#LightTheWorld #Batismo

WHAT UP HOMIES!!!

Well Thanksgiving came and went this week and we ended it hot with a stud baptism! Leandro Lamarosa. I had the privledge of baptizing him and it was such an incredible experience. We are so pumped for him!

Since he is only 17, he is still part of the young men´s program. Our Branch President is super excited to work with the youth because they are the future of the church so he wants to build them up. He has been helping Leandro feel involved and prepared him to be a leader here in Olhão! I was talking with him after the baptism and we made the goal of having Leandro attend the Madrid, Spain temple with the youth of the Algarve zone on the 22nd of December. Leandro is all pumped to go and we started working on some family names with him to take. #MIRACLE!

Saturday was his baptismal interview and he passed with flying colors. That night Elder Lemmon and I were super pumped and talking all about Leandro and how the Lord led us to him. I then was thinking about the temple and Leandro going here in 3 weeks and then this thought came, "What if my mom Flor has been teaching Leandro´s ancestors in the spirit world and she is helping his family prepare to receive their ordinances in the temple just as we were preparing Leandro for his baptism?"  Lemmon said whoa.. can you imagine!?

Then during the baptism when I began saying the baptismal prayer I felt the spirit come over me really strong and I knew that his baptism was valid in God´s eyes. The program went really well and at the end Sister Stegeman sang the Portuguese version of "Come Thou Fount" for a special musical number and I felt the spirit SUPER strong. I felt as if my mom was right there excited with me as we sang her favorite song. I was trying to hide my face as I teared up a little bit. At that moment I truly felt that she has been working with Leandros family in the Spirit world. It was incredible! #MIRACLE!

I know that this church is true and it has changed my life. Jesus Christ lives and he can reach out and help each and every one of us if we let him. This week is another week of miracles in the books and I am super excited to find and help a lot more people for the rest of my mission! Thank you all for the support and prayers for us missionaries! Love you all! 

Kia Kaha!

Elder Haroldsen 

Élder Brandon Haroldsen

​

​MISSÃO PORTUGAL LISBOA

Rua Jorge Barradas Nº14C

1500-370 Benfica, Lisboa

Portugal

On Mon, Nov 28, 2016 at 12:13 PM, Brandon Haroldsen <brandon.haroldsen@myldsmail.net>wrote:

District Conf, Zone Conf, and Miracles

BUENAS TARDES PARA TODOS!

Another week of miracles in the books!! 

This week started off hot with the Romanian family who showed up to church with us last week! We taught them for the first time last monday night and we shared the Restoration. The spirit was there but they had trouble understanding Portuguese. They accepted a baptismal date for the 26th of Nov. but kept saying they wanted many months to prepare for their baptism. I told them that they would be prepared.

We went by again the next day for our follow up lesson. We took the restoration film in Romanian and when the part played where Joseph sees God and Jesus Christ, the mom said she was getting goosebumps because the spirit was SO strong!! After the movie they said that they knew this was Christ´s church because it is the only place in which they felt the spirit like that. They were saying that they wanted to be baptized, but still in a few months. I was trying to help them understand that we were there to help them prepare but they were talking to each other in Romanian and I had no idea what they were saying. I felt the spirit instruct me to bear strong testimony to the dad and so while he was going off with his wife I put my hand on his shoulder and leaned in really close to him. I told him that I promise as a Representative of Jesus Christ that both he and his family needed to be baptized on that day. I looked him straight in the eyes and paused and saw his eyes tear up. Man oh man the spirit was FORTE!! He looked at me and said,"I feel the spirit through you. I know God is telling me this, and we will be baptized on that day". The spirit touched his heart!

Since that day, we have been talking to them almost every day. They are the best!! I go there and come out smiling. They are named Lucian(the dad), rebecca(the mom), Stefin(11), Juliana(10), Ebi(10), and Jorgiana(4). The parents have a smoking habit that we are working with. We made goals and they were having troubles stopping. They expressed how tough their lives are at this moment. They came here to Portugal a couple of months ago in order to escape their hardships of Romania. Their kids currently don´t have residency so they can´t be admitted into school. The dad is unemployed looking for a job but has been digging for clams on the beach everyday to sell, making hardly anything. He is in debt for his rent and could lose their house if they don´t pay here soon. He then broke my heart telling me that he doesn´t even have money to feed his kids. He told me this on friday so we bought the kids some bread and cookies, They were SO grateful! I told him that as long as they strive to follow Christ, they will see miracles. I talked to some members and we showed up to talk to the family satudrday night with no help. They were hopeless. We were in the middle of the lesson and suddenly we get a call from one of our members. I answered and he asked how the fam. was. He then asked if they still needed a job. I told him they did and he said,"Okay, I have a job for him starting monday(today) working on houses with me". I hung up and told them what he had said. Their eyes lit up like fire. They looked at each other and teared up and said that God was blessing them. He then looked at his family and said, "We are going to be baptized the 26th. Starting today, I am never touching a cigarette ever again". I was soooo happy, especially when they showed up for district conference all dressed up!! MIRACLESSSS!!!!

We also marked Leandro for the 27th. He is a 17 year old kid who is the son of an inactive woman named Lucia. He is legit! He has already read the first 20 pages of the BOM in just a couple days and told me everything detail by detail what happened. Him and his mom are also excited to prepare for his baptism!

I can feel the power from the prayers everyone is offering for me. We have seen miracles these past weeks and I know that a huge part comes from all the prayers. So big thank you to everyone! 

I am so happy right now with my mission. Time is flying and I just want to help more and more people while I still can! When the Savior comes again, I want to be serving somebody. 

I love this Gospel. It is the true church of Jesus Christ. Prayers are powerful and I love all of you!

Tenham uma boa semana! 

Kia Kaha

Elder Haroldsen 

Beautiful City, Tourists, and Awesome Weather!

Hey Hey everyone!

Well, week one of my new area is accomplished! I am loving it here! It is one of the prettiest areas that I´ve had on my mission so far! My comp is super funny and I am getting along super well with him! He is another Utah boy from the city of Mapleton. We are tearin´up these streets of Tavira! 

I got to the Algarve on tuesday night after a three and a half hour bus ride from Lisbon. It was fun chatting it up with Elder Puertas and Hilton who both came down with me too! We were laughng it up and talking about all the fun times and experiences we had together. You find your best friends here on the mission!

This week was basically a week of starting over in this area. I was trying to get my bearings down and we basically are starting new trying to find investigators. We talked to a whole lot of tourists and most of them speak english. It was pretty funny because we say "Olá" to people in Portuguese then they look at us funny, so we say "Hello", then "Bonjour" then "Guten Dag" and if they don´t understand any of that we just awkwardly wave and walk away, haha. Elder Mitton is great at contacts and can get anyone laughing so it´s great.

I have met few members so far this past week! Our Branch President is a stud! We have about 16 members that come to church on a regular basis in Tavira so it is back to reality coming from Seixal of 100+ weekly! But we are going to help this place grow! 

Saturday there was a huge Algarve district youth activity here in our chapel and they asked us missionaries to help with the activities. We took some kids out and did street contacts with them and it was fun getting to know them. We had a ton of kids here who have lived in the states and are just here for vacation or family work though! It was awesome speaking english to them and hanging out. 

This sunday I gave a talk and I literally had to wing it from nothing. I was assigned to speak on Idleness but I had literally no time to prepare a talk and just spoke by the spirit. It´s pretty interesting how I´ve gotten so comfortable to just talk and testify and how easy the words just come to my mind! I wasn´t even nervous to get up there either so I am growing here on the mission!

We have a couple of people we are focusing on too. One is named Rian.. he´s brasilian, 14 years old, does kickboxing and is super cool! He looks like he is 21 years old though! Its super weird! He is the most ripped 14 year old that I have ever seen! He was going to be baptized in the past but he didn´t feel prepared so he decided to wait and hopefully we can help prepare him here soon! He wants to roll ju-jitsu with me at the chapel really bad. I´m actually scared of him though because he is like 6´2" and a total beast, hahaha! He is hoping to fight in the UFC in the future. I told him if I tap him he has to get baptized so we will see what happens :P I already challenged him to an arm wrestling contest and I miraculously won luckily!!!

We have also been helping a recent convert named Vasco help stop his bad habit of smoking. We made some plans with him and are going to talk to him daily to help him stop. We made a plan with the branch president that he will excercise with us every morning and that by the time I leave this area he will weigh 15 kilograms more than he does now. We are going to try to bulk him up! It´s going to be fun and we are going to help him receive the Melchisedek priesthood hopefully in November.   

All in all, I am loving this new area! It has definately cooled down weather wise too! The Algarve is one of the hottest places in Portugal during the summer and it seems like I just missed the heat! 75 Degree Paradise! 

I love you all! Hope this week will be great! Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father love you and live! They are waiting to help you and are just a prayer away :) 

Com Amor,

Élder Brandon Haroldsen

1. Frekin. Year.

Boas Tardes pra todos!!! Como estão?

I am great! This week was awesome! 

On the 22nd I hit my year mark! It is pretty unbelieveable that it has already been a year. I was thinking back on the weeks before my mission a year ago and everything feels like it was just yesterday. I remember how nervous I was and now here I am livin´it up loving every minute of my mission. I honestly feel like it hasn´t even been a year though because of how fast it flew by. Time truly flies when you´re having fun! There is still a ton of work for me to do here this year and I am so happy that I still have a year to become and do what I want to accomplish! 

With that being said, this awesome week was backed up with awesome investigators! Marcel and Janet are progressing and gaining a testimony! They came to church this week again for the second time and they are loving it! They have been reading and praying everyday to know if the church is true and I believe they have already received an answer and this week we are going to help them recognize it! I believe that Marcel is going to be a strong leader in the church someday, future bishop/ stake president!

We also found a new investigator names Anick. She is a single mom with a one year old baby named Leonardo. He is such a cute little boy with a little afro haha! But Anick also came to church! She accepted a baptismal date for the 6th of Aug. I know she will be baptized and I am super excited for her! 

This week we had a division with our Zone Leaders and I was paired up with Elder Wilson and my old comp. Elder Puertas!! It was so awesome being with him again for a day and a night and chatting about our past experiences! I felt like I was with my brother again!  It was so ironic how I spent my 6 month mark comps with Puertas and then I spent my year mark with him again, 6 months later! The mission is awesome when you have comps that you love and I am so grateful I had the opportunity to serve with him! One of my best friends from the mission right there!

Thats about it for the week. It is still hot as heck here and I still go to sleep sweating and wake up sweating everyday.. but I am used to it by now lol! Trials of Faith right there but when you overcome it at the end of the day it is worth it! 

Elder Wilson is still with us for one more week. He still falls asleep in the bathroom everynight and I bust up laughing when I wake up at 6ish and look over at his bed and see he´s not there haha! Super funny guy!

Other than that, thats about it for the week. The mission life is the best! I have learned so much this past year and everything is going to help me in the future. I am so grateful that my Heavenly Father has blessed me to be able to make it this far and also all the miracles he has sent to me, including being able to speak Portuguese. His hand is seen in my life everyday, even if it be in tiny, tiny ways. 

This church is true. It is his church, the Church of Jesus Christ. It has been restored just as it was prophesied in the Bible through the Prophet Joseph Smith. We have the same power and authority that Jesus Christ had here on the earth today. With this power and authority, we can perform ordinances such as baptism which are valid in God´s eyes and we can also work miracles with this authority. I have seen miracles through this authority everyday. 

I love this gospel. I love my Heavenly Father and my Savior Jesus Christ. They live and they are so eager to help and bless us if we turn to them! I can feel their love for me especially when I struggle and I hope you guys do too because their love is real and it is infinite. 

Have a wonderful week! 

Elder Haroldsen 

--------

Élder Brandon Haroldsen

​

​

Missão Portugal Lisboa

Rua Jorge Barradas Nº14C

1500-370 Benfica, Lisboa

Portugal

Triple!

Hello everyone!!

I don´t have very much time to email today because we took a long time in Lisbon but I will write about the important things that happened this week!

So we are now in a tri-panionship! The Elders who were in Seixal A (Elder Katipunan and Wilson) got changed up a little. Katipunan got a call saying that there was an emergency transfer happening because an elder had to go home with a back injury. So Katipunan got shipped off and Wilson came to join the homies here in Seixal B. We had to combine the areas for the rest of the transfer and our area is HUGEEEEE!!! 

This week was an explosion in our numbers and the people we found! We found a family named Marcel, Janet, Paris, and Aminachi. Marcel is from Nigeria and doesn´t speak portuguese so we teach him in english but his wife speaks Portuguese and no english so we switch off languages! We found him on a street contact and we taught him and his fam the first lesson and it went super well!! They all four came to church this week too!! Paris is 7 and aminachi is 18 months. Cute elect family!! We will be marking them for baptism this week and I´m super excited for them! 

We also met Ladí, the cousin of our recent convert. She has a very difficult life and she was touched by our message. She cried and said she knows it is God´s true church. We threw out a baptismal goal for the 30th of July and we are helping her and her 8 year old son José be baptised on that day! They both came to church too! Super exciting!

We should have a ton of baptisms in the coming weeks! I am super excited to see what the Lord blesses us with! He is so good! 

Anyways I have to go.. but I wanted to end with a funny story this week. So now that we are in a tri-panionship things have gotten quite interesting. Everything from buying more food to teaching in different ways because there are three of us now has changed. Elder Wilson is hilarious. He gets me to laugh all day long lol.. anyways, one night I got in bed after praying and noticed that Elder Wilson was still praying. I was thinking holy cow this guy prays for a long time! Then I fell asleep and woke up 2 hours later and looked over and saw the guy still on his knees praying. I was like no way!! how??.. We wake up in the morning and I hit him up about it. He started laughing and tells me that he fell asleep kneeling down and woke up at about 4 am still asleep on his knees!! WHATTTT?!?! He was asleep on his knees for like 5 hrs! I couldn´t stop laughing haha. Then to make things even funnier, he falls asleep on the toilet every. single. night. Guarenteed. He sits on the toilet for like 5 hrs every night and falls asleep and then wakes up and realizes he fell asleep. We are always joking that now that he moved in with us he doesn´t even need a bed, he can pray for 4 hrs then finish off the night on the toilet!! classic!!

Anyways, I hope you all have a great week. Miss you all!!

Com Amor, 

Elder Haroldsen

-------- 

Élder Brandon Haroldsen

​

​

Missão Portugal Lisboa

Rua Jorge Barradas Nº14C

1500-370 Benfica, Lisboa

Portugal

19.

Hello hello!!

Thank you to EVERYONE who sent me emails for my birthday this past week!!! I received the most emails this week than any week of my mission so far! I felt super loved as I read everyone´s emails today :) 

Well, I am super short on time today because I spent a little too much time deciding which suit I was gonna buy at the mall today!! I am super excited to wear it because it is a swagged out european suit. Therefore, I only have about 30 min to email today unfortunately... 

BUT this week was a great one! I am getting to know the area and some of the members relatively well now and I am loving it! My comp. and I become better and better friends every day too. My birthday went great! We went to the mall to eat lunch which was buffet Pizza Hut. We always have a competition and I was only able to eat 10 and then 11 today. I also received a call from my mission president and his wife wishing me a happy birthday. That night we had a lesson with our investigator Elsa and she had remembered my bday and bought juice and doughnuts for me! I was so happy and grateful! She is so nice and super elect. We have her marked for baptism this saturday the 28th of May and we are going to work hard preparing her this week. I am super excited for her to make this change in her life to follow our Savior Jesus Christ! 

THEN I received a super special bday present this weekend. On friday we had a mission conference with Elder David A. Bednar, an Apostle of the Lord! I got to sit about 10 feet away from him and he was so powerful! I loved it so much and he really motivated me by his powerful testimony and witness of the Savior Jesus Christ. One thing that really stuck out to me was when he said, "Revelation is a conclusion and almost never has an explaination... when we receive revelation to act upon something from the Holy Ghost, the Lord lmost never explains why he wants us to do it. We just need to trust that the revelation is coming from our Loving Heavenly Father and do it." Then the stake of Setubal had the opportunity to have Elder Bednar speak to them on sunday and I was there too!! Our investigator Elsa showed up and the talk he gave was directed perfectly for her as an investigator of the church. Elder Bednar explained how this is the only true church of Jesus Christ on all the face of the earth and explained the restoration is detail. The spirit was SO strong! One quote that I loved that he said on sunday was, "When Christ is hungry, he feeds other people. When he is suffering pain, he heals others. Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we can turn out to serve others and be more like HIM." 

I was touched this weekend hearing from an Apostle of the Lord. I know he is a true witness of Him. I know without a doubt that this is the only church that will help us be together forever as families. This church is the same orginazation that Christ established. It is all true. I know this and all of you can know it for yourselves through the help of the missionaries like me. 

I am so grateful for all of you and the love you show me. May the Lord bless all of you and your families! 

p.s. sorry I am not writing individual emails this week as I am on a public computer and I have about 5 min left.

Com Amor para sempre!

Élder Brandon Haroldsen 

-------

Élder Brandon Michael Haroldsen

Missão Portugal Lisboa 

Rua Jorge Barradas Nº 14C

1500-370 Benfica, Lisboa

Portugal 

PORTUGAL OR AFRICA

WHATUPPP from Continental Portugal! 

This week went really fast like always! I flew in tuesday and have been getting to know the area ever since. Seixal is hugeee. So many people too! But I´m finally starting to catch on to the different roads. Here in a couple of weeks I´ll have it all down I hope. There are a TON of people from Africa here. They tend to speak Creole sometimes when they don´t want us to understand and it drives me crazy lol. But getting to know the African culture has really opened my eyes and helped me be more humble. 

My comp. is a pretty cool guy. He is from Oregon so we are both west coast kids. We get along well and we are going to baptize some elects together! 

Basically upon arriving here, we have no investigators. It has been difficult for me to help my comp. out finding people because I have no idea who anybody is or where we are even at. BUT we already had our first sunday here together! Man this ward is awesome! I came from the Azores with a branch of about 6 members to this ward with an attendance of more than 100 people! I felt like I was in my ward back home... super different. 

This saturday we knocked on this lady´s door named Elsa that the missionaries had contacted about 2 weeks ago. They had passed by like 4 times and she always said she didn´t have time so they dropped her. We decided to knock her door one more time and she was home! We told her we had church the next day at 9:30 and that we could walk with her to church. She said she would go so we were excited! Then sunday morning we rung her doorbell and no answer.. I felt dissapointed but had the feeling to not lose hope. So like 3 min. later we knocked again and she started coming out all dressed up for church! She was like,"I thought you guys had forgotten about me!" We walked to church with her and got to know her. She is African from Angola and is visiting her sister here in Portugal until mid July. She is super nice and turns out she absolutely loved church! She was so happy that she went and she said she is planning on going every week. On the walk home we talked to her about baptism and she said that she would be intrested! She said she wants to find a chapel in Angola and go there too! We are going by her house tonight with faith and power! The Lord is always preparing elects! 

Anyways..thats about it for the week. We have a mall in our area so we went there for Pday today and I got some new pants and McDonalds for the first time in 5 months. Bomb.com! 

My mission is soooo awesome. I am learning a lot and growing in testimony and power. I have learned to rely on my Heavenly Father for everything and leaving things in his hands. I know with 100% of my heart that this is Jesus Christs´ true church, the same church he established on this earth himself. I have seen miracles performed by the authority and power of the priesthood. The priesthood is real and can only be found in this church. The best part about this all is that we can know for ourselves! 

This church is real and true. Families can be together forever and this is the goal in the end. 

I love you all and I hope that you have an amazing week! 

Teu Élder Preferido,

Élder Brandon Haroldsen 

------

Élder Brandon Michael Haroldsen

Missão Portugal Lisboa 

Rua Jorge Barradas Nº 14C

1500-370 Benfica, Lisboa

Portugal 

TRANSFERS!!! 7/16: Leaving the Jungle

What up what up! 

Well we got transfer calls last night and I am leaving the island :( I was really sad to hear that because I love this place and I have come to love the people here but I am also excited to learn a new area and more people! My new area is across the bay from Lisbon and it is called Seixal ("Say-shaul"). I will be serving with Elder Hinkey. I met him on a division when I went to the other island and he is a really cool guy so I am excited! I fly out of this place tomorrow morning at 8 amand I land in Lisbon at 10 fresh to start a new week in a new area! 

This week was another tough week. We knocked countless doors and walked countless hours. We found some superrr awesome people through our labors tho! Her name is Sandra and she has two boys named Alexandre and Samuel. They even came to church and loved it! Elder Thomas and his new comp. are going to baptize her forsure! 

Other than that, I got to skype my family yesterday!! It is so crazy how fast the time you skype feels like it flies. I felt like I had just started when my time was up lol. But it was super cool seeing them and laughing with them. My brother Kyle is all grown up! Crazy crazy crazy! 

Today since it was my last pday here we went to Burger King in Angra with a member named Delcio and ate the only fast food on the island! I am going to miss that guy! 

Tonight I will go by members houses to say my goodbyes and pack my suitcase. 

Anyways.. I hope all the mothers had a great mothers day. I am grateful that my Father in Heaven has given me the opportunity to have two wonderful mothers. I am so happy that I was given that blessing and I love them both! Because of my Savior Jesus Christ I will be with them forever. 

I love you guys! I´m so glad that I get to be a missionary! Life is awesome. In Jesus Christ I have found new life! I know that he lives and this church is true! 

I hope everyone has a great week!

Com bastante amor,

Élder Brandon Haroldsen 

 

Élder Brandon Michael Haroldsen

Missão Portugal Lisboa 

Rua Jorge Barradas Nº 14C

1500-370 Benfica, Lisboa

Portugal 

It´s Gonna´ Be A Long Hot Summer

What up homies!!!

It´s already May! And along with it only being May, it´s already super hot some days here! With this weather I´m already getting a sleeve, collar, and watch tan! This summer is going to be rough.

This week was another week of miles and miles of walking. My legs have never been more in shape for walking than they are now haha. My Ecco Shoes are starting to get beat up! My dad and I bought the same shoes on the same day and we are going to compare them when I get home and see what two years of walking everyday does to them. 

We met with several investigators this week and saw some progress but not much. We found out that our investigator Michael from Brazil isn´t married and it´s going to be a process to be able to get them married. We are going to keep pushing and helping him until that day.

We found a new investigator named Jorge this week! He is married to a lady named Conceição who is a less active for more than 25 years. We went over this week and started teaching them both and testifying about everything and how their lives would be blessed if they took these steps. They both showed up this sunday! The members of our branch were surprised because she hadn´t been in so long! We were pumped with that!

The Bull runs have started but haven´t come to Praia yet! Hopefully I will get to see one maybe next pday. Transfers are also next week and I am pretty sure that I will be staying at least one more and hitting six months on the island. It´s crazy because it feels like I just got here having no idea where I was and now I know the area exteremely well.

I am so grateful for all of the people who are still emailing me! As you get older in the mission you get less and less emails every week so I am glad I still have people writing me. I hope to respond to everyone every week but I always end up running out of time. 

I just want to end with a missionary thought...

Last week my Aunt Betsy wrote me an email and she told me that my cousin, McKay, has been reading the Book of Mormon with the goal of finishing it for the first time all the way through. She said that McKay came up to her super excited and told her that he had finished reading the book cover to cover and he had done what Moroni said to do. She asked him how he felt and he said, " I cried of happiness, so I know it´s true."

When I read that email I teared up because one, I remembered when I received a testimony that the Book of Mormon was true just like McKay did and I myself also cried of happiness and two, that is exactly why I am serving a mission, to have people know for themselves that these things are true, and it was awesome to know that my 9 year old cousin had received a witness for himself. I´m super proud of you McKay!

I hope you all have a great week. Keep pushing forward and trust in Heavenly Father just like I am. He will never let you fall.

Com Muito Amor,

Élder Brandon Haroldsen

“Don't you quit. You keep walking, you keep trying, there is help and happiness ahead. Some blessings come soon. Some come late. Some don't come until heaven. But for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come. It will be alright in the end. Trust God and believe in Good Things to Come.”

-------

Élder Brandon Michael Haroldsen

Missão Portugal Lisboa 

Rua Jorge Barradas Nº 14C

1500-370 Benfica, Lisboa

Portugal 

SUP EVERYONE! 

Days are weeks and weeks are days out here on the mission! It is extremely crazy how fast it seems like P-day gets here from the last! 

This week was a pretty quiet week. We found a couple of new investigators and met with our recent converts to start reteaching the lessons to them. We were really excited with the progress that both Isabel and Beatriz are making! It makes me really happy :) I have realized that joy doesn´t come from just baptizing a person, but that true joy comes from seeing that person progress in the Gospel and change their lives to be a Disciple of Christ. At times, people make wrong choices and it leaves us frustrated, but because they have their own agency, we need to learn to look past that and keep pushing forward. 

This week we shared the talk "His Grace Is Sufficient" by Brad Wilcox with a member who is really stuggling in their life right now. I really love that talk and I recommend that all of you look it up on Youtube and watch it. 

As we watched with him, I felt the spirit fill the room and I was able to feel a little of the love that our Heavenly Father has for this member. It is sad that at times we forget this. We forget that we have a loving Father in Heaven that is waiting to bless us as we do our part, but that´s why I am on my mission. 

One of my favorite things to think is, "If Jesus Christ was standing here in my place right now at this moment, what would he be saying or doing?" As one of his Representatives, this is something sacred and important for me to remember. Every day of my mission, I want everyone I talk to to be able to see the special light of Christ in my eyes. I want them to be able to feel, through my love and Charity, that I am His Disciple. This is HIS work, this is HIS mission, and these are two years of my life that I am giving to HIM. I want you to all know that I love Him and I trust in Him. I invite you all to learn to love and trust in Him also, because we cannot do it without Him. 

I know that Jesus Christ lives. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is His church that He established on this earth with His Authority, Prophets, and Apostles and it is the only way that we will be able to be with our families forever. I know this with 100% of my heart and soul and I cannot deny it. 

As my Dad always told me, "Remember Who You Are". You are a son or daughter of God! You are loved beyond imagination by the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, and the friend of friends. Never forget that.

I love my mission. There is no better work that a young man or young woman can do during this time of their lives. The Lord blesses his servants and their families.. of this I testify.

I love you all. I hope that you have a great week and I am praying for all of the people who were involved in the earthquke in Ecuador. God be with those souls.

Fiquem bem, Confiam no Senhor, e sejam felizes.

Com Amor Sempre,

Élder Brandon Haroldsen 

 ---------

Élder Brandon Michael Haroldsen

Missão Portugal Lisboa 

Rua Jorge Barradas Nº 14C

1500-370 Benfica, Lisboa

Portugal 

Transfers 6/16

Olá para tudo mundo! 

Another transfer is here and another gone by! 6 weeks went by super fast! 

So this transfer is my 6th transfer on the mission (7th counting the MTC). I will be staying on the Azores island here in Praia. My companion Elder Foutz is being transferred back to Lisbon and I will be getting a new comp. His name is Elder Thomas. He is going into his 4th transfer so he is about 3 months behind me. We are going to work hard together and have fun I hope! He flies in tomorrow morning.

Other than that, this past week we had to stay inside all day again because of Elder Foutz´s sickness. We went to the doctors and they decided that he needs his tonsils removed so he will be getting them out in Lisbon in a week. It is going to be tough getting back into the missionary life after two weeks of staying inside!

Although we were inside basically all day every day, we found a couple of sunny hours to work and managed to find a new investigator named Nunu. He walked by us one night and said that he is intrested in our church and for us to pass by the next day, so we did. This was tuesday morning and we taught him and got around to teaching the Word of Wisdom right after the first lesson so that we could start helping him right away. He accepted and said that he will start working to try to quit smoking. We saw him 3 days after and he said that he hasn´t bought tobacco since! He has a lot of potential so we will see.

We had a special Easter movie that the Branch President Elder Broderick made that we showed on saturday night. He took the musical "The Lamb of God" and combined it with scenes to perfectly match bible videos and put portuguese subtitles. It was awesome!! If any of you haven´t heard of the Lamb of God, you should totally look it up. But anyways, I had sent a bunch of texts out inviting people to come. Through this invite, an investigator named Isabel showed up for the film! She is 20 years old and has the cutest baby girl. She has been to church before when I first got on the Island, but we could never come in contact with her. When she arrived, I started talking to her and she told me,"I´ve been wanting to talk to you guys about baptism" I smiled and told her we could help her with that. She told me she had been taught everything by the missionaries in the past and was going to be baptized on a certain day but she couldn´t make it and the Elders dropped her for some reason. I asked her if she wanted to get baptized this coming saturday and she said that she did, so we are going to meet with her and Elder Thomas and I will prepare her for baptism this week! It will take a lot of work but I know we can do it!!

As for our other investigators, it´s been hard these past two weeks to be in contact with them. Now that we are back at it hopefully we can get them back! 

Easter sunday was really good. Elder Foutz, President Broderick, and I sang the song,"Eu sei que vive o meu Senhor" in sacrament meeting, and I had to sing a solo part in Portuguese and I was so nervous but everyone said it was awesome haha. It was a really spiritual day! 

As for today, it´s raining again.. so we decided to have a district Pday in Angra! All six of our district missionaries (Elder Foutz, me, Elder Lowry, Elder Crawford, Sister Doman, and Sister Hart) went bowling and it was SUPER FUN!! We had a little competition and as all of you know I´m super competative so it was a good time! I can´t wait to go back again :)

Hope y´all are doing awesome. I´m sad to hear about the bombings at the airport but our mission hasn´t had any changes because of it. The only reason I heard about it was from an investigator... so I´m super closed off from society lol.  

Espero que tenham uma boa semana!! 

Fiquem bem! Um abraço para todos :)

--------

Élder Brandon Michael Haroldsen

Missão Portugal Lisboa 

Rua Jorge Barradas Nº 14C

1500-370 Benfica, Lisboa

Portugal 

DOG DAYZZZZ

Hello everybody!

This week we had a long week. Unfortunately we had to take the hour long bus ride to Angra almost every single day for divisions with our District leader, visiting the doctor for my companions tonsilitis, Zone Conference, and going to our District Conference, meaning we missed a lot of work time in our area.

Basically everyone we had on the potential list is MIA(Missing In Action). We have gone by their houses every day, several times a day, and they seem to never be home. They all live really far away from each other so basically we would use most of our day just walking to their houses to find they were not home. Fortunately we fixed our bikes this week! We had bikes sitting outside our apartment for the longest time and finally decided to do something about them. A less active kid helped us fix them and they are good to go now. We rode them up the mountain and by the time we got all the way up we were both huffin´ and puffin´ with sweat dripping down our foreheads haha. We have a lot of uphill roads but the downhill makes it all worth it. It will take some time getting used to as our bodies are only used to walking all day every day! We both have saddle sore super bad right now. The bikes will definately help though and the best part is we are the only missionaries with bikes in all of Portugal!  

This week we also had our Azores zone conference with our mission president and his wife. They always give encouraging uplifting things that are exactly what I need to here. I really love them! Pres. Tavares and his wife both spoke and she talked about how we will have hard days on our missions and feel like we are unsucessful but then she asked President. "when you interview a missionary at the end of their missions, do you ask them how many baptisms they had?" he said "No, because you dont know how many baptisms you truly had or will have influenced. A baptism that happens is part of everybodies that contacted, taught, or even said hi to the person in the past." She said our purpose as missionaries is to invite others to come unto Christ.. if we invite, we are being truly sucessful.  

This really helped me because this mission and especially this area is really tough. But I know that my purpose as a Disciple of Jesus Christ is to invite others to partake of the happiness that Jesus Christ and his gospel has to offer. Whether they accept or reject, as long as I tried my best, I can still be sucessful. Then President spoke and he shared a quote, in portuguese of course, but he said, "Despite all of the challenges and difficulties we face, we will be sucessful. One day all of the people who accepted the Gospel that you influenced in any way will be there in the Celestial Kingdom with you and they will be rejoicing at the sacrifice you made for them here on your missions".

I just want to close with a brief spiritual thought..

As a Missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, I talk to people all day every day about Christ and his gospel. I have seen people that have a lot of faith, and others who have very little or no faith at all. Most people say they have faith but have no idea what faith is and what they even have faith in. They refuse to act on this faith because they truly don´t understand the atonement of Jesus Christ. I just want to let you all know that I have faith in my Savior Jesus Christ and his Atonement. And because I have faith in him, I am willing to obey everything he has commanded me to do in order to receive exaltation, as he has promised, because faith without works is dead (James 2:17). This gospel is simple. Christ suffered for all of our pains, sicknesses, sufferings, and sorrows so that we don´t have to. How amazing is that? And in return, all he asks us to do is to follow him. This is why I am here on my mission.. because I have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and his atonement. I know that he lives and loves me. With this faith comes hope for the future. And I want to share this hope with all of God´s children. All we have to do is obey and do as he did. 

This church is true. It is the only true church on the face of the earth. Christ lives. He is our savior and reedeemer. His atonement and grace is sufficient for each and every one of us if we turn to him. I know this and this is why I am a missionary for his church.

I love you all!

Have a great week!! 

Love,

Elder Haroldsen     

--------

Élder Brandon Michael Haroldsen

Missão Portugal Lisboa 

Rua Jorge Barradas Nº 14C

1500-370 Benfica, Lisboa

Portugal 

Started from the bottom now we´re here!

Olá meus amigos e família! 

How was everybody´s week? 

Our´s was a pretty awesome, spiritual week. As many of you remember, last week I was kind of dissapointed because our super elect baptism fell and we were basically out of investigators and people to teach.

Welllll, this week we did a lot of tracting: Street contacts, door knocking, passing by everyone we had taught before.. Aka the hard part about missionary work. I probably walked close to 40 miles this past week because of all the tracting we did. BUT we found some elects! 

These people were a PROCESS to find. haha. Basically we did a contact, the guy gave us his address, we passed by, he wasn´t home.. we went by a couple of days later, nothing. After knocking his door at 8:30pmand after a long day of walking and no success, I was pretty discouraged. Then we saw a kid walking by himself around a corner. The adversity told me not to talk to him, but as consecrated missionaries, we talk to everyone. So we did. We asked him his name, he said his name was Daniel. He is 21 years old. We introduced ourselves and told him we are Representatives of The Lord Jesus Christ, here with a message about how families can be together forever. We asked if he had 15-20 min to talk to us and he said sure! And took us to his house around the corner. We taught him the 2nd lesson, the Plan of Salvation, and he told us his dad had past away a few years ago. WOW the spirit was strong that lesson. We taught so clearly with the spirit and Daniel accepted to read and pray. We marked him for baptism for the 19th of March and then he prayed and gave a wonderful prayer! As we walked out Elder Foutz and I were like,"The Lord is answering our prayers." The Lord works in mysterious ways! 

We went back two days later and Daniels Mom was there, Maria Josê. She was going to leave the lesson and just have us talk to Daniel and he was like, "no mom, stay.. this message is important for you too." So we taught them both the 1st lesson, the Restoration, and marked them both for the 19th. Daniel helped his mom with the closing prayer. He is already gaining his own testimony! He told us he prayed about the Book of Mormon and felt that it was true and he also prayed to see if he should be baptized by proper authority and he said he felt the spirit confirm to him that he should. We have been back like 4 times to talk to them and I have felt the spirit there more than any other investigator I have had. Daniel is going to be the future of this Branch. 

Unfortunately, we have a District Conference for the Azore islands this weekend and Daniel works this sunday, and since they haven´t been to church yet, we are going to have to move their baptismal date to the 27th according to our Zone Leaders. We haven´t told talked to them to tell them yet, but we have a family home evening with them tonight so we are excited! 

We also have other huge potentials: Sandra, her son Vitor, Tina, and Maria Dos Santos. So we are going to work a lot for them to prepare them for baptism too! There is a lot of potential here in Praia and we working hard to find them! 

I´m so very grateful for your prayers. I really feel the power of prayer and The Lord is blessing me and strengthening me every day out here. 

Muito obrigado por tudo que fazem para mim. Vocês são os melhores! Os amo muito! Espero que tenham uma boa semana e que sempre se lembram a seguir em frente com fé no senhor Jesus Cristo.  

Com muito carinho,

Elder Brandon Haroldsen 

---------

Élder Brandon Michael Haroldsen

Missão Portugal Lisboa 

Rua Jorge Barradas Nº 14C

1500-370 Benfica, Lisboa

Portugal