New Mission President and Angola a New Mission!

President and Sister Merrill with the Elders in Luanda

President Merrill and his wife are here and they came to the baptisms and it was the first time that I met him, it was awesome we had such a great time and he shook each of our hands and he told me he remembered meeting you, mom.  They are so welcoming and helpful, comforting to know that we finally have a Mission President that is going to stay here with us.  I am truly grateful.
So excited because Paula (Joao's wife) is getting baptized so both parents will now be baptized.  We are teaching the entire family.  Serafim is getting baptized and we asked him who he wanted to baptize him in the ward, and to my surprise he asked me if I would baptize him.  I was shocked, did not see that coming, anyways, so I told him that I could baptize him.  I was super excited!
After that we visited Tereza and we taught her the importance of the Book of Mormon. Here people really like to invite you into their home, especially if you are American.
We taught Dorival and we taught him about baptism and confirmation and got him prepared to be baptized.. Then we helped the 5 Elders that were going home get their luggage in our apartment since we are the closest to the airport.  It was hard to say goodbye to the Elders that were leaving, it was a sad moment, especially to say goodbye to those who I had become so close to in such a short time.  It was truly a heart breaker anyways, almost cried.  Airports, just make every missionary emotional, especially me.
So a member had cooked us lunch and she cooked a pig and brought it over to the house, so we all began eating the dinner and I noticed that the pig tasted a little hairy, so looked down and saw like 1 inch white hairs all over the skin of the pig.  The pig had not been shaved or anything it was like she just threw it on how it was. Anyways family it wasn't hot hoof  but I am getting close!
Funny moment, some Angolans were working on the air conditioning unit inside of the house, so I decided to offer them some brownies, apparently Angolans don't like chocolate, they began to eat because of my polite offer.  They hoofed them down and I offered more and they said no thank you.  After that Elder Stuart let me know that they don't like chocolate!

Serafim's Baptism

Friday Night we went to go fill up the font since it takes about 2 hours with the leak and the Zone leaders showed up to help us, it was awesome. Saturday we woke up and went to the baptisms, I brought my baptismal clothes (got to use them for the first time).  We were there at 6:30 in the morning and we had to run to the church to fill up the font more because of the leak and so during the night a lot of the water drained out. So we filled it up till about 8 and then went home and changed and came back.  After the talks their was a change and they asked me to baptize Dorival also.  I was super nervous, there were so many people there including  the Mission President who had just arrived.  For the baptism, I didn't know how to say Dorival's full name completely so I had to practice and also the prayer but I am thankful that I was able to do everything the first time and it was such a relief.  Anyways Serafim and Dorival both got baptized super awesome.  The mission President spoke at the baptism he spoke great Portuguese it was awesome.

Serafim's Baptism

Dorival's Baptism

Paula's Baptism

After the baptisms we taught Julia and Ruth about the Restoration, great lesson and after that we visited Dorival and I shared with him Helaman 5:12 about having a testimony like a rock unto the Savior. It was awesome.
We taught a member of the secret service of Angola it was super awesome.
We had 9 people that were confirmed at church.  Super awesome.  After church we went to the Wegglands to watch the missionary broadcast for the topic of working with ward members.  After that we gave them a message on Eternal families, my favorite part of the gospel.
We got up early on P-day to go and play soccer and the collector and another guy started fighting these 2 other guys and they were all fighting each other. Interesting things like this happen every day here.
Such a great week so happy that we finally have a Mission President here and Angola Luanda is a new mission as of July 1...!!!!