SIX MONTHS COME AND GONE

Oi! Come que vocês estão? Tudo Bem?

This week went reallyyy fast because of the fact that I flew to Lisbon for my residency. I flew back on the two hr flight all by myself again. After 6 months of being with a comp. at all times, it is the weirdest feeling being alone. The office elders dropped me off at the airport a little early the next day because they had an appointment and so I was in the airport all alone for about 2 hrs. I ate some McDonalds and walked around the stores to pass the time. It was kinda scary to be honest haha.

On thursday we had the worldwide missionary broadcast. It was a really good broadcast!! The theme was "Teach repentance and baptize converts" I really felt the spirit during it. They really emphasized that as a missionary you are a tool to invite the Holy Ghost to convert the people. We cannot force the people to feel the spirit. 

Then Friday I hit my 6 month mark! I burned a tie in celebration and it was really fun. It is so unbelieveable how fast the time has gone. Half a year already! It seems like yesterday I was graduating from high school. As of right now I have 17 months left on my mission total. That is a scary thought because I dont want to go home. I love it here! There is no greater work than this work, serving Heavenly Father. It is a weird feeling telling people that I am 18 years old and already have 6 months in the mission field. Time really flies when you are having fun.

We went by our investigator Soriah´s house on saturday night because it was her birthday. We took her cookies and everything! She was so happy and she told us she was sorry for not going to church with us last week because she didnt have a ride and she told us she was going this sunday (yesterday) as long as she had a ride. She told us if she didnt have a ride that she would call us. So sunday comes around and she wasn´t answering our calls and didnt show up for church unfortunately. She has a great desire to be baptized but she told us she is moving to canada in Feb. So we were going to try to baptize her after church if she came. I have no idea what happened. She is super elect and likes us a lot! We have a week to teach her and get her baptized before she leaves. Hopefully we can witness a miracle this week! 

We also got to witness the Priesthood Power and Authority that we have as representatives of Jesus Christ this week. It is a sacred story that I will remember for the rest of my life. 

After being on my mission for the past 6 months, I have learned a lot. 

I learned of the true love our Heavenly Father has for each one of us. He truly loves us. He blesses us if we follow the commandments and strive to be better each and every day. He has blessed me with sooo many things and I am so grateful for that. One of the greatest blessings he gave us was his only begotten son, Jesus Christ. He sent his son to be the perfect example for us and ultimately sacrifice himself for us. Jesus Christ and God the Father live. They are waiting to bless us and help us if we just reach out for their love. If we follow and have faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ, we will have all the power to combat satan´s powerful forces. I have seen this on my mission and I know it is real.

Always remember who you are. You are royalty, literally the son or daughter of a Heavenly King. 

I promise you that this is true. I know it is. I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day saints is the one and only true church on the face of the earth. And I know this because I asked God and he answered me. 

I love you all and I hope you have an awesome week!! 

Fica fixe meus queridos amigos!! 

---------

Élder Brandon Michael Haroldsen

Missão Portugal Lisboa 

Rua Jorge Barradas Nº 14C

1500-370 Benfica, Lisboa

Portugal 

SURVIVING HURRICANE ALEX

Hey everyone!

Well as many of you have probably heard, the Eastern Atlantic Ocean was hit by a hurricane this past week and they named it "Hurricane Alex" as it was the first hurricane of the year. According to the radars, it was going to hit the Azore islands straight on and all of the Portuguese people were freaking out making a huge deal out of the situation. The island was in a red zone meaning nobody was supposed to go outside due to the strong winds and intense rain. The hurricane wasn´t supposed to hit until 4 am so we didn´t really get to see how strong the winds really were but it was really windy that night. When we woke up in the morning it was pouring rain and the wind made the rain seem like it was falling completely sideways. It was crazy! But then at about noon the rain stopped and the sun started coming out. Turns out that the hurricane hit about 20km away from the island so we just got some wind and rain, nothing too bad. But it was my first time being in a Hurricane! 

This past week we started seeing some sucess. We got a ride out to a small city named Lajes which is about 5 miles away from Praia. We had been planning on going out there to visit this girl but couldnt because of the rain and our lack of a car. But we got a ride from some senior missionaries serving in Angra. We walked out there once and it was a longggg ways! Anyways, this girl is named Soraiah. She had been taught by the missionaries in the past and had been to church many times. She wanted to get baptized but since she was only 17, her parents wouldn't give her prermission. She then moved to the island of Pico for work for the next two years and lost contact with the elders. well she came back! She let us in on our first visit and we got to know her a little and asked about what the missionaries taught her in the past. She said she really liked the Church of Jesus Christ because she felt the spirit here and she felt like it was one big family. We then started talking about baptism and that now that shes 19, she can choose to be baptized on her own. We marked her for baptism this sunday, Jan 24th and she told us she would come to church with us yesterday but unfortunately she didnt show up and didnt answer our calls. So we will see. We are going to pass by her house tomorrow again and see what happened. She can still be baptized this sunday!! We are praying a lot for her. Shes awesome! 

This week I will be flying back to Lisbon on the 20th to receive my recidency card to be legal here, and I will be seeing everyone from the MTC who came out with me! I then fly back to the Azores on the 21st. Then on the 26th we have zone conf. which is on another island so my comp and I will be flying to the island of São Miguel for that. A lot of flying in the next week! Im not too excited for that lol.

Since we have an American member in our branch, he doesnt understand any Portuguese, so we translate for him the same way we do in the states, except the headsets are way more cool here. But my comp. plays the piano for sacrament mtg. so i am the one translating for him. Its really fun and its a really good practice for me! carrying on my dads tradition of translating haha. 

Well, thats about it for the week. It was a fun quick week! 

Hope you are all doing good. Thanks for all the emails and support! Eu vos amo! 

--------

Élder Brandon Michael Haroldsen

Missão Portugal Lisboa 

Rua Jorge Barradas Nº 14C

1500-370 Benfica, Lisboa

Portugal 

OLÁ DA PRAIA DA VITÓRIA!

Hello everybody!

What´s up? How are things back home? 

This week was awesome. I flew out for the island on Tuesday morning and arrived on Terceira island two hours later. As soon as we started flying in everything looked soo different from Lisbon. Green EVERYWHERE and a lot of farmland. They say there are more coows than people on the island.

The weather is crazy. A lot of unpredictable rain coming from the Atlantic ocean almost everyday. It is also extremely windy! I guess a couple weeks ago a hurricane passed by this island and hit the island of São Jorge. We woke up the other night because the wind was hitting the windows so hard. Crazy!! 

I love it here. It is gorgeous!! Unlike anything I have ever seen. Everywhere you look you see small farms of green alfalfa separated by lava rock fences the people built and cows inside.

The portuguese accent here is different than in Lisbon. It is super difficult to understand! My first day here felt like the first day on my mission again. They say the accent in st. jorge is even harder to understand and I have met a couple of people from there and I completely agree. I feel like they aren´t even speaking portuguese haha.

The members are awesome here. There aren´t many, but they love to help the missionaries. We have had two dinners in less than a week already!! 

There are also some other differences between here and Lisbon those being: They have concrete sidewalk here!!, they sell mac and cheese AND Dr. Pepper/ Mtn. Dew!, and they have an American base here so a lot of people are American and know english.

We have a lot of potential for baptisms here. There are a lot of people we are teaching. This past week we had the most lessons out of the whole zone!

This past week we were walking through pouring rain and we were soaking wet walking home when we look over and these guys were moving these cows out of the field and they were just whistling and the cows were following the guy on the tractor. I thought that was crazy and then the guy starts driving the tractor on the main road and here come the cows right behing him! They walked the road through all the busy traffic almost stepping on us! I was like wow.. we would never see anything like this in America!! I couldnt get any pics unfortunately because it was pouring rain and I didnt want to ruin my camera. 

The first week of Feb. they have a thing here called carnaval.. which is a week of water aka getting everyone wet for fun. So they told us missionaries to watch out and be careful. I have a feeling we are going to be a big target hahaha.

Every year starting in May they do bull runs here on the streets and also on the beach. A member was showing us videos and they were running 6 huge bulls down the middle of the town with no rope or anything! and people were getting jacked up! It was so crazy!! I hope i can be here for that! Look up the videos.. "Praia da Vitoria Touradas", and also "Marradas" 

I am loving this island. It is incredible and I wish you all could experience it with me!

Hope you have a great week!! 

Love you all!!

-------

Élder Brandon Michael Haroldsen

Missão Portugal Lisboa 

Rua Jorge Barradas Nº 14C

1500-370 Benfica, Lisboa

Portugal 

TRANSFERS TRANSFERS TRANSFERS #4/16

Sup everybody! Happy 2016!! Hope you all had a wonderful new year back at home.

This week was the last week of the transfer and we finished out the week with fire! We had the best week that we had had in 12 weeks! I was glad that we finished out strong and we able to find a ton of new investigators!

This past week President Tavares changed some things up in our mission. Transfer days were changed from Mondays to Wednesdays and p days went from ending at 6:30 to 4 now. We also cant leave out areas on p days so we are basically stuck where we are. He really wants us to focus more on the work because December was a poor number of baptisms for our mission. So even though a lot of missionaries are upset at that rule, I think its going to help.

New years eve was pretty fun! We were allowed to stay up but we had to be inside the apartment. So right at midnight we went out on our balcony and people were shooting off fireworks and yelling. It was pretty crazy! haha I got a video of it on my camera. Its so crazy that it is 2016 already!

We got our transfer calls from the zone leaders last night and Elder Hilton is staying in VFX with Elder Pickrell and I am getting transferred to Praia, Terceira on the Azore Islands!!! I am beyond excited! I am going to serve with Elder Puertas and he was in my district last transfer. His family is from Peru so we can practice our spanish together :) We are really good friends so this transfer will be a lot of fun! I fly out on a 2 hr flight to the Azores tomorrow morning and I am only allowed to take one suitcase so I will have to pack just a little of my stuff to take. I cant wait! I talked to Elder Puertas last night and he said that our area is right next to the U.S military base and one of the members is American so he always hooks the Elders up with American food. Another benefit is that he lets the Elders use his U.S. mailing address on the base so sending packages will be really cheap as it would be sending something stateside. 

Ill be sending pics of the island next week. 

Hope you are all well.

Eu vos amo! Fiquem bem!! 

Élder Brandon Michael Haroldsen

Missão Portugal Lisboa 

Rua Jorge Barradas Nº 14C

1500-370 Benfica, Lisboa

Portugal