Lisboa, Menina, e Moҫa

Hello!

How was everyone´s week?

Mine was SO AMAZING! 

Where to start?

  I am now a year old on the mission. That´s new. I also happened to have the best 1 year anniversary ever because it was Mission Counsel and it was the most powerful one yet!

But i´m getting ahead of myself.

Let´s start with tuesday.

  I met my new mission president and his wife on tuesday night! Then on wednesday we had the Algarve Zone Conference with President Tavares! It was super spiritual and amazing! Before coming to Portugal, they received special instruction from all of the apostles for 5 days! There is no other training like that in the church, so, man, was he inspired!

  President Tavares has been working for CES for most of his life and so he´s very instructed an dintelligent. He has this Fogo (fire) for the new mission and for Portugal, and it´s incredible to be able to witness it. Sister Tavares is so sweet! She is always feeding us and she is so ready to be here and help out with the work! She served a mission here in portugal before she got married, so it´s great that she´s back!

  And since the Tavares´ were going back to lisbon that day, we decided to hitch a ride with them instead of take a really long bus... 3 hours with the new mission president... But it actually ended up being really awesome and we all felt very inspired and uplifted afterwards! Since mission cousel was going to be in the mission home the next day, we stayed there and hung out with Sister Tavares (who is such a sweetheart and I already love her so much!) and their daughter, Karen. We laughed and talked a lot, and they told me all about Brazil (they´re from Curitiba) which makes me really wanna go there one day, especially since I can speak the language now!

  Me and Sister Cardoso spent the night in the mission home... in the General Authority room! It was so funny to think that lots of Apostles slept where we were sleeping...

  And then the next day: MISSION COUNSEL.

  2 words: Blown away. The most spiritual MC yet. We all gathered in the living room and President and Sister Texeira (he´s part of the seventy and he is in charge over ALL of europe) who both also served in Portugal as well. We learned a lot about making goals. We learned the importance of setting, making, and keeping them. This work is full of goals. We´re ALWAYS making goals. Even in life, goal-making is essential. But when we align our will with the Lord´s will and work on reaching inspired goals, we will witness miracles. Not just in the mission, but in LIFE! I love how the mission really is preparing me for what comes next: life! MC was incredible and everyone was crying and we all heard inspiring stories and all of us left with so much FOGO and were so ready to go out and talk to everyone! 

  After those amazing 2 days in Lisbon, we had to go back to Faro by Bus. I kinda missed riding with the Tavares´ because it was cheaper and shorter and with better company. But this time we went with the Elders, and that was also great because the Elders can be such goofballs and make us laugh on long bus rides!

  We also had this great lesson on Friday with this elect family of 2 grandparents and their grandson. Lucas, the grandson, is so excited to be baptized. He was the example for his family, and now his grandma is also preparing to be baptized and we had such a spiritual lesson with them. They are from the amazon in Brazil (aka Lamanites!) and they know that these things are true! The Grandpa, Leo, had a dream that someone was telling him about the church and its beliefs before we ever even got there and ever since then, he´s been wanting to be baptized! So, we´ll update next week!

  Hope everyone has a great week!

  Amo Vocês!

-Sister Mancuso

 

 

 

The law of opposition is TRUE

Hey everyone!

  This week was... interesting. Wow. Where do I start?

  Well, like I said last week, we had the amazing baptism of our investigator André. Man, he is gonna be a big leader in the church one day. I can feel it. But just as I can feel it, the enemy (Satan) can also feel it, and he was working hard last week to make that not happen. I see this a lot on my mission. We missionaries call it "A lei de opposição"- the law of opposition. I know that it truly exists because i´ve seen it time and time and time again on my mission, and in my own life as well. Every time we make a decision to do good, Satan is right there behind us trying to steer us away from that.

  Long story short, André was definitely feeling that opposition this week. Without going into too much detail, lots of strange things were happening and we decided to have a lesson with André and the elders, and the Elders gave him a blessing of comfort and peace. We spent a lot of time with André, Joana (she´s 7 and getting ready to be baptized too), and Elisabete (their mom). They are starting to see the difference of living the Gospel in their home, even though it´s not easy. But it´s worth it. 

  And we felt so proud of them when we all went to McDonald´s and Joana traded her iced tea for a juice box. *sniff sniff wipe off a tear* AND He was confirmed yesterday at church! He now has the gift of the Holy Ghost, which is super important!

  We also had our very last Zone conference with the Fluckigers. They are leaving Portugal next week and we´re gonna get new mission presidents! It was super spiritual and we all cried, and me and Sister Cardoso made SO MANY COOKIES for our sisters here in the Algarve.

  Fun Fact: Portugal doesn´t sell chocolate chips, so we have to cut up chocolate bars every time we make cookies.

  So that was my week. I´ll finish off with my favroite quote of the week! Love you all!

“No unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done.”

-Joseph Smith

Love,

Sister Mancuso

Batismo em Praia de Faro

Hello!

This week was great!

  André, our investigator, got baptized yesterday at the beach! Another Jovem (youth) baptized him and he was really happy. The opposition for him was so strong, but he did enter the waters of Baptism and he loved it and now, life is good! He´s only 14, but he was such a bright future ahead of him! I have a feeling he is going to serve a mission one day :)

  His mom was a less active for most of her life, butnow they are all coming to church, and they make me so happy! Sometimes I get scared when i think of the future, but then I think of the scripture that says "If God be for us, who can be against us?"

  Needless to say, yesterday was one of the best days ever.

  What else?

  We did a division in my old area of PORTIMÃO!!!!!! It was so great to be there again and to see everyone! it was also strange because last time I was there was when I was in my 3rd transfer, and now I came back as an STL and in my 8th! It was surreal, but so worth it. I did a division with Sister Marinho (YES, Sister Marinho (mother), I know you´re reading this!!!) and with Sister Steagall, both of which are stunning sisters. They teach with the spirit and I just love divisions because they teach me so much!

  I know that this church is true, and I know that the Lord loves us!

 

 

Hello Everyone!!!!

HELLO EVERYONE!

Shout-out to my little sister SARAH! Sarah got her mission call to serve in the ECUADOR QUAYAQUIL WEST MISSION! I´m so proud of her and so happy that she´s going to serve the Lord in Ecuador for a year and a half!

WOW. The rest of my week is gonna seem boring compared to that news.

  

   But i´ll tell you anyway. SSSOOOO on sunday night, I got THE CALL from Sister Fluckiger (the one that means that SOMEONE in the house is gonna be sister training leader next transfer) and it turns out... I got transferred to Faro! After only 2 transfers in Braga! Sister Gutierrez is staying in Braga one more transfer. I have to admit, I predicted it, but my predictions never come true, so that´s why I was surprised it actually did this time. During my last week in Braga, I got REALLY bad allergies and my lip and half of my face swole up! It was crazy, so we finally reported it and sent pictures to a doctor. I think that might´ve been a factor in my being transfered to Faro. But now i´m going to be STL in the Algarve and I get to visit 2 of my old areas- Lagos and Portimão! I´m stoked because this was my dream! Not to mention, I´m gonna stay in my mission! I was preparing myself to be in Porto, but here I am in Lisbon! AAHH!!! 

So that was a major plot twist.

Anyway, I stayed up late packing, and we left early in the morning to go to Lisboa. 6 hours and a bus ride later, I got there! And I met my new companion, Sister Cardoso. She´s portuguese, but she also speaks really good english, so we speak both english and portuguese. We stayed in Lisbon on monday so we could go to Conselho de Missão (some Elders like to call it Jedi Counsel...). IT WAS AWESOME!

Conselho da missão was amazing! We recieved amazing instructions and recieved tons of revelation, and I felt so happy and grateful to be a missionary! It was President´s last one, and the spirit was so strong! It just got us all ready to go out and do our best and keep on trying hard!

After that, came the difficult part: lugging my suitcases all the way to the Algarve... ! It was a nightmare, but thankfully everything turned out fine. After another 3 1/2 hour bus ride, we finally got to Faro, and had to run home because it was already super late! The Faro house is so pretty, and so close to the Chapel! We have blue tiles on the walls and There´s also this giant wardrobe that reminds me of The Lion, the Witch, And the Wardrobe. It happens to be where I put all of my clothes...

And so began the first few days of my transfer in a new area with a new companion and pretty much a new everything. The first few days are always awkward... But now it´s fine. I´m adjusting and getting to know everyone!

The north and the south are so different from one another. It´s like the difference between NYC and New Orleans. So different! But beautiful, nonetheless. 

My Quote of the week: "Everytime we reach out, however feebly for Him, we discover He has been anxiously trying to reach us." I testify that this is true! I have seen this so many times on my mission. God loves us so much, and anytime we do our best to achieve what we wanta nd use the power of prayer, we will achieve it if it´s His will. I love my mission and i´m so excited to take on Faro and grow and help others grow even more!

I love all of you!

love,

Sister Mancuso

Bracara Augusta

FUN FACT: Braga has been around for thousands of years, and was the capital of the roman state of Galecia, and it was called Bracara Augusta. Pretty legit. So this week there was this big festival in the city center and there were lots of people dressed in togas and street vendors and random roman bands playing music. It was really neat! Obviously we did´t participate, we just walked through to get to places, and it was still interesting.

  This week was... stunning. But definitely a roller coaster. We went to Matosinhos (Pronounced Matosiños), just outside of Porto, AND IT´S SO BEAUTIFUL THERE! Even though, it´s an hour by train, and then by metro, it´s great! I like to look at the portuguese countryside, even though I get a little anxious when we travel. Don´t know why. 

  But... We did a division with the sisters there and I LOVED IT. I went with Sister Hillam, who is amazing! She is so happy and bubbly, and she was praying that this division would be miraculous, AND IT WAS. It was literally one miracle after the other! We met so many families who were willing to listen to our message, and we also ran into a couple of less actives and had great lessons with them! I know that that day, the Lord placed us where we had to be exactly at the right place and time, and the best part was that it kept happening again and again! We talked a lot about how important obedience is in our lives and if we´re obedient, we will see the blessings of it. Sometimes it won´t be immediately, sometimes it´ll take awhile, and (as Jeffrey R. Holland once said), some don´t come until after this life, but they do come! Obedience is the first law of heaven! Never forget that!

  Oh, And... In the morning, we all went running to the beach, and we decided to go sword fighting with the Elders!

  Oh. let me tell you all a little something about Portuguese Pastries. Most of the time, we abstain from eating them simply by not walking into the confeitarias, But in Matosinhos, we cracked... And it was so good. Pasteis de Nata. Uma maravilha... :)

  On monday, we went ot visit this family whose son (his name is Kelvin. He´s awesome!) really likes church and goes with us almost every sunday. There are 3 other little sisters at home, and they are so cute! The youngest one is 7, and we decided to pray with them, and she wanted to say the prayer. After I helped her, she just looked at me and said "I can feel it. A warmth in my chest." and she just pointed up. The feeling in the room was so strong and everyone was quiet because the Spirit was there, testifying to all of us! It was amazing.

  Also, we have this investigator from spain and she only speaks spanish, and she went back to Cadiz this week, but she loves the Sisters and she feels the spirit so strong everytime she´s with us! I gave her the only spanish Book of Mormon I had, and she said she´s gonna read it and find the church in Cadiz. I love her!

  Well, that´s all for this week! Hope you all have a great week! Here´s a picture of me sword fighting an Elder!

love,

Sister Mancuso

Week one of travelling

Hello Everyone!

This week was awesome!

 Me and Sister Gutierrez did so much this week! We went to Foz do Douro for a division with the sisters serving there. Foz is BEAUTIFUL! (Makes sense, it´s right by Porto, which is gorgeous.) Especially right by the beach, it kind reminds me of Coney Island or something like that.

 We had the amazing opportunity to have a division with Sister Mauricio and Sister Carroll. Sister Gutierrez really felt she should go with Sister Mauricio, and I really felt that I should´ve gone with Sister Carroll, so it was perfect because the spirit really did guide us to that decision. We split up foz and talked to everyone!  We experienced so many tiny miracles and found lots of people who were interested in listening. Overall, it was a great division, and we all felt the spirit abundantly. I love those sisters so much!

 Oh my goodness. When we were on our way back home, we went to the Porto São Bento train station... The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen! Google it. Google it right now. 9 months living in Portugal, and I’m still in awe. And everything in Porto is just gorgeous...

  I´ve been having weird allergic reactions the the pollen in the north lately. Sometimes my lip swells up twice its size. And in Foz my hand blew up: It was great! But I bought allergy medicine, and it´s all good now.

 We had a lesson with Silvina, Mimi, and Malaika (the family from Mozambique) and they also went to church this week. Silvina kept saying "all of it just makes sense! Every time I come into a class or lesson, I just feel really good and I feel like all of this is true!" They read the BOM everyday, and Silvina is always going on the church website. THEY LISTEN TO THE MOTAB! They are so amazing. We just love them and we really try to stress eternal families with them. They are so special and they truly were prepared by the Lord to receive this message.

 This week in Braga was also great! We felt ourselves being guided to find those prepared for the gospel, and we have found so many! It feels like I feel so much love for so many of the people I meet and we really want them to accept this! It´s kind of funny how on the mission, you get so used to these experiences that it seems so weird that you lived your life in any other way. When we are worthy to have the spirit with us and constantly try to repent, the impressions of the spirit are so strong and you know that it´s undeniably the spirit taking to you. I love the opportunity I have to be an instrument in the hands of the Lord. I love the mission! And I love my companion. We are constantly trying to better ourselves and be the best versions of ourselves that we can be. It´s really hard, but we´re working to make immediate progress, even if it´s a little.

 Well, that was the best of my week in a nutshell. Hope you all have a great week, love you!!!!!

 Love,

 Sister Mancuso

Traveling. So much traveling.

Hola!

How´s your week been?

   This week was AWESOME. Tiring, but awesome! We went to Lisboa on Monday night and on tuesday we didn´t get back home until 10:30!

  The weirdest thing happened on the train ride there! I ate a few digestive cookies and we had arepas for lunch beforehand. I have never ever ever ever ever had a problem with motion sickness, but that day, on the 3 and a half hour train ride to Lisbon, I got a really bad stomachache and started feeling nauseous. I ended up having to run to the bathroom and I puked my guts out 3 TIMES. I had no more food in my stomach and I was dry heaving! I tried to drink some water afterward and then I threw that up too!!! So that´s the story of my temporary motion sickness!

   We ended up staying the night in the old Benfica sister´s apartment and went to Conselho da missao (Mission counsel. Where all the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders meet with President Fluckiger and receive training on how to help the other missionaries). It was so spiritual and it made missionary work so much more amazing! I´m so happy to be able to go to Lisbon again because I don´t think i´ll be going back after the next conselho da missao when they split up the mission! I´m pretty sure i´m staying in the Porto mission.

  And it´s also funny because 3 other sisters who came with me in the MTC are STL´s as well! I can´t believe how fast time has passed! I´m almost 10 months on my mission and it´s CRAZY.

  What else?

  On Friday, we went to Porto, and that´s always an adventure, mainly because of the metro and the train and that´s always fun... me and Sister Gutierrez gave some trainings and I got SUPER nervous! But it was fine and awesome and great! I met all of the Sisters we´re gonna be visiting in a few weeks and it was awesome!

   We´re teaching this amazing family from Mozambique (I might´ve already told you...) but they are so elect and they are reading the BOM and praying and they are thinking seriously about baptism, but still haven´t made up their minds. I think the mother knows it´s true, but the daughters are a little bit harder to convince... We´re praying, though. It´s so funny because they are teens and the 2 daughters remind me so much of me and Sarah and me! We taught them about temples and how families can be together forever through marriage in the temple! I LOVE TEMPLES! 

   One more miracle! It´s been raining like crazy this week. We were walking in the rain like we always do, and we were late for an appointment, and we were speedwalking, and I was PRAYING that a member would find us and give us a ride. A little bit later... A MEMBER FOUND US WHILE THEY WERE DRIVING AND GAVE US A RIDE! The Lord´s tender mercies are amazing!

  I love you all! Have a great week!

Love,

Sister Mancuso