Ice Cream, Black eye pea soup and baptisms.

AHHH!!! How was everyone´s week? Sorry I kinda disappeared for a while. BUT...

   I get to stay in Braga for another transfer!!!! I´m so excited and I love it here, even though I will probably stay in the Porto mission... But that´s ok, because I will always be a benfiquista in my heart.

   This week was so full of adventures! Me and Sister Gutierrez are staying together for another transfer! We´re really really excited! We had some interesting adventures this week!

   MAJOR MIRACLE: 

   We had just finished eating lunch and we were walking to our next appointment that day, but it was SO HOT and we both looked at a nearby cafe that was selling ice cream, and we both looked at each other and ran in! After buying the ice cream, we met the owner lady, and she said "oh! Sisters! I´m so happy you´re here!" and she hugged us! It turns out that she had talked to the sisters before a few years ago when her husband passed away and she said that the sisters that were here helped her out a lot in that difficult time. She ALSO said that right before we´walked in, she had been praying for someone to come and help her. MIND BLOWN. It´s amazing how a simple ice cream craving was actually a spiritual prompting to run into this amazing woman! Her name is Paula, and she was so looking forward for us to come back. We are too!

   Cleyton was baptized yesterday! He is from Brazil and we met him 2 weeks ago. He never came to church because he was never invited, so we invited him and he actually came! He really was someone who the Lord prepared to receive the gospel! He said he felt so good afterward, and he knows that it won´t be easy, but it will be worth it.

   It has been raining LIKE CRAZY OVER HERE. But it´s so funny because when we forget our rain jackets, we look like we´re braving a hurricane or something! The wind ALMOST broke my favorite umbrella!

   FUNNY STORY:

   We decided to make soup for after the baptism! My mom sent me a really good recipe that we made a couple of weeks ago and it was AMAZING! So we thought, ok, we´ll make that soup for the baptism! Well, it was A FLOP it tasted so bad, but we´d made so much that we decided to take it anyway. So we did. We hauled that GIANT Cachupa pot all the way to the chapel (30 minutes from our house... walking fast. But you can´t really do that when you´re hauling a big pot in between you both...). After the baptism, only a few people stayed and I think they might´ve just eaten our soup out of sympathy. They all had like 2 bowls and they were eating slowly and we could just tell. Cuitadinhos. But it was a great day anyway!

   I love this work and I love Braga and I love all of you!!!!! Have a great week! Write me!

love,

Sister Mancuso

Hello!!!!!

How are you all??? BTW if anyone is getting married/engaged or if anything interesting is happening in anyone´s life, I wanna know about it!
  This week was awesome! Me and Sister Gutierrez just finished running up Bom Jesus (this giant Catholic church WAY up on a mountain. We´ve been training every morning and we finally did it! It was so hard but WE DID IT!
  Let´s see... So much happened this week! We got a reference from the Church headquarters this week from a woman who was interested in learning more. MIRACLES! She lives super far away, though! but she went to Church with her daughters and liked it and we´re so happy and excited to teach her!
  We found this elect Brazilian guy named Cleyton! He´s gonna be baptized this Sunday! He knows this is the truth and is so excited! He´s so elect!
  Me and sister G are doing a 40 day fast from all of the things that are keeping us from being more consecrated.
  Our phone stopped working! it´s so frustrating!
  We made bread this week! seed bread! it´s SO GOOD.
 I just love my mission! I have seen so many miracles and my testimony has grown so much! I can see how much the Lord has truly blessed and prepared these people to receive the gospel, and just my everyday encounters with people and i can see their divine potential! Me and my comp are both latinas and we speak Spanish sometimes but we are struggling! Portuguese has taken over my Spanish

... :( But we are working really hard to become consecrated missionaries. Have you read that talk by Tad R. Callister? It´s called the consecrated missionary and it´s my favorite! find it if you can! It´s SO GOOD. It´s funny because this transfer, I feel like my weaknesses have been thrown into my face and I feel like i still have a lot to go. Ether 12:27 has been the scripture that has really gotten me through it. It´s one of my favorites and time and time again I´ve had so many experiences with it throughout my mission. In the consecrated missionary there´s a part that says that the Lord doesn´t expect immediate perfection, but He expects immediate progress. So that´s been my story lately. And as I try and try, I can see how the Lord blesses us and shows us He is conscious of us. I LOVE MY MISSION! Hey i´m not perfect, but I´m trying hard, working hard, and loving the people!
love you all!!!!!

Feliz Pascoa!!!

Happy Easter!

  I hope it was great for everyone! Braga has a lot of traditions. We heard bells ringing all over the city in the morning! It was really cool!

  I know it totally was for me! We watched conference at the Chapel with everyone and as usual, The Lord knows exactly what I needed to hear. IT WAS AWESOME! Right before, we made an Easter lunch at the Church with the Elders and we all ate and sat and watched Conference! I love that we have the chance to hear the words of our Prophet Thomas S. Monson! It was truly amazing!

  I went to porto this week for the first time! It was amazing! We went to a Zone Conference! Zone Conferences are where we get to meet with a bunch of other missionaries in other areas and just get pumped up about Missionary work! Porto is so beautiful and historic! Especially since I´m probably gonna be in the Porto mission anyway so I better get used to it...

  Women´s Conference was also this week! I bawled. BAWLED. But i´m ok now, tudo bem. Every once in a while it´s just so hard to control!

  We had a miracle this week with a woman named Mariene! She´s brazilian and so awesome and we had one lesson with her and she was already saying that she felt the things we were telling her were true! She´s marked for baptism for the 19th! We could all feel the Spirit so strong in that lesson!

  We visited 2 people in the Hospital on Easter. One was a member from Nigeria (she gave me an African dress!)  who´s been having heart problems. We went to go spend time and comfort her because she really needs it. Another was this investigator of the Elders who just had a baby! he was so tiny and cute and perfect and it really strengthened my testimony that Families really come from God and that we´re all His children!

  I hope everyone´s doing great! BOA SEMANA!

Love,

Sister Mancuso

I love Braga!!!

I LOVE BRAGA! It´s the biggest area i´ve ever had.

IT´S HUGE! Braga is the 3rd largest city in Portugal, and we have half of it. It´s crazy!

But...

What happened this week?

Well, we had a baptism on Saturday! Her name is Catarina! She´s so cute! She´s 11 years old and her family´s aready members, and they wanted us to teach her. 

Sister Gutierrez got sick this week, and I was a little bit too, so we just stayed in and rested and ate salad :(

I studied a lot this week (because we were inside for 3 days!) And I studied a lot about Easter. My love for the Savior has grown so much this week. I read parts of the Savior´s last week in the gospels and I learned so much. Christ really loves us so much! He taught us so much and He gave us a perfect example, always. He took upon himself the sins of the world. EACH and EVERY one of us. He knows how we feel. Our pains, our embarrassments, our sins, everything imperfect about us.

His love is so pure and He´s always there with His arms wide open for us. And the way we can feel the love He has for us is by reading His word: The scriptures! I love Him so much and I know each one of us can grow our own relationship with Him. 

 

I hope everyone has a great Easter this Sunday!

Watch this video! It´s only a minute, but it´s SO GOOD. Because He lives, we can be cleansed from everything we´ve ever done!

Love you all!

Boa Semana!

Love,

Sister Mancuso

 

 

The cold never bothered me anyway.....

Hello from Braga!

This week was pretty awesome!

My new comp is Sister Gutierrez! She´s THE BEST. As an example,

Imagine 2 of me in a companionship. It´s the best. We have had so much fun (while still working hard!) this week!

Braga is awesome! But, as with every area, it comes with its own challenges. But i´m so excited to see what this transfer will bring! Braga is HUGE, and one of the oldest cities in Portugal! It´s really cool!. We can see two really old cathedrals from our apartment!

Funny story, we got locked out of our apartment on Saturday! We were trying to break in for 3 hours, then gave up and called a member, and he opened it for us... It was a really long day.

What else? Oh something bit my lip on friday, so it was HUGE for a few hours!

It was terrible...

But we have been really looking for investigators this week. I know there are people that are just waiting to hear the message!

Me and Sister G are working on really being consecrated and giving our all- EVERY SINGLE OUNCE OF US TO THE WORK! It´s gonna be really hard, but, hey, i´m already on a mission for 10 more months, so what do I have to lose?

Also, WE HAD A BAPTISM THIS WEEK! João Vermelho got baptized! He´s so elect and he really wants to take this step and he knows this is the true chuch! It was so amazing! Future leader!

I love all of you and thank you so much for your letters! I promise I read them and get really happy even if I can´t respond! But keep writing! I love you all!!

 

 

Bye, Bye Coimbra, HELLO BRAGA!

Coimbra tem mais encanto na hora de despedida...

(Coimbra has more enchantment in the hour of goodbyes)

   IT´S SO TRUE! Those are the words from a Portuguese fado. Coimbra has a special place in my heart that I don´t think any other place will have. If I ever decide to live in any place in Portugal after my mission, it will be in Coimbra. Com certeza.

   I´M LIVING IN BRAGA NOW! AAAAHHHH!!! sister Baird (one of my comps) was always talking about Braga and I always wanted to serve there and then HERE I AM! I´m so excited! It´s the most north sister Area in Portugal! So now I can say that i´ve been in the most south AND in the most north! Braga is also a really old city with lots of history!

   Last P-day we went to the University of Coimbra again, but this time we paid to go inside (I am so happy I decided to bring my student ID to Portugal because I still get student Discounts!) and I went inside THE OLDEST LIBRARY IN THE WORLD!!!!!  It´s called the Joanine Library and it is AMAZING. I felt like Belle inside the beast´s library.

   Because that´s actually what it looks like. Look up pictures, it´s amazing.

   Then we walked into this giant hall that ACTUALLY looks like the great hall at Hogwarts and it. was. glorious. There´s tons of pictures of the ings of the first dynasty of Portugal and it was so cool! Then we walked into the king´s bedchamber and I randomly asked a question to this guy who was working there (he was a student) and he gave us a lot of cool history facts, and since he was really nice I decided to give him one our cards with Christ and our number on it. Apparently he didn´t get the fact that we were MISSIONARIES and he started texting us wanting to meet up. But we decided to use it as an opportunity to share the gospel with him!

   Oh, I also placed my name in the goblet of fire.

   I hope I don´t get picked...

   This week was so good, but so many new things! Mariana randomly moved to the elder´s area and I didn´t get to say goodbye to her before I left! So this week we also got the news that they are adding another comanionship of elders in our ward and because of that, we have to switch houses withthe elders, so all weekend we were cleaning and packing when we weren´t working... Sigh. Me and Sister McCall were really starting to grow our friendship and it was so much fun and we were totally sure that we would just keep on being comps. We also found out they were deciding to add a comanionship of sisters in the other ward in Coimbra, so we would have a 4 sister house. Sister McCall was sure that we would just split up and train and it would be amazing! but it was the will of the Lord to go to Braga. And I´m so excited!

   The weeks are also coming up before Easter! I am using this time to study more about the Savior. i ammaking a goal to read Jesus The Christ and it´s SO GOOD. I am growing my love for the Savior so much, especially by reading the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is LITERALLY the Word of God. It´s impossible for that book to not be true, mainly because of the experiences I´ve had and the way those words have touched my heart. The Book of Mormon testifies of Jesus Christ and His ministry. I have been strengthened by this book. I know that the Book of Mormon and the Bible testify of each other and that they, together, give us a complete truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I invite all of you who have not read the Book Of Mormon yet to please read it! It has brought me so much happiness!

   I love all of you! Keep me updated!

Love,

Sister Mancuso

Ola from a 8 month old missionary!!

Hello! Tudo bem?

   This week was AMAZING! Literally, blessings were just raining down on us like you would not believe! Today marks my 8 month anniversary on the mission! It took a bit, but I love this work so much! I know for certain that what i´m doing in portugal is the Lord´s work, and He is hastening it, that is why i´m so happy to be able to be a part of it!

   The most amazing miracle this week was Wasina´s baptism! He is amazing, and he is willing to really follow Christ and do His will in this life! Every lesson we had with him was so spiritual, and after the baptism he was so happy and smiling and we could just tell that he felt the spirit testify the truth of these things to him. I know that baptism really is just the beginning. I know that when we make these covenants with the Lord, He will bless us in ways that we never even imagined. And the lord really is willing to help us get there. He loves us all individually and is ready to help us when we need it. All we have to do is ask. 

  Lots of people say that when you serve a mission, it has eternal consequences. And it´s true! Eternal consequences not just for your family, but also for the families (and future families) of the people you help come closer to Christ. Because that is my purpose, and i´m not perfect, but the Lord is, and this is His work. It truly is astounding how happy someone can be as an instrument in the hands of the Lord. And He really lets us know in tiny little things that this is His work and that He is happy with what we are doing!

  We had so many other miracles this week. Sister McCall got the flu all of a sudden, so we had to stay in for a while, but we totally made up for it when we went out to work, because it felt like the Lord was just dropping people into our path. It. was. a week of miracles. SO MANY MIRACLES!

   We also discovered so parts of our area we never explored before and it was very... hilly. We met lots of people and worked with them and they all said we could come back, so we will. We met this 90 year old woman who lives at the tippy top of a REALLY steep hill who has a ton of orange trees and told us we could pick some. 

   I love all of you and hope everything is going good! EMAIL ME PLEASEEEEE.

Love,

Sister Mancuso