Madeira Islands: Week 46

First of all! HAPPY BIRTHDAY to our favorite Sister missionary!  We sure love you Britt

With Margarida

This plant LITERALLY smells like popcorn!

We threw a birthday party for the church woohoo big number 184!

Hey everyone! 

Thanks for all the birthday wishes! It's been a fun day so far and you all made it even better! :) 22. So weird! President and Sister Fluckiger called this morning and sang to me. They're so funny. Then Sister Fluckiger just said BYE! Eat lots of cake! and hung up. haha 

This morning we went with the other sisters, our 4 elders and a ward member and his friend on a hike! We hiked to the tallest peak on the whole island. It was INCREDIBLE! We could see water on every side of us it was nuts. I felt like I was walking in heaven. My camera card got full so I borrowed one from an Elder and it's not working with my card reader so I can't send pictures yet but I will keep trying! It was a great P day! It's Sister Lofgreen's last P day on the mission :( so I wanted to do something fun for her! 

This is our last week of this transfer! I obviously will be getting a new companion and I think I'll be staying here unless of course they do a whitewash, but I feel like I'm safe. HOW GOOD WAS CONFERENCE? I feel like I can't even begin to tell you all the parts I liked. I liked ALL of it! I didn't get to watch the last session because it was too late here but I will read it next month when we get the Liahona.

Luckily there were two English visitors here so we got to watch 3 sessions in English woohoo! So much better when you can hear their voices and not the interpreters. The English couple have an AWESOME story. So she was baptized 7 years ago by 2 missionaries that knocked her door but the husband wasn't. He frequented the Church of England. She randomly had family in Salt Lake so her and her husband went to visit them. They went to General Conference, and the husband even went to Priesthood session with a neighbor. They were all excited thinking he would be interested in joining the church after, but nothing. Then they went one day to visit the Preston Temple. Just to walk around the grounds. It was pretty and he liked it and felt good but still nothing changed until one Sunday when he normally would have been leaving for church he was standing there, and she asked him what he was doing. He said he wasn't sure what he should do, so she suggested that he go with her that day. He went and it happened to be fast sunday. He got up in the middle of testimony meeting and said he wanted to be baptized. He had felt like his father was sitting there with him telling him that he needed to be baptized and do his temple work for him. COOL HUH!? Now he's been a member for 3 years and while in a different country they found the church so they could watch General Conference! Haha they are awesome.

Oh man so at Zone Meeting we got the awesome news that the country of São Tomé is opening!!! That might not be that cool to hear but like half of the people I taught in Miratejo are from there so it's a big deal! I am SO excited. They are sending some members to live there and start up a group. WOOHOO!!!

We threw a birthday party for the church on Saturday (yes we know the day is sunday but we couldn't break the sabbath haha. We had food, a banner, watched a short film on the church history, and then everyone talked until conference started. It was super fun! 

Margarida our recent convert left for vacation and won't be back until the 19th so sister Lofgreen had to say goodbye to her. She made us the CUTEST journal things with pictures, quotes, and wrote us letters. She is my favorite person ever! She said that every time she hears the Bruno Mars song "123" she thinks of us. I love her.

One day this week it was raining SO hard. We didn't expect it so we didn't have umbrellas. We were super cold so we decided to go inside a random building and knock doors. The first and only door that someone opened and that people talked to us was an elect family of 4. We had a great lesson and marked a return appointment. When we got done knocking the rest the rain was  COMPLETELY gone. It was crazy like we were lead to that building just to talk to them. SO COOL. 

Hey last week I said I was a little stressed. Don't worry it really wasn't a bad week at all haha in fact we were talking about it. It's weird because it doesn't matter how many hard things we have or what goes on in the week, we are SO happy. Crazy how the gospel does that huh? Love you guys a ton! Have a great week.

Sister Carroll