Greenies... and Pictures

Let's Take This A Second Time Around

Oh minha família.. I adore you all and thanks for the pics. Love seeing all your shinnnny faces on my computer screen. Last night i got the transfer phone call. I got really excited because i knew that some big changes were going to happen in our area.. because it desperately needs it. So on the other side of the phone call an elder told me that my sweet little greenies are leaving the nest here in almada to go to another area and i get to stay AND TRAIN ANOTHER GREENIE!!!!!!! Can you believe it, I am training again. Yeah, the excitement went to me being nervous and I basically threw up twice.. ha ha Heavenly Father is giving me another opportunity to help his children be baptized and teach his cute little missionaries in the field. I wasn´t expecting this transfer at all. My greenie will arrive on Wednesday and i will start training her on Thursday. So, just pray for me. Thanks.

Yesterday, We had picked up two investigators to walk with them to church. They are brothers, Filipe and Francisco. We were planning on baptizing one of them.. Francisco. We found him last week, taught him all week and everything had been running really well. He is a little bit slower and doesn´t fully comprehend everything but he has such a sweet presence and a mentality of an 8 year old so we felt like he should still have the opportunity to be baptized. Anyway, Yesterday as we were sitting in sacrament meeting, the bishop announced the baptism and a member stood up and said Francisco.. you are being baptized again?? He said yeah.. She said no, you can´t be baptized.. you were already baptized. He just looked at her and i froze.. I took the member out in the hall and she explained to me that she saw his baptism like 25 years ago and his brother Filipe was baptized too.. I felt sick.. I couldn´t believe that all this time he had never told us once that he had been baptized before.. So, In the end we didn´t have any investigators in church like we thought we did. We has two less actives that we had been teaching for the last week ha ha. Wow.. yeah.. stop laughing at me.

We have found a good base of progressing investigators and i am so excited for their progress. One night we passed by an apartment that was an reference from headquarters and no one was home so obviously we left. As we were walking up the road, a young man had grabbed Irma Gutirerrez and said wait.. did you just pass by my house?? I have been waiting for you.. I ordered a book of mormon and the dvd, finding faith in christ.. He said do you have it with you?? We so cheerfully said YES! We sat on a bench, taught him the first lesson and invited him to be baptized and he said yes! He is a cute little teenager, 15 years old, searching for the truth.. I am so excited to teach this young man. It was a miracle.

I Love you all, time doesn´t give for me to blab more.. Have a superb week! XOXO

Com Amor,

Irmã Boshard

*Posted By The Boshard Family

PICTURES!

"The Month of March" ~ ALMADA PORTUGAL

Sooo, we hit a few bumps and challenges in the road this transfer but all we do is get back up on our feet and continue in front, right? Duh. So i basically had the craziest experience this week with an investigator.. We knocked on a door not knowing what was going to hit us right in the face.. Antonia is a sweet older woman who lives alone and says that her neighbors are witches.. Her house is possessed with demons and i practically said a prayer to send them away and it changed the way i view the power i have as an irma.. So yes, the men have the priesthood, but we also have the power of heavenly father to help his children in anyway that he needs us to when the priesthood isn´t available. So as Antonia is explaining to me that she has evil spirits in her home and her neighbors are evil i only knew how to say a prayer. I didn´t know how to do anything else. It´s not like i can give her personal advice and help her out.. only the gospel can do that. Clearly. The moment i said the prayer and asked Heavenly Father to bless her home and to bless her with comfort i had the most overwhelming feeling come over me. I know it was the power of the Lord and he heard my prayer and instantly his presence was with us. It was amazing, and a testimony builder of the power of prayer and my calling as an irma. We wanted to help antonia in other ways too so we offered to go back and clean her house.. Let me just tell you her house hadn´t been cleaned in 7 years.. it was a bit hard for me to clean the spiders on the walls and the cockroaches nest, but sweet little greenies helped me out and swept them up and we mopped her floors and did what we could to make a small difference in her home. She asked us to come back and help her clean another time too. She loved it.. We ended up returning again this week to teach her and when we arrived she had told us that the evil spirits returned and she had the urge to do some really bad things to other people.. eeeekkk so we said a prayer, i called the ward mission leader and said, hey can you leave your house basically RIGHT NOW and help us out?? He came right over with another member, blessed her house and gave Anotnia a blessing.. We got right out of there and let Heavenly Father take care of her.. She is a wonderful woman who needs to be baptized and blessed with the gospel so she is our goal this week to teach her and prepare her for baptism.
Training is still going well.. slowly the work is picking up, we still need help from our members but we are working on that one. It won´t just change over night. I love the mission, i love my greenies, i love my savior, i love the book of mormon, i love my calling and i love all of you. Have a great week and i hope you are all preparing for CONFERENCE.. I can´t wait. okay... love you bye. XOXO
Com Amor,
Irma Boshard

MISH MISH MISH

Olá,
Thanks for the emails and pictures.. You´re all a great support system :) I don´t have much to say this week.. unfortunately.. the work has really been hard for us this transfer and especially this last week.. we have one investigator that is kind of progressing and other than that, we can´t get into homes to teach and we aren´t marking anyone for baptism.. I don´t know what it is.. I think the temple ground breaking is coming up soon and Satan is ticked.. because i really don´t have any other excuses.. We walk all the time trying to find people from the area book and contacting on the streets and knocking doors but we can´t seem to get a solid lesson with them. I so badly want to be a good example for my little greenies and i want to show them how fun the work can be but we are just struggling this week.
The one investigator we have is Ruthe. She is from Angola, 50 years old and she is awesome and wants to know our message is true, but she can´t seem to feel anything.. not even the spirit and she isn´t really reading the book of mormon and the chapters we leave with her.. She came to church a few weeks ago and liked it, but she isn´t willing to be baptized until she learns more and can feel what we feel as we testify to her.. In the end, we are continually praying for her and helping her in anyway that we can. We are hoping to prepare her for baptism this Sunday.
Irmã Gutierrez has really picked up the language and is speaking well and sweet Irmã Walton is trying so hard to learn the language.. she speaks well too and speaks better than i did when i got here but she is so ready to just teach.. We work well together and these girls are always ready for what we have next. I know heavenly father gave them to be because i have something to offer them... I just hope i have helped make a difference in their lives.
The lord is molding us everyday into what we are yet to become.. i am grateful for the lows in the mission because sometimes i take a simple contact for granted on the sidewalk.. When someone actually says ´´yeah i would like to hear more.´´ I don´t know what i am supposed to learn from this transfer but patience and work harder. This work never stops. Even as members.. we should be diligent in sharing the gospel everyday.. We all have a part in this work.. just as missionaries we dedicate our whole life to teaching for the time being. Never forget who you are representing.. ALWAYS be a good example, speak kind words to one another, always take an opportunity to share your testimony about what the savior did for you and for the entire world.. It´s pretty incredible.. Just continue to pray for the people to have an open heart here in Portugal. Pray that the work of the Lord will continue to bless the lives of the people in Almada.. We need your prayers. I love you.
XOXO
Com Amor,
Irmã Boshard

TRAINING IS THE LIFE !

Bom Dia minha amor,

I just have to start by telling you one more time, how much i love training.. Seriously.. It is such a blessing. I love my two greenies. They speak really well and have a power testimony. I love serving with them.. Last week was a learning experience for sure.. I am not exactly what i am supposed to get out of it, except for the fact that i need to strengthen my relationship with my savior.

A lot of our appointments fell through this week and we couldn´t teach lessons, we were just praing with a lot of people in the street and in their homes. All the people we wanted to mark for baptism either weren´t home or they literally ran from us. We were working with a mom and her daughter last week and we were trying to prepare them for baptism but the moment we brought up baptism. they got all weird. We marked an appointment with them on Friday and pased by to teach them and the moment they saw us walking to their door they ran from us and their neighbors lied for them and told us that they left the city and went to Lisboa. I had no idea what to do because i knew that we needed to talk to them about their baptism on Sunday, so we prayed and left their house.. We tried to go back and visit them on Saturday and they did the exact same thing.. they ran from us.. We saw them, called out their name and they kept running. It was so frustrating.. That has not happened to me yet in the field. ha ha all you can really do is laugh and make another surprise visit when they aren´t expecting you.. ha ha so we went to go pick them up for church yesterday and the mom came but the daughter didn´t. They already know the church in São Tome.. (sorry i don´t know how to say it in english) but the word baptism freaked them out just a little bit.. We are hoping they will continue to let us come back and teach them. Luana is the daughter and she has had many great questions about god and life itself and we want to get her involved in young womens. She is 14 years old and has so much to offer the girls in our ward. We´re hoping things will get better this week.

Irmã Walton and Irmã Gutierrez are teaching me a lot. You know they are fresh from the MTC and remember a lot of the good points from he counsel of the professors and apostles that spoke to them.. We are really just trying to stay humble and do the will of the lord. Through our obedience we will continue to see miracles and we will see this work progress. I am excited for what is yet to come. It is blessing to me serving with these two girls. It´s a testimony confirmation that heavenly father knows me and he knows who i need to be serving with exactly in this moment. He truly lives and knows us individually.

I hope you all continue to be good examples to your friends. Just live one day at a time and never be worried about what others think. you should be more occupied with what heavenly father thinks. Love you all.

XOXO

Com Amor,

Irmã Boshard

oh p.s. did elder and sister Lund call you?? They said they would because they like to give our parents updates on how we are doing. They are a sweet couple that is serving in my area.. Love them. hope you got to chat with them for a bit.