Elder Dallin Anderson's Mission Blog: One in a Million

Olá todos,

This week I had a one in a million opportunity of seeing my parents on my mission. My Dad has a conference this week in Lisbon and with permission from President I was able to eat lunch with them on Saturday and they came to church with me on Sunday and watched me give my talk. I heard in the MTC that the church had just reached over 1 million missionaries. I am sure other missionaries have also had opportunities to see their parents on their missionary so I am probably not truly 1 in a million but still it is SUPER rare and was such a cool experience.

For my talk on Sunday I had 15 minutes to talk about whatever I wanted. I choose to speak on how the Atonement of Jesus Christ can change our lives. I used numerous quotes from living apostles, one of them being from Elder Dallin H. Oaks, "Our Savior’s Atonement does more than assure us of immortality by a universal resurrection and give us the opportunity to be cleansed from sin by repentance and baptism. His Atonement also provides the opportunity to call upon Him who has experienced all of our mortal infirmities to give us the strength to bear the
burdens of mortality. He knows of our anguish, and He is there for us. Like the good Samaritan, when He finds us wounded at the wayside, He will bind up our wounds and care for us (see Luke 10:4). The healing and
strengthening power of Jesus Christ and His Atonement is for all of us who will ask."

We had divisions with the Zone Leaders this week. Elder Haws came with me and Elder Carreira. We had gone a week without teaching anyone, some of our plans fell through then Elder Carreira said, how about we try visiting Olympia, she is an evangelic that was not open at all to hear our message about a month ago and some friend of her daughter had given them a book of Mormon some time ago. We decided to stop by and she graciously welcomed us in. We taught a powerful Message of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and testified that Jesus Christ called Joseph Smith to be his Prophet and restore his gospel in these latter days. It is just a good feeling teaching people the gospel!

We visited Irmã Daniela with Francisco from the Stake this week, this Sunday we will officially have the first group meeting in Cova da Piedade in Daniela´s house. She lives in the middle of our area, right now the chapel is in Miratejo which is a good distance from most of the members so the group meeting will be a big help!

We taught Natinha fore the second time last night and marked her for the 20th of June.

We have been working with a less active, Hugo for some time now and have left 4 scripture reading for him and he would not read even after a potential chocolate reward. Last night we passed and he had read all 4 readings, We said, "Oh great! but one problem, we forgot the chocolate!" he replied, "I don´t care about the chocolate i just wanted to read the scriptures!" Foi um Milagre para nos!

I expected to be leaving Almada but I will stay here another transfer and serve with Elder Fisk, this Sunday I will have the opportunity to hear an Apostle of the Lord, Neil L. Andersen speak to the Setúbal Stake!! It will be an amazing experience!

Até Próximo.

Elder Anderson