Our week was good. Mais ou menos. My hardest problem is finding new people to teach. And that's what we need now. I came here, finished the work they did before me, now I need to start something, but I don't know how to do it. P-days, we study in the morning until 11:30. Then afterwards we usually either clean the house or buy food for the week, eat lunch about 1:00 or 1:30, go do email, and look for things to buy around the city. We don't have much to do here in Beja. Not many stores or many attractions.

Have a great week.  Keep up all of the good work.  Love you all.

Elder Lee

Sorry I didn't have time to email much last week. I was transferred and had about an 8 hour bus ride, on 2 buses.  After one hour on the bus, I arrived in Porto, where two sister missionaries jumped on my bus, so i went back with them and we talked for that 4-hour bus ride. Those sisters saved my life that day. One of them is from Price.  Her name is Sister Nielson.

My new area is Beja, Portugal. My new companion is Elder Gregory Darrington from Idaho. His family is a huge ranching family, so we have quite a bit in common with our work before the mission. It's fun to talk about that. 

Last week was draining.... we ended up having about 20 lessons in total. We had a baptism of a woman named Fátima. She had been marked for baptism for the past 6 weeks and we did the work to get her baptized this week. It was a struggle making commitments and everything.  Now her husband should be baptized this coming week. We will see. :) Elder Darrington got to baptize her and I got to confirm her a member. It was interesting, She only had seven words in her name. :P

I am now district leader here in Beja. It is hard work. I haven't written in my journal for a long time. I took personal study today to write for the past week.

I am in the middle of nowhere. It reminds me of home actually. :) It is country land, farms and stuff. But it's more agriculture than animals and a lot of olive trees. The weather this last week was a bit cold. Being here away from the water when the sun goes down, it gets cold. But with the sun, it gets really hot. so yeah, like home. :)  I am in another branch, just about the same size or a bit smaller than my last area.  We have a senior couple here in our area. It's awesome. We bought them pastries today. P-days, we don't get any rest. I am sick of it. All I want to do is sleep for a bit. But that won't happen. 

Thanks for everything. Love you all. Until next week,

Elder Lee

I was transferred to Beja. I was in the farthest north area in the mission and now I am near the very bottom. I only traveled for 8 hours on the bus. Man it was long. My new companion is Elder Darington from Arizona. I will be finishing his training here this transfer. I am also in a four elder house again with Elder Jones, who is being trained for the last 6 weeks as well and with Elder Hansen, who was in the MTC with me. So we have two elders that have 2 transfers and 2 elders with 6 transfers. It's going to be a blast. We will see how it goes. Well I don't have a lot of time today, so I will write more next week.

Thank you. Love You All. Have a great week.

Elder Lee

We had a baptism Saturday! It was really, really, really stressful. We had planned to do the baptismal interview just an hour before the baptism. We received a call at 11 o'clock that morning that we didn't have a place to baptize. We didn't know what to do. It isn't our responsibility to get a place, but at the last minute it was. During this time we were working on the baptismal program. The other elders arrived and we went and ate out for lunch with them, and that was good. We made it back to the church at 2:00 to have the interview and to tell them that we didn't have a place. But they arrived late, but not to stress too much, the interview went quick. Olindo, the old guy getting baptized is 82 years old and we didn't have a place with warm water so we asked if he would be baptized in the river that goes directly into the ocean. He said he didn't care so we decided to do that at 4:00. So everything eventually worked out fine. We finished everything at about 6:00.  I was just so tired, and the Church was messy, so we decided to clean the church. We left the chapel at 8:00 and did a little bit of work. The next day I was more tired. Baptism is a lot of stinking work. But everything was good. The son-in-law of Olindo baptized him, who is the husband of a recent convert. So it was really cool.  And yeah, I gave a small talk on the Holy Ghost.

I got pretty sick this past week.  Thursday we went to Porto for interviews with the President.  We didn't have time to eat lunch so we ate lunch at about 8:30 that night.  It was raining and just a bit cold, so after that is when I got a bit sick.  I received the package from Grandma Lee with those Vitamin C packs and juice stuff.  They were really good and helped me a lot.

We will be having a baptism this coming Saturday for Irmão Olindo, father of a recent convert.  It is going to be great :)

Well the first full week of training was good. I am now realizing how much I wasn't taught very well, so I am learning too. Next week will be even better and the next month will be better because I now know what I am doing, mais ou menos. :) Elder Michelsen is learning a lot and already speaks better than I did. He told many stories already in Portuguese to me. It's great. But it has also made me realize how far I have come.  I have realized that I can actually understand everyone, for the most part, and I can say basically what I want. Elder Michelsen is doing awesome, and next week is going to be great!!!

This last Saturday, or Valentine's Day, the youth of the branch put on a date type of thing for all the old people. We got invited and to invite investigators. Unfortunately no investigators came. but it was fun. The pizza in Portugal is so strange, but good, and nearly everyone eats it with a knife and fork. We didn't.

Being Senior Companion I have realized that it is a lot of responsibilities - to keep track of all of the recent converts, less-actives, all of the investigators, and invite members to come to a bunch of lessons. And as many of you know, I don't like calling people that much, but I think I am getting used to it.

Well I haven't personally written on this for a while. But I will write a little agora.

I am in the same place, Viana do Costelo, the coldest area and the farthest north area in the mission, and probably the largest area as well. I am now training Elder Michelsen from California and I am only in my 5th transfer. I don't know why I was picked. But I do know that the Lord provides a way for everything. I know I was assigned to this position for a reason. I just don't know why. :) Our area here has a lot of recent converts and less-actives. Our teaching pool is really small. If any of you have any ideas on how to find new investigators, please let me know. :)

The Gift of Tongues is real. It's only been 6 months and I can speak a new language fairly fluently. We have a goal with Elder Michelsen that he will be fluent by the end of this transfer. It's going to be awesome. 

I don't really like doing these mass emails because I never really know what to say and I don't have enough time to say everything. 

I hope you all know that I love each and every one of you.  You are a special child of Heavenly Father, and if he can love you, why can't I. :)  You all have played a special part in my short life and you all are helping me on my mission. 

Eu agradeço por tudo. vocês são incríveis. Eu amo cada um de vos, com todo o meu coração. desejo que eu pudesse expressar meus sentimentos a vos. Mas, é difícil. guardeis todos os mandamentos e vocês vão prosperar em tudo fizerdes.

Com muito amor,

Translated, the above says,  "I thank you for everything. you are amazing. I love each of you, with all my heart. wish I could express my feelings to you. But it's hard.  May you keep all the commandments and you will prosper in everything you do.

"Much love,"

Elder Lee