Rainy day!

Hello, all!

Well rain has hit Porto finally! So that means I'm happy as clam :) Where does that phrase come from anyway?  Anyway, the rain is great! :) Reminds me of home! One night we were out walking in the rain, obviously getting wet, but I had a huge smile on my face. I was laughing and joking with Elder Orozco, as he mentioned to me several times that night how much he hates the rain. :) California people. haha. They say the longer you spend out in the rain as a missionary, the prettier your wife will be. haha!

I forgot to mention! In the mission office there's always an office couple to help out, and our current couple, Casal Ransom are leaving here at the end of next month, so they had to bring a new couple in so that the Ransom's could train them on their new calling! So Casal Ashby showed up not too long ago! Casal Ashby is just as cool as Casal Ransom :) They're both super nice and they're from Hillsboro! Sister Ashby was a professional photographer for quite awhile so she and I have had several chats about it and all in all, I just like being around the people here :)

I haven't written much about our new housing situation! So the secretaries, Elders Hicks and Merkle moved out of their old house and into the one I was staying last transfer. Man, the four of us have some good times :) We're always laughing and lunch is a bunch of fun. Elder Merkle referred to me as a "god of rice" the other day. haha :) He really loves the way I make rice. Or he talks me up so I make lunch...either way, I'm fine haha :)

Yesterday, Elder Orozco and I did a split, so Elder Hicks took Elder Orozco and went to his area, and Elder Merkle and I stayed in our area. We ended up finding someone who was so willing to receive us! Amalia, she's from Bulgaria but speaks great Portuguese, and she was already taught by the elders, and had been to church in the past. The missionaries left a great impression but didn't come back after a certain point! She said her husband has read the book of Mormon 3 times! Holy cow! :)

I've been doing well this week :) Hope y'all aren't worried about me :) Elder McGhie lent me a book the other day titled "The Four Doors" by Richard Paul Evans. So far its really good :) I honestly feel like a big weight has been lifted this week. I've been focusing more on my Savoir, on being positive and not allowing negative things to enter my mind and I've never felt so much better :) I know the gospel of Jesus Christ is true!

I miss you all very much! Hope you have a great week! 

Abraço!

EB

Life is so Sweet on the Sunnyside of the Street

Dear Family and Friends,

I'm happy to be writing you today :) I don't have a lot of missionary experiences to share with you this week, but I do have a very important lesson to share with you :)

So unbeknownst to all of you, I've been under the weather a bit…more than a bit actually. I've been in a bit of a bad mood out here. And it had gotten to the point where I was very hard to be around.

Well this week my mission President, who was concerned about me, gave me a nice, swift, kick in the pants. Which I needed very much.

He spoke to me about several things, but what sticks out the most was that he shared with me how my attitude, and opinions truly affect not only me, but my ability to help people on my mission. How it is impossible to be happy, if I do not look for the things to be happy about. (A lesson my poor parents have tried to teach all my life, but perhaps this time with a little more fire.) I'm reminded of Pollyanna, who played the glad game :)

He shared with me a scripture in Mathew 6:22-23:

"The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!"

He then taught me what this scripture meant through a story: When President was a branch presdent in the Missionary Training Center in Brasil, he did something with his group of new missionaries, he divided a blackboard and asked the missionaries to list all the things bad about serving a mission in Brasil. the filled the side of the board. When he finished, he said there was dark cloud hanging over the room, it was clear. Then he had them fill the other side of the board with the good things about serving a mission in Brasil, and the cloud disappeared. He then erased the left side of the board. The curious thing being that a large proportion of the things that were written on the left, were also written on the right.

Our eye, or how we view things will change the way things appear to us. It will change the very nature of who we are. 

I'm very grateful for my mission president who loves me enough to teach me such a lesson. It was a little hard to swallow, but it's what I needed to hear. I'm changing how I see things, and I hope none of you ever doubt if I'm happy or not, ever again :)

Have a fantastic week!

Abraço,

Elder Buchanan

New Comp Selfie

Porto part 3

Olá!

So! Writing ya here, from Porto still! Woo :) We'll see how long this lasts. Elder Gilbert was here for two transfers and then President sent him to the netherpartes of the mission to be a Zone Leader...so we'll see how this goes! Haha :)

So my p-day has officially moved! Not because I'm now an office Elder though, but because I now live with the office Elders.

Ya see, President Amorim got all swip-swap happy. So he cut down his number of Elders in the office from 4 to 2: Elder Hicks as the Executive, who takes care of booking flights, planning President's schedule, making sure all of the foreigners are legal in the country, yada, yada, yada, and Elder Merkle who takes care of all the Finances for the mission. He basically makes sure Elder Hicks doesn't spend too much money. :) Then why I am I still here? Still on special projects, but I have my own desk now! So that’s fun stuff! :) 

I've decided to try to take a leaf out of Elder Hick's book and make you a list of the week...this week. I'll include some stuff from the end of last week.

SUNDAY: Carla was baptized! She was so happy! She and Ricardo looked great and she could NOT stop smiling. It was such a great baptism. What a blessing to watch.

I ate cachopa, that a Caboverdiana made for us! It was really good. Beans, meat, corn, cabbage, carrots all kinda stewed together. Really good. Then I found out that I was staying for transfers! But I was moving too! I was moving from Porto 2^nd to Porto 1^st ward! I was still going to work in the office! Elder Peterson was sent to Matosinhos. He was excited...kinda. haha.

MONDAY: I found out that I was the only one staying in our house. Elder Lebaron and his companion were moving houses to the Old Secretary house, but staying in their area, now living closer to it. Elder Gilbert went to go be Zone Leader in Santarém and Elder Andrade was going home to Cabo Verde. My new comp Elder Orozco, showed up, Elder Hick and Elder Merkle moved into our house (which is now the Secretary house) and Elder LeBaron went to go live in the new AP House with new AP Elder McGhie (the old Executive secretary)! Craziness!

Our District:
Sister Waddell and Jones,
Elder Peterson, Johnson, Gilbert, LeBaron, Buchanan, and Androde

TUESDAY: Spent the day in the office working on a population project. Elder Merkle introduced us to an investigator, Valintine. And Elder Orozco and I did a little bit of work looking for new people. There’s a bunch of missionaries staying in our house waiting for flights to Madeira and waiting to pick up their new missionary companions. Crowded House! :P

WEDNESDAY: I went to President's house and end up meeting the new missionaries that are staying there. They all seem like really cool people. I have a meeting with President were he tells me the purpose that he kept me here for more than one transfer is because he wanted a chance to train me personally. I hope that means a good thing instead of bad :) 

Elder Orozco and I receive and contact a reference from the sister missionaries in Gaia of a young man named Gabriel who just moved to Porto who'd been taught for a while. This kid speaks perfect English! Holy cow! And he speaks from watching tv. Craziness! He's a really cool kid who just wants to know if God exists.

THURSDAY: Umm...Not a whole ton happened...

FRIDAY: This was supposed to be our p-day and it started off so. We got up and went to the office, but one of the sisters’ houses had its water cut off. So we were running around trying to help them, so we just decided to move our p-day to Saturday because so much of it was lost.

Elder Orozco and I taught Gabriel again. He's coming to church! He's very excited. He understood a lot and is going to search for an answer from God.

SATURDAY(Today): Woo! Thought it was gonna be p-day, thought wrong! Work to do! But it's ok, we've taken a bit of time now towards the end to relax and write. I won't be able to respond this week, but I hope I will next. I might send a note if I get time during the week.

I love the mission! :) Keep crazy peoples! 

Abraço,

EB

New Missionary Hymn

Sung to the tune of Called to Serve 

President wrote it himself...

Somos hoje concordados a servir e a pregar ao rei Jesus

Dando ao Porto nosso testemunho

Proclamamos Sua luz

Diligentes, obedientes trabalhamos na missão

Abrimos nossa boca sobre a Restauração

Firmes nós buscamos ver o Branco Baptismal

Jovens na missão enganarmos  a igreja em Portugal!

La no Porto, Gaia e Madeira, Coimbra e até em Santarem

Vamos Sempre contactar a todos 

Sem deixar passar ningem

Diligentes, obedientes trabalhamos na missão

Abrimos nossa boca sobre a Restauração

Firmes nós buscamos ver o Branco Baptismal

Jovens na missão enganarmos  a igreja em Portugal!

Translation:

Called to serve and preach of our king Jesus,

Giving to Porto our testimony,

We proclaim His light,

Diligently, obediently we work in the mission,

We open our mouths about the restoration

Strongly we seek to see the white of baptism

Youth of the mission we build the church in Portugal!

Over in Porto, Gaia and Madeira, Coimbra even to Santarem,

We will always contact all

Without letting any pass by

Diligently, obediently we work in the mission,

We open our mouths about the restoration

Strongly we seek to see the white of baptism

Youth of the mission we build the church in Portugal!

Tudo Bem

This week was good and exciting! :) I had to watch 3.5/5 conference sessions in Portuguese because the English wasn't working but tudo bem. It was sad to see President Monson lose his strength...I love that man. It's so sad that he seems to get sicker every conference :/ But I loved conference. The Saturday Morning was one of my favorites. I really liked that and the Sunday Afternoon. Presidente Amorim let us as a mission stay out until 11 if we lived close to the chapel or had a ride home :) We have Elder LeBaron with his car in our house so HAHA we got to stay :) But you end up tired the next day... :) oh well.

Our friend Carla needed to put a hold on her baptism. It's a complicated teaching situation but to make it simple, she's being taught by another missionary too. We're gonna go there and try and help build her testimony. BUT we still have Sandrini who's very cool and is getting ready to get baptized! :) She's very prepared. She's reading and praying and really wants to know about the gospel if it's true or not! really cool :)

We had zone conferences this week! It was really good! President is very inspired. He taught a really good message on faith. And he's made some changes for the better in the mission that I really like. One of them is the new mission hymn. (See next post)

We went to Gaia (had permission, perks of living and doing stuff with an AP) and went to this cool indoor soccer rink with several other areas of the mission and played two-hand touch football and we KILLED. I gotta say all that training Jake gave me payed off! I sacked the QB (my comp E Peterson) twice and caught an inCREDible touch down pass as well as a first down pass. We won two rounds in a row. It was a ton of fun :) I'm probably gonna play inter-mural sports when I get to school too :)

Well, I hope those are some good stories for ya :) I'm gonna have a great week :) I hope you will! I can't believe that there's only one more week in the transfer. Crazy!

Abraço,

Elder Buchanan