Crowther and I went and taught him on Saturday, and we had a very spiritual lesson. We prayed with him, and we all felt that he needed to be baptized the next day, Sunday. João was indeed baptized yesterday. Another awesome blessing!

On Monday we also had an awesome lesson with Flora. We taught her with Leandra, one of our recent converts. We talked about the doubts that she had, and the Spirit was really strong. We marked her for Sunday, and this time we made sure we did everything the way that Heavenly Father wanted us to… and she was also baptized yesterday! We were super happy for her. And we are glad that we did things the right way this time!

So, it was a pretty awesome week for us!

It’s so nice to have Heavenly Father on your side. What a difference it truly makes in the work! Thanks for all your extra prayers this week, they really payed off apparently!

I hope everyone is doing well! Things here are going great! I love you all!

Elder Porter

TRICK OR TREAT!

How is everything back at home? I hope everything is going well. I hear the weather is getting a bit crazy! The weather here is fine, a little bit cold at times… but nothing too bad.

So this week, we were not able to baptize. We had two baptisms fall through. We had one lady marked named Isabel. She was completely against the commandments though. She wanted to be baptized, but did not want to live any of the commandments. And as you know… it doesn’t really work that way. She started running away from us, and avoiding us afterwards. It was our fault, we failed to help her feel the importance of living them. We were able to mark Flora to be baptized this weekend as well. Flora is the daughter/sister of two of our recent converts, Rosa and Debora. Everything was good to go with her, she was super excited, she was interviewed on Saturday night, and everything seemed good to go for yesterday. When we got there yesterday, she broke the news that she did not want to go to church. She was completely against it. She then started talking about how she wasn’t feeling ready to be baptized anymore. She said she was tired. She said she was sick. She came up with just about every excuse in the book. We stayed there for 2 hours trying to get her to church. She prayed about. Read a few scriptures that we left her. But… in the end Satan won the battle. She didn’t come to church, and she did not end up coming to church yesterday. We messed up on our part, and we payed the price for it.

Now you may think that I’m sad, because we did not baptize this week. And you are right about that. I’m sad that we were unable to help Isabel and Flora. We should have done a better job at helping them feel the Spirit. However, I’m not as sad as you would think. I think it was what we needed. We were becoming too dependent on our own selves, and forgetting about how much we need the Lord in this work. We thought we were hot stuff baptizing every single week… but truth be told, we are weak. Our gratefulness went down, and therefore so did our blessings. Funny how that works, isn’t it? Kind of like the pride cycle. We learn from our mistakes. Instead of being sad, we take it as a learning experience and better yourself because of it. And that’s exactly what we are going to do. President Torgan always tells us to stay sad for 20 seconds, and then pick yourself back up and get going. We just need to trust in the Lord, and be more humble. This is His work… not ours.

We have one person marked for this week. Her name is Lidia. Pray for her! She needs all the help she can get!

We have a lot more people that we plan on marking for this week as well. All the prayers we can get would be extremely helpful.

As for our week, that’s about it. It was a war. And unfortunately, we did not come out on top this week. But believe me, it’s not over. The war continues.

I hope everyone is doing awesome! Things here are going well. Keep us in your prayers.

I hope everyone has a great Halloween and eats a lot of candy. Some people here “celebrate” Halloween… but it’s definitely not like the States. Be grateful for what you have. Learn to thank God for all that He has given you. Don’t get too confident in your own self. We are weak. We know little. But we have a loving Heavenly Father who helps us out so much. Even when we barely deserve it. What a wonderful life we have.

I love you all,

Elder Porter

This week was a war!

First off, Elder Crowther and I were out of the area for 3 days. We had zone conference in Porto on Tuesday, Braga the second day, and Coimbra the third day. It was good, and we were able to do divisions with the zone leaders in each of the areas. The north is super beautiful. It’s much different than Lisbon. I really like it. But I love Lisbon as well. Elder Rodrigues and Elder Aguilar stayed in the area working.

Unfortunately, we were not able to get permission from Ruben’s dad to get him baptized this week. His dad is in Angola (a country in Africa). However, we did call him and talk to him on the phone… and it looks bright for this week. We are praying a lot that it will work out. We were able to mark Mila this week as well. She is Jussara, and Mario’s sister (we baptized them last week). However, she did not end up being baptized… she is too scared to leave the Catholic church. One of these days she will build up the courage, but as for now that is where we stand with her. We were able to mark Leandra as well. Everything was good for her baptism yesterday. She had the baptismal interview, she was excited, and super good to go. She came to church with us yesterday morning, and right after church she kept saying she no longer wanted to be baptized. She was super scared. I think reality hit her when they announced her name in church. Elder Crowther and Elder Rodrigues went over there right after church, to work things out with her. They talked to her for a good hour, but she just flat out refused. She was determined that she would not be getting baptized this week. They left, and told her to pray and ask Heavenly Father what she needed to do. We met up after they, left her home and we talked about what was going on (Elder Aguilar and I were a little confused about what was happening). Elder Aguilar and I decided to go over there and see if we could help her out. We got there, and she told us that she had decided she didn’t want to be baptized this week- because of some personal reasons. We talked to her, and just helped her feel a lot more comfortable. It was obvious that she was just scared. We bore our testimonies, shared our life stories, and helped her realized how much she needed to be baptized. The Spirit was super strong. She felt a lot better, and after quite the war, she decided she was going to be baptized that day. We were super excited! We ate lunch with her… and at 7 PM, yesterday, she was baptized! She is super awesome, and we were super excited for her! She is 21 years old, and from Angola. She’s a ton of fun. She is going to be a great member. We were super grateful for the help that we received from Heavenly Father. What a blessing it was. So, we didn’t completely when the war (with 2 baptisms falling through), but we extremely blessed with Leandra. It made up for it.

This week we only have one person marked so far, as well. Her name is Isabel. She is Djalma’s mom (we baptized him last week as well). She is excited for baptism, but has a very rough life situation. She needs a lot of help, and a lot of prayers. She is an awesome woman.

Things have been really awesome here in Sacavém. We will have another week full of conferences and meetings starting tomorrow. It can be a lot of work, but you truly come to love all the missionaries in the mission. It is pretty cool. It has started to cool off here in Portugal. It is finally starting to feel like winter is coming. I was wondering if it would ever start cooling off!

All the power was off in our chapel yesterday, so we only had sacrament meeting. Which kind of sucked, because a few of our investigators were planning on coming to sacrament meeting only, but because of the power outage they just did sacrament meeting at 10, when it usually starts at 11:30. So a few people were not able to attend because of it. Elder Aguilar gave his first talk here in Portugal, without light and no working pulpit. His Portuguese is getting better, but it is still mostly Spanish, haha. On the way home from Porto, Elder Crowther and I saw the craziest car wreck ever. The guard rail and gone through the driver side/passenger side window. There was like a tree thing in the middle of the highway (I have no clue where the tree came from). The car was completely mangled up. It had happened minutes before we passed by. I think someone died, and someone was in the process of dying as we drove by. It was kind of a disturbing site, as they were holding the man in their arms. There were parts of his body that were missing. I think it kind of shocked us for a few minutes. It made me realize how life can come to end at any moment. Make the most out of it. That’s all I have to say.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOMORROW SYDNEY! Don’t forget to wish my sister, Sydney, happy birthday tomorrow. She is turning the big 2-0. Man, I can’t believe you are already turning 20.

I hope all is well back at home. Love you all!

Elder Porter

Hello, all.

Things have been going rather well over here in Portugal. This week was a great week! First off, we have one more companion now. His name is Elder Aguilar, and he is from Paraguay. He doesn’t speak much Portuguese yet, nor does he speak English. He speaks a Spanish Portuguese mix… which mostly consists of Spanish. Luckily, we can usually figure out what he is trying to say. He is a good kid though. So that makes 4 of us in little ol’ Sacavém. Elder Crowther, Rodrigues, Augilar, and I. It’s nice to have 4 elders working in our area though. We travel quite frequently with President and Irmã Torgan, so usually just 2 of us travel while the other 2 stay in our area and work. Usually Elder Crowther and I work together, and Elder Rodrigues and Elder Aguilar work together. Elder Rodrigues is Elder Aguilar’s trainer, technically. But we do division between us, so that we can get to know the investigators that they find and they can get to know the ones that we find. It all works out in the end.

This week we baptized 4 people! It was great! We baptized Jussara, Mário, Dulce, and Djalma. Two of the baptisms that were marked, Mila and Leandra, fell through. So keep those two in your prayers if you will. As long with the 4 that were baptized this week. Jussara and Mário are brother and sister. Dulce is the friend of Mario and Jussara. And Djalma we found knocking doors one day. They were all super super excited to be baptized. I was able to baptize Dulce. She has a fear of water, so we had to try 3 times before she allowed herself to be completely submerged in the water. Baptisms are awesome! It such a great feeling to see all these people changing their lives. I’ve never felt so happy in my life! Heavenly Father is so amazing.

This week we had stake conference here in Lisbon. The temple president, President Moore, from the Madrid Spain Temple came to speak with us. It was really good. He gave his talk in Spanish though. A lot of the natives didn’t understand much of it. I understood most of it though. Of course, there are some words that I didn’t understand, but I understood what he was talking about. Portuguese and Spanish are very similar. I think if I were to try to speak Spanish though, it would mostly be Portuguese with a wannabe Spanish accent ha-ha. I think it would be quite hard to get the Portuguese out of my head, since the two are so similar. But cool that I am able to understand it.

We have just one person marked for baptism this weekend. His name is Ruben. We have plans to mark a lot more though, so we need your extra prayers! They seem to be working every week. I’m very grateful for all of you who do take the time to include us and the people we are teaching in your prayers; Heavenly Father is truly hearing our voices. I could never thank you enough! The blessings are being poured upon us. Thank you so much!

This week we will be traveling a lot. We have 2 conferences in Porto, and a conference in Coimbra. So, we will be keeping busy… as always. I’m happy, and I’m doing well. The weather would not allow you to believe that it is mid-October here. I can hardly believe it. It has been in the low 80′s and it has been quite enjoyable. I’m thinking winter has decided to skip over us this year :)

We have been finding a lot of awesome people in our area as of lately. We found this one awesome neighborhood a couple weeks back, and things are starting to explode there. It is starting to have a Quinta do Mocho effect. Quinta do Mocho is the neighborhood where we have baptized over 40 people since I have come here. There isn’t a single person who doesn’t know who we are there. It’s awesome. And they all know that we are there to baptize. We are hoping this neighborhood, that we have found, is going to turn into the same thing, it is already starting to. It’s not as big as Quinta do Mocho, but there is a lot of potential. It is where Mário, Jussara, Dulce, and João Batista all live. So we have already baptized 4 people from there.

Well I hope you are all doing super well! I love you and miss you oh so much!

Elder Porter

Nelma and Joana

SUAVE!

We had a good week, to end my 11th transfer in the mission. We were able to baptize 2 people this week. We baptized Neida, as well as Rafaela. Unfortunately, Djeny was not baptized this week. The baptism went really well though, and the Spirit was super strong! I’ll have to tell the story another day, due to transfers. Once again, I’m cut very short on my time.

We were able to get 11 investigators in church yesterday, so that was really good. We have 5 people marked for baptism for this weekend, with plans to have even more! Their names are Jussara, Mila, Mário, Dulce, and Leandra. Keep them in your prayers for us! Also, keep one of our recent converts, Isabel, in your prayers as well. She is going through some hard times right now, and needs all of our help.

We had another cool experience yesterday, as well. We were able to attend the baptism of

who are the sister and mom of our recent convert Alicia. They live in another city, but after they witnessed Alicia’s baptism they felt super good and started receiving the missionaries in Cacém (name of the city where they reside). They were just baptized yesterday! It’s cool to see the fruits that come from just one person. Missionary work is super cool.

So this week is transfer week. I’ll be staying at least one more in Sacavém. After this transfer, I will be in Lisbon for half of my mission haha.

Life is good, and things are going great around here. I hope everyone else is doing awesome. Next week I will try to write a more detailed e-mail. Please forgive me for my lack of time!

Elder Porter

Hélio

Conference was pretty awesome! I really enjoyed it! We were able to get 17 investigators here throughout the 4 sessions. It was awesome!

My time is cut short, like always.

Yesterday we were able to baptize Hélio! Haha, by appearance you would never guess he is a member but he is super awesome! I can’t wait to see him give his first conference talk, with tear drop tattoos on his face :) he is an amazing kid, though. And it goes to show that the Atonement can have an effect in anyone’s life. It is a pretty funny story with him, but due to the lack of time… you will all have to wait to hear his conversion story. I know, I know… please forgive me!

It was a good week though. We have been finding lots and lots of new investigators. A lot of really awesome people! So far we have 2 people marked for this weekend. Neida, and Djeny. There are both super amazing. We have plans to mark a lot more though- so all of your prayers could be quite useful for us! This is the last week of transfers. I only have 5 more transfers left in the mission after this. I expect to stay in Sacavém for at least one more. But we will see what the Lord has in store for me. You never know!

I will send home pictures as soon as I can. I have been a slacker, but my time has been so short as of lately! And due to next week being transfers, I can’t make any promises that I will have a long e-mail next week either. But just know that all is well, and the work keeps on progressing out here! Life is good, and I am enjoying every second of it.

AND I CAN’T BELIEVE IT IS OCTOBER ALREADY! The weather sure wouldn’t indicate that out here. It has been quite hot the past few days.

Love you all, and miss you all!

Elder Porter

Osvaldo and João Batist

Isabel and Patricia

Yesterday we made a trip down to the Algarve to have a zone conference in Faro. This is the reason I did not e-mail home yesterday, and the reason why my time is cut so short today. We had an awesome week in Sacavém. We baptized Osvaldo, João Batista, and Isabel. It was super cool. I will give you a brief story about each one of them.

Osvaldo is a 17 year old kid that stopped me on the street telling me that he wanted to be baptized. This happened about 3 weeks ago. We started teaching him, and marked him quickly for baptism. He is a super cool kid, and loves to play rugby. As we were teaching him he had a lot of doubts about the commandments. Saturday morning (the day before the baptism) he had told us that he didn’t think he would be getting baptized. We left him with the invite to pray even harder, and ask Heavenly Father for the help. We went back Saturday night, and he told us that he had received a really strong answer from God telling him that he needed to be baptized. He was baptized on Sunday after church!

Isabel is Patricia’s mom (Patricia was baptized last week). Isabel has always wanted to be baptized, but the problem is that she wasn’t married. We had prayed earlier in the week, and felt like we needed to go talk to her about marriage and her baptism. The Spirit was really strong. Unfortunately, there was no way that we could have the marriage that week. We finally got her boyfriend to agree to marriage, but it wasn’t going to be happening that week. However, Isabel wanted to be baptized so badly that she told us that she would just sleep at her sisters home (who lived near by) until they were able to get married. And so, that’s exactly what she did. She was baptized on Saturday, and stays the night every night at her sister’s home. We are working on marriage arrangements for them, and hope to get them married by the end of this week or early next week. The baptism was awesome! She was SUPER excited for it. She was so excited that in the car on the way to the baptism, she told everyone to be quiet because she wanted to say a prayer to thank Heavenly Father haha. She is amazing.

João Batista (translation= John the Baptist) is a friend of Patricia. He came to her baptism last week, and felt the Spirit really strong. He wanted to be baptized immediately. We began teaching him, and his mom was totally down for the idea as well. We had no problems with him at all. It was all smooth sailing. We brought about 15 of his friends/family to his baptism. Now, we have a lot more people to teach and baptize! It was super awesome, and the Spirit was strong. He was baptized with Osvaldo on Sunday. So yes, we baptized John the Baptist :) pretty cool, huh?

I forgot my camera today, so I will send home the pictures next week! Elder Crowther and I are heading to the Azores on Thursday. We are going to a different island this week though. Last time we went to Terceira, but this week we are going to São Miguel. It seems like our life never stops. We have a pretty crazy week ahead of us, that’s for sure.

We have 2 people marked for baptism this week, so far. They are named José Eduardo, and Elio. José Eduardo is a rasta man, with the dreads/beard and all. We are going to shave the beard before the baptism though. He was big into drinking, and smoking pot/cigarettes… but he is so determined to be baptized that he threw everything out last night, and said he will never touch any of it again. Haha, he is super cool. Elio is the brother of Leo and Catarina (recent converts from a while back). He has been involved with tons of gang stuff, tattoos all over, was big into drugs, etc. The other day he was walking down the road and we just had our typical small talk as we always do with him. But I felt really strongly at that moment to invite him to church. So, I did. He said, “I’ve been wanting to be a part of your guys church for a long time now! Why has it taken you guys so long to ask me?!” I asked for forgiveness, and he forgave me ha-ha. He came to church on Sunday and LOVED it. We marked him to be baptized this weekend. He is super awesome, and it’s awesome that he wants to change so much. Keep them both in your prayers! They are both going through drastic changes in their lives! They need all the help they can get.

I hope everyone enjoys conference this weekend! I am super stoked, for sure! I love you all!

Elder Porter

Elder Crowther

All of our prayers were heard this week.

We came in the week having nobody marked for baptism this weekend. We had enough faith in the Lord though, knowing that something would come through for us. Every Monday we have meetings with President Torgan to discuss how the mission is doing, and things that we need to change. We left the meeting this last week spiritually lifted and ready to take on the battle for the week. Elder Rodrigues and I went over to Silas home. Silas has been wanting to be baptized since July… but due to parent problems he has not been able to be baptized. He was marked for baptism last week, and his mom signed and gave approval for him to be baptized. We called Silas’s dad (he lives outside of the city), and he also gave approval. But part way through the week, her evil sisters came into the picture and changed her mind completely. It got to the point where she told us if that she saw us over at her house again, she would hit Silas in front of us. We were kind of at a stand still… and didn’t know what to do. They didn’t allow him to leave the house on Sunday, so he wasn’t able to come to church. But we left that meeting, and felt strongly that we needed to talk to Silas’s mom again. We went over there and decided to change how we approached her. She opened the door and just about slammed it in our face. Before she shut it though, we expressed the love that we have for her and her family, and how we are only doing this to make her family stronger, and make Silas a better person. She agreed to let us come in for 5 minutes. The Spirit was SUPER strong. She didn’t change… but we did. The Lord was with us, and that’s what made the difference. She agreed to let Silas be baptized this weekend. And he was! :)

That same night, we were able to mark Soraia for baptism. Soraia is part of the family of Jacinta, Silvia, Milton, Clementina, Diana, Dionel, Diolinda, and Luisa. Soraia’s parents weren’t letting her be baptized either, and the dad didn’t even want to talk to us. But once again, the Lord helped us out and they had a change of heart. They decided if Soraia truly wanted to be baptized, they would allow her to be. So she was marked, and baptized yesterday as well.

Bruno is the little brother of Luisa, who was baptized a couple weeks ago. We started teaching him a couple of weeks ago. He came to church with us, he liked church… and on Tuesday we went and marked him for baptism. His mom gave permission… but wanted to know why in the church we don’t drink juice or milk. We cleared that up real quick, assuring her that juice and milk are completely fine to drink. She had no problem letting Bruno be baptized. Bruno was also baptized yesterday.

We had a bit of a miracle happen Friday night. We prayed to see who else we could baptize that weekend. We felt a few different people, and we made plans to go pass by their homes. One of the people that we felt was a girl named Patrícia. Patrícia was marked a couple of months ago for baptism. The night before her baptism, she decided she didn’t want to be baptized any longer, yet alone talk to us anymore. We had seen her around a few times since the incident and had talked to her a little bit, but we just gave her the space she needed. We felt that we needed to go pass by her that day. Elder Crowther and Elder McLean (Elder Crowther is AP/training Elder McLean) went to pass by her home. They said the Spirit was super strong! She accepted to be baptized that Sunday! The next day Elder Rodrigues and I went to her home and invited a bunch of her friends to the baptism. We found some really cool people. She had quite a few people come to her baptism, and she was baptized yesterday! Her mom also really wants to be baptized. She just needs to get married first. We found out on Friday that her boyfriend, that she is living with, is a non active member that was baptized many years ago. They are planning on getting married here soon.

We ended up baptizing 4 people this weekend, when we had nobody marked to start off the weekend! Heavenly Father blessed up immensely. We are extremely grateful for that. We so far only have 1 person marked for this weekend, his name is Osvaldo. But we have plans to mark a lot more people over these next couple days. Keep praying for us! It is obviously working!

I love you all and hope you are all doing great!

Elder Porter