11/2/2020

Hi everyone! I hope your week was amazing and Happy Halloween! Also Happy 2nd of November! Also happy election week! Also you’re all fantastic!

 Okay so this week was great but not a lot happened. We got our transfer news Monday and I am staying in De Zavala again. Whoooo! I'm so excited. I also found out that I'm going to be District leader for the new De Zavala District. I'm so excited! Plus we are getting more Spanish sisters. We are basically triple covering our area which is basically the whole zone haha. It's awesome! Me and Elder Lemke are still waiting for our car to get out of the shop so we can start getting to work. This week we spent some more time in our apartment because Elder Lemke doesn't have a bike so we either depend on rides from the other Elders or we are walking so yep. From this transfer, Elder Christensen who was Elder Hoffman’s companion, he got transferred to a English area which was sad. Elder Hoffman got his new companion and his name was Elder Loosle and he is really cool. The only thing which we found out shortly was he was actually assigned as an English speaking missionary. So basically they messed up haha. So they had to go back and switch it up again. I was sad to say goodbye to Elder Loosle so soon. Elder Hoffman’s new companion is really amazing. His name is Elder Katoa. He says he’s from Oregon but he is actually Tongan and from Tonga.

 We got a referral for a person named Luis this week and we had set up a lesson and it was awesome. The only thing was shortly 10 minutes into the lesson we found out he was already a member. It was super funny because we thought he was a new person. Turns out that he somehow referred himself but now we are teaching him again tomorrow and he is coming to church this next Sunday so that's pretty cool. This week also got super cold out of nowhere. We woke up on last Monday and it was freezing cold. I ended up breaking out my coat which I hardly use since we are in Texas haha. For Halloween our President told us to be indoors when it gets dark. So we had a district meeting with new district and did some planning and it was really fun and we all brought food. On Sunday we had missionary correlation meeting at the Rockwell’s and then they fed us dinner. It was super good food. Also funny story. We were on the way to church and we were in the De Zavala car. They had the new Braunfels bikes on their bike rack and we were driving, while we were driving we heard a strange zzzip sound and we all looked back at the bikes and one of the bikes had fallen off the bike rack and was flying down the highway. Thankfully no one was behind us haha. We took the bike to Brother Rockwell because he fixes bikes for fun and he told us he will fix it. 

 Maria came to church again for the 4th time this week and we are super happy for her. We also had a really good lesson after church with a member and we have another this Wednesday again. Its super amazing because she loves meeting with us and learning and the members bond with her really well. We can’t wait to see what this next week will bring. Being a missionary is so amazing! It's a tough job and stressful at times but I know I'm helping Heavenly Father’s children and that I'm being blessed for being out here. That's what helps me keep going. I was reading in the scriptures this week in 1 Timothy 6:12 and it talks about fighting the good fight of faith. I know that if we keep fighting the good fight and help others we can be strengthened and we will be able to get through the toughest of times. 

 I hope you all have an amazing week!!!

-Elder Portlock 

 1. The 4 of us De Zavala Elders the night before Transfers. 

 2. Our last District council before Transfers.

 3. Someone threw their chair off their balcony on the top floor. 

 4. One member brought me and Elder Lemke a ton of food!