All Over the Map



Elder Barbosa and Noda outside Beja Chapel back door

February found us traveling across Portugal and doing about everything under the sun. Three times a month we travel to small branches of the church in far away places to help strengthen and support them in their efforts to follow the Savior´s example of love and determination to do what is right. We see in the world around us and especially here in europe that there is great pressure to forget personal values and just do what feels best. Commitment to personal integrity, moral values, family and financial responsibility suffer much. So on weekends we work with the church units in smaller towns to better understand what it means to learn about Jesus Christ and follow his example. Our first adventure was to Santarém just north of Lisboa. We made several trips to visit them. Then we started routine visits to Beja, about two hours southeast of Lisboa.

Beautiful Beja Members at 9 pm dinner

Then last week we had our first trip to the Algarve (border closest to Africa) and visited Faro and Olhão. It was terrific. What wonderful people we have encountered across the country. The branch president we visited in the Algarve is a professor of mathematics at the university there. He is doing a great job helping the branch members in their earthly sojourn and has a wonderful daughter that plays the piano for the branch.  He lost his wife eight months ago and now must traverse life without his companion. 

Our role during the week is to help our friends and neighbors here in Portugal set a career plan and then follow it. That is the best way to diminish and eliminate unemployment.



Paula Pereira and me helping coach an interview prep session



We have helped with several workshops and had a special training session we did for four adults in the same family...quite an amazing group. The mother runs her own cake making business. The father is in the military. The daughter-in-law is a teacher in secondary school and the son just returned from a mission and is looking for a job. All of them wanted to understand how to build a career plan and make the most of their lives at work since it is such a consuming part of life.

Some of our classes have been much larger. Paula Pereira organized a bigger one in Seixal, just across the Rio Tejo from Lisboa. We helped film the interview simulations on three different nights and we loved the opportunity to really help. 

We also had some normal encounters with the real world. We have not been able to pay bills with our bank account because the username and password inadvertently got left with an auto stop date which threw everything into a tizzy. We are only 3 months into getting it set up.
 

Eileen at the famous fountain on Praça Rossio


We also ran into some more pickpockets (carteristas) as we walked to the bank. The leader (man in black) was going about the praça working with young men about 20 years old in scoping out and following wealthy looking tourists. We stood and watched for a while. Quite interesting as we watched their hand signals.
 

Coach, Captain and Director of local 20 year old entrepreneurs

On another front, our cell phone was saying the SIM card was not inserted two or three times each day so we had to go get a new phone....now that phone says we are not in a service area (might be a problem with the SIM card). And finally, the apartment below us got flooded, apparently from a leak in our bathroom somewhere, not obvious. That has taken 5 days and still no specific resolution. We have decided that our test is one of patience right now. So, on this valentines day we have just had some good old laughs about the little blips in life and then tried to get fat eating some heart shaped cookies Eileen made to share with the neighbors.

LDS Chapel Avenida Almirante Gago Coutinho 93, CRE in back

Today we had lots of rain after a week and a half of much sunshine and 55-60 degrees. This weather has made the location of our Centro de Recursos de Emprego (CRE) especially beautiful. It is snuggled behind the Gago Coutinho chapel shown above. It looks quite beautiful when seen from this angle.