Caldas da Rainha!!

Hello everybody!

Life is great!! So Thursday I arrived at the mission office, received some letters, and headed off to Caldas da Rainha with Elder Flint, my new companion, and the senior missionary couple, Elder and Irmã Parker. They´re all amazing and awesome! Caldas da Rainha (Hot Springs of the Queen) is great, big, and beautiful!!

Elder Spencer Paul Flint is from Layton (sp?) Utah, and he´s a great companion. And yes, he has a great first name, too! ;) The Parkers are from Rexburg Idaho, I believe, and Elder Parker served his mission back when he was a younger man in the Brazil mission, around Curitiba, around the same time as Dad served. Que coisa boa, e mundo pequeno!

Well all those prophecies of Mom saying I needed to learn piano so I could play on my mission are in full force here in Caldas. I am now the piano player, since Elder Flint doesn´t feel his simplified hymns is good enough. But it is great to be of service! We have a nice branch that encompasses a large area. We have English classes on Thursday evenings, service at a soup kitchen on Friday afternoons ... life is great!

It is great to hear from ya´ll! Thanks for putting me on blog update lists and whatnot. I love my family!! Oh, and the new and improved mailing address for here in Caldas, complete with zip code, is here:

Rua Fonte do Pinheiro
-----------
2500-203 Caldas da Rainha
PORTUGAL

Well it has been a full week. Lots of fun getting to know a new area. Monday night we had a neat experience contacting a reference that lived a floor above a family that is currently part member. Francisco is a member, Brasilian, not yet married to Sandra, Portuguese, who is marked to be baptized on May 2 (or something like that), and they have a cute baby girl named Beatriz. We had shared a lesson with them on reading the Book of Mormon consistently to steadily increase our knowledge and faith, testimony and conversion. After that Elder Flint and I went upstairs to try and contact their neighbor. At first she wouldnt open the door for us, then she opened the door and was trying to politely say Thanks but No Thanks. Then Francisco walked up and said ´Hello neighbor! You should listen to these young men. They have a good and important message about Christ to share with people. It is so important that they have left home and family for 2 years to come here to Portugal and talk about Christ with everyone.´ Then Sandra came up holding Beatriz (about 6 months old?) and said similar nice things. Then they mostly kept on talking and we ended up being late for an appointment, so we mentioned some principles of the Restoration and gave her a Restoration pamphlet and invited her to read and pray about it so we could talk about it with her and Franc and Sandra another time. Haha, I love being a missionary!

Well, I love all of you! Tchau!
--Elder Ellis V
CM SBF FDP S&H

PS -- Mom and Dad, I mailed my camera memory card to ya´ll with a letter, will ya´ll let me know when it arrives(d)? Thanks, tchauzinho!