12/25/17 - White Christmas!

Merry Christmas!! Christmas’s on the mission are the best. Usually on Christmas we think about our wants and our needs even though we know the true meaning of Christmas is giving and remembering Christ. But on the mission it’s something else…its super special because for this time we really are doing what Christ did while he was on the earth. I’ve learned on my mission that the best way to get closer to Christ is to do what he did and he preached the gospel at all times. Just like our mission scripture here in Portugal... DC 24:12 "And at all times, and in all places, he shall open his mouth and declare my gospel as with the voice of a trump, both day and night. And I will give unto him strength such as is not known among men." So I invite you all this Christmas season to share the gospel... it’ll be intimidating at first but when you share you’ll feel the love of God and feel closer to Christ.

We picked up the new missionaries this last week...talked to Mallory!  It was weird seeing her in the mission, but she is doing great and will be an awesome missionary.

We sure did have a white Christmas here in Portugal (Mom, that doesn’t mean snow but baptisms)! We are still waiting for the documents so Nilton and Paula can get married--complications. We were there on Thursday and Paula said, “Well if we don’t get the documents this week I don't want to prevent my children from having the blessings that come from baptism so they will be baptized this weekend.”  And it happened!! Leonel and Francisca where baptized and it went really well!!

We had a party on Christmas Eve with President and Sister Tavares and their family and again today we had lunch with them!  Later 4 of us missionaries went to a place called Cabo.Roca which was super cool!

I talked to the family today. Love them all and miss them! They are the best!!

--Elder Herrmann

12/18/17 - Light the World

This was the fastest transfer yet with another super crazy week! We had the huge Christmas conference in Lisbon on Wednesday with about 100 missionaries! All the training we did along with President and Sister Tavares turned out great! The whole conference we were just running around trying to fix problems so by the end, I was dead but really satisfied. The next day we met with President and Sister Tavares and the office elders to finalize the transfers and the plans for the next transfer! The meeting was great and right after we headed down to the Algarve to do our last Christmas conference. We arrived in Algarve late that night then the next day started over again with the conference cycle.

Sister Tavares’ message was on how we can be our own hero by making things happen and not just sitting around waiting for things to happen. President’s message was on the life of Abraham and how he was tested time and time again to show his love for the Lord through sacrifice. When we think of Abraham we instantly think of him sacrificing Isaac but that was just ONE (the hardest) of all the sacrifices that he made for the Lord. He went deep into the life of Abraham, showing how he was ready to sacrifice everything so that he could live with God again.  President Tavares said, “To inherit the kingdom of God we will need to sacrifice the things we most love."  Applying this message to ourselves as missionaries…if we want to live with God again we will need to sacrifice, we need to leave our comfort zone!! 

This week we did a project with “Light the World”. Elder Egbert and I went to some of the areas where we had a stand on the street and gave them calendars to help them know how they can be a light to the world.  It was a fun project.

We had more miracles happen this week in our area! Nelson (recently baptized) is in Angola right now picking up his family of 5 to bring them to Portugal.  We are excited to meet them! Also we are super close to baptizing Nilton’s family. We just need one more paper from Angola to legally marry them.  After that their family will be baptized as they are so excited and ready! Please pray for us that we can receive those documents this week!

Everything is amazing here in Lisbon!

- Elder Herrmann

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12/11/17 - Christmas Conference in the Açores

Hey, how's everyone doing? Life is good here!! Lots of things happened this week so where do I start....

We started our Christmas conferences this week. We will be doing 3 of them. One in the Açores, one in the Algarve, and then one huge one with basically all of the mission in Lisbon. This week we flew to the Açores to do the first and smallest conference. It was cool going back to my islands, I love them so much and had many flashbacks while I was there for 2 days. Seeing the green hills, blue ocean, and the Azorean people gave me a great feeling. The conference went well, my comp and I did a training on unity with your comp, your mission, and your God. It went well but we are excited to fix the bugs for the next conference in Lisbon this upcoming week! Sister and President Tavares gave inspiring messages.  I’ll tell you about them later but don’t want to spoil it for any in the mission who haven’t heard it yet.  I’ll just tell you it was great! 

Our mission is doing really really well right now! We are trying to reach a goal that hasn’t been reached the whole time President and sister Tavares have been here. We are getting close and exercising faith and ramping up!! Along with that there is a lot of opposition, but we are fighting the good fight and won’t stop. Please pray for us! 

One of my favorite things this week was when we went over to the mission home and met President and sister Tavares’ grandson who is staying with them for the holidays.  His name is Gilherme and he is 6 years old. He has a lot of nerf guns and challenged us to a nerf war which was super fun!

I have been studying a lot about the atonement of Christ and have learned a lot of new things but there is still so much more. I also am studying 3^rd Nephi and it’s just so sick.  Jesus really is the Christ! Everything he said was just perfect! I am honored I get to wear his name on my chest! 

Today we went to a place called “boca do inferno” or “mouth of hell” in English. It is a rock formation where the ocean meets the beach and these huge waves make crazy splashes! It was a good time!

-Elder Herrmann