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 

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Élder Brandon Haroldsen

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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

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Élder Brandon Haroldsen

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Missão Portugal Lisboa

Rua Jorge Barradas Nº14C

1500-370 Benfica, Lisboa

Portugal