Me and Irma Dias

Irma's at the beach

Beautiful Christmas day at the beach

Baptisms on Christmas day

There is nothing better than being at a baptism on Christmas day!

Irma Dias and me

"Ye are the light of the world, a city that is set on a hill and cannot be hid..."

This is a beautiful family

Christmas Eve dinner at our apartment in Madeira

Merry Christmas

Sitting on my bed with this beautiful, colorful wrap that was a gift from Irma Dias' mom. She also sent me a Portugal pen!

This is my district, yes they are goobs! The finger M's are for Madeira

Photos from Portugal

Happy Holidays

Hi there,

I got your letter Hannah and your stickers mom from Thanksgiving.. Loved it.. I will save them for next year.. ha ha Thanks for always thinking of me and sending me thoughtful cards and gifts.. I love you!

SOO.. clearly i am emailing you and i am not in Lisboa.. So sad.. We were all so excited to go to Lisboa today.. I had talked to 3 different people about the chirtsmas party and it was all planned that we would fly to Lisboa today, but this last week they changed it and President and Irmã Torgan flew to Madeira and we had our own little christmas party here. Funny Story.. The office Elders forgot to call the Zone Leaders and tell us we were having a christmas party here and on Wednesday Irmã and i were getting ready to leave our house for some appointments and we got a call from the district leaders saying.. you will never believe what is going on right now.. President and Irmã Torgan are in Funchal and a member had made a feast for us and they are wondering where are the missionaries.. ha ha We hopped on a bus and arrived and hour and a half later, we had a christmas party and feasted.. ha ha President and Irmã were in the chapel forever waiting for us.. I felt so bad.. ooops those poor elders that forgot to call us.. How do you forget to call an island and say.. hey your mission president is flying out to see you.. Any way, we sang christmas songs, ate good food, President gave inspiration and it was nice..

This mission is full of miracles and i am so grateful for all the things President Torgan is teaching us.. one thing that we have to remember everyday is, be humble, repent EVERYDAY and do the will of the lord.. So one night this week Irmã and i were doing some contacting and it wasn´t going super well, so we stopped at a corner to pray and repent for whatever it was we did wrong and fix it so we can find investigators.. right as we were going to pray Irmã Dias saw a woman sitting on a bech and said we should talk to her.. I said let´s pray and talk to her after.. Right as we were starting to pray this woman got up and was walking towards us. She said excuse me, i am sorry.. I would love to talk to you.. She began to cry and was explaining how hard her life is right now and needs a change.. we sat on a bench and talked with her forever.. in the end we made an appointment to meet with her again and she said can i bring my daughter? She is 19 and i think she would love your message.. so We met with them this week and everything went smoothly and we marked them to be baptized next sunday!!! We are so excited.. A cute little family.. Every time i have a baptism.. i think, my mission is complete.. I´ve found they elect.. but then the week after Heavenly Father places someone else in my path and the cycle starts over again.. This work is such a blessing!!!

That is crazy Lauren will be home next week.. I don´t want that to be me.. Bahhh one year.. I pray that is goes extremely SLOW.. (sorry mom). What about Amy.. I know she leaves in a month or so right?

Until next week!!! XOXO

Irmã Boshard



*Posted By The Boshard Family

Happy Holidays From Madeira!

Happy Holidays!!! On the island of Madeira.. It feels like summer to me. It is sunny most days and when it rains it is not too cold. It definitely does not feel like December.. I feel like it should be snowing any day now.. This is weird..

So- sorry Drew i didn´t get the chance to respond about the missionary in your ward from Portugal.. What is his name again and where did he live in Portugal?? Details.. Thanks :) oh yeah.. my zone leaders have a package for me and i think it might be the one you send me.. They said i can get it this week.. We´ll see, but thanks for being so thoughtful.. I love you!

This week was a week of miracles.. seriously. My mind is blown at how the Lord works with missionaries. Saturday night last week we met a drunk on the side of the road and invited him to church.. well he came to church last week and brought a friend with him.. The friend is Fabio.. Fabio had some questions after church.. said he loved the feeling of peace during the meetings and would like to return.. He talked about his mom that passed away and it has been rough, so we talked about eternal families, you know the routine and well we instantly made an appointment to teach him and the following Tuesday we taught him and marked him to be baptized on Sunday (yesterday). Tuesday night, he gave up drinking, smoking and coffee, cold turkey people.. and never returned to it this week.. It wasn´t even a temptation for him. He is SO elect.. and was baptized yesterday.. He actually received the Holy Ghost yesterday too because on Friday he is moving to England for work and won´t be returning to Madeira for a while. He can´t wait to meet the members in England start his new life there.. Seriously.. I was so grateful to be and instrument in the Lords hands to help change Fabio´s life.
Yesterday we also baptized João.. yay!! 2 baptisms!! João has been in depression for the last 6 months and it was a blessing to find him in the road last Sunday night.. He had attend church years ago with the Elders and was excited to find us and return to church with us this week. João is quiet and timid but truly loves the lord and wants a new path in life. Right after he was baptized he walked out of the font, he slipped and fell and hit is head on the stairs.. His head started bleeding, i gasped extremely loud and was so worried. He was starting to feel pain but said he was fine. Thankfully our Zone leaders were there to help us and they cleaned up his head and said it was deep and that he should be okay but we should go to the hospital because we don´t want anything bad to happen if he goes to sleep. So- after the baptism we drove to the hospital and waited for an hour and a half and thank heavens João was alright and his cut wasn´t seriously deep.

I will never stop talking about how grateful i am for this mission. It is such a blessing in my life to be of service in the Lords hands and teach others about his message. What if i extend my mission and stay here forever??
I love Irmã Dias.. She and i have a blast doing this work together.. We have the same vision and purpose here, the work comes easy.. (some days.. Of course you know it is not perfect out here in the mission field) but She and i are ment to be serving together in this time. I have so much to learn from her.

Okay- a few questions and favors...

Mom and Drew- can you find Alyssa Mortensen on facebook for me and get her address? She and i were companions in Odivelas and i need to write her and send her some pictures... Will you check on her too.. Make sure she is doing alright for me.. She returned home just a few weeks ago from the field i need an update on her. But not that i am a creep.. She´ll understand :)

Did you get my postcards? I hope so.. I thought they were so cool.. the material of cork.. I found then at Cristo Rei in Almada.

I love you all.. as always.. you are my family and all! I hope you are all having fun prepping for the holidays.. We get to chat soon.. Already.. Man.. Okay.. apostasy.. I can´t think about that..

Take care! XOXO

Irmã Boshard


P.s... I may or may not email you next week because we are flying to Lisboa for our Mission Christmas Party and i don´t know if i will have time to shoot you all an email.. so... be patient.

p.s.s My new favorite scripture is Alma 12: 35 Read it. Love it. Live by it.


okay.. i re-read this email and i need to clarify that João´s cut was NOT deep when the Elders looked at it the first time.. man.. sometimes i type so fast.. sorry..
What is it with me and hospitals.. man, i am curse aren´t i??



*Posted By The Boshard Family

Information Overload!

The Lords creation is without words. The Island of Madeira is incredible. You can see the ocean from every angle of the island. The island isn´t super big. I went to Funchal for a zone meeting and it was and hour long bus ride of beauty.. freak. I love it all. Our zone has 8 missionaries and we have all heard what a privilege it is to serve here.. We are so grateful to represent Christ here.

This week i had my first run in with someone who has done research about the Mormons online.. and he speaks English so it made things worse because i could understand what he said. He is an investigator the missionaries have been teaching for about 4 or 5 weeks and he is not very intelligent because he said that we are preaching a false Christ and our church is built on sand and not a rock because God changes his mind. For example when the black people couldn´t hold the priesthood.. yadda yadda.. this guy said our church is a mask and the devil is behind it.. and i cried and cried and we left his house. I felt so sick to my stomach. It was awful and i never want to feel that way again.. But we returned to his house because we feel like he needs to be baptized.. so we returned and he said i am sorry for yesterday.. I am not the first person to say these things to you am i? and i said.. yep.. he said, welcome to Madeira.. ha ha ha We found 26 new investigators this week and had over 40 other lessons with investigators.. it was incredible.. We are planning on baptizing them all.. don´t worry.

Yesterday i met our ward of maybe 10 or 13 active members.. It was kind of a shock for me. Heavenly Father has send me here to truly help with the Less Actives and baptisms. I love the ward though.. They are so welcoming. I will be speaking and teaching many classes this transfer.. I feel bad for those who have to listen to my Portuguese.. ha ha I met a young man who just returned home from his mission last week from Manchester England.. I said, oh my gosh.. do you know Elder Rodgerson? He freaked and said YES.. I was his zone leader this last transfer.. He loves Trace and said he the hardest working missionary in the field.. Doesn´t surprise me.. Trace is a machine.. So you should tell the Rodgersons that Trace is very loved in England.. but that is no surprise.. The Elder i met is Elder Dandast.. i hope i spelled is name right.. Small world right???

Our contacts were interesting this last week.. we did find 26 new investigators.. But One night Irmã Dias and i were walking on the sidewalk and a man says.. Hey. I see you around all the time i want to know your message.. (he was drunk) and we talked to him and prayed and testified of course.. and then he saw his friend Fransisco, and called him over (he was drunk too) and we prayed with him and taught him on the street.. and right after we said the prayer and i opened my eyes there was a man standing right in front of me, nose to nose (he was drunk too) and said, hey, i want to come to church with you.. where is your church? and bam.. we found 3 drunk men wanting to know the message of Christ. It was fantastic. I love doing this everyday of my life.

Saturday night Irmã and i found a new investigator, her name is Conceição on our way home for the night and we invited her to church and she said she would come, but everyone says they will come so we didn´t expect to see her in church... but she came and we were thrilled. During sacrament meeting she saw two investigators receive the Holy Ghost and she said i want that.. Can those men put their hands on my head today? I said not today but after you are baptized you can receive the holy ghost and i explained to her baptism and everything about it.. and she said i want to be baptized.. when can i be baptized and we said next Sunday.. she said okay.. I am being baptized next Sunday.. WHAT THE HECK.. i was speechless.. She is elect and a miracle that was put right into our hands.. I love Conceição.. She is incredible and will be an incredible member..

My companion is Portuguese, clearly, and we would love to eat like Americans on Christmas. Can you send us some American chocolate?? Like Reeses Peanut Butter Cups.. She would love to try them.. I speak very highly of this treat some times.

I hope you all enjoy the pictures.. that is just a small fraction of what i have on my camera.. I am sorry i slacked in this area for you all.. but no worries.. I will send more next week and for the rest of the mish.. I got a message dad´s email couldn´t receive my 3rd transfer pictures.. so please forward that to him for me.. I am out of time or else i would try to fix it.. I love you all and i hope you have a great week. I am off to eat lunch by the ocean..

Happy Holidays!

XOXO

Irmã Boshard

p.s. i hope this email makes sense because i wrote it super fast. mkay. bye.




*Posted By The Boshard Family