12/28/2020

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas this week. 

For me and Elder Knight, our Christmas this year was pretty good. We went to a member’s house for dinner and ate really good Turkey and ham. We also had super good pumpkin pie. We had a really good night as well. We made a couple phone calls wishing people we are teaching and members of our branch a Merry Christmas and stuff. We called our families and opened our Christmas presents as well. So it was a pretty nice and fun day. 

On Christmas Eve we had our District Christmas Party and did a white Elephant Exchange. I ended up getting a dinosaur puppet toy. It's pretty fun to play with haha. We decided to go caroling in the Seguin Park as a district finding activity and that ended up going really well. We lots of fun singing Christmas songs to people and ended up talking to more than we thought. 

On Wednesday we did a secret Santa for a family which was super fun. We brought a bunch of Christmas presents that some of the other wards around had put together to a family in our branch who basically had not a lot for Christmas. We set the presents on their porch and doorbell ditched them. When we got to our car we weren't too sure what we should do, like if we should go or wait but I'm glad we waited. We saw like 4 or 5 kids swing around the corner of their house with the biggest smiles I've ever seen and they were so happy. They kept yelling “Thank you!” and “Merry Christmas!” The mom of the family was so happy and almost overwhelmed with joy. We were so happy that we decided to do that and it's just one of my favorite memories of my mission and Christmas now. 

Me and Elder Knight have done lots of street contacting this week and on Saturday we had lots of success. We found about 5 new people to teach but mostly preferring English. We had a second lesson with one family on Sunday night and it was super amazing. We began to teach the plan of salvation and the importance and role of a family. We were teaching a father and daughter that night the Spirit was very special. We began to teach them about agency and about how our Heavenly Father loves us and knows us personally. We talked about how miracles can happen and some things happen for a reason. By the end of our lesson we gave them a copy of the Book of Mormon and invited them to church next Sunday. They seemed pretty interested in coming.

I've been reflecting a little this week about how this last year has been going and it’s been wonderful. I've thought about all the blessings and miracles I've seen from being on a mission and many more things that my Heavenly Father has done for me. This year my testimony of the church has grown so much and especially about The Book of Mormon. It’s definitely been a crazy year but I know that our Heavenly Father has been there to help us get through it. I'm so happy to be here in the mission and serving others. I hope that you all have a wonderful week and a great start to a new year. Love y'all. 

-Elder Portlock 

Pictures:

1. Our Christmas tree and presents. 

2. Me and Elder Knight decided to go to B-dubs this week. 

3. We ate Christmas Breakfast at a member’s house. On Christmas eve.

4. Me and Elder Knight delivering the presents for the secret Santa. 

 

 12/21/2020

Hello everyone. I hope that this past week has gone really good for you all. I also hope that you all have a wonderful Merry Christmas. 

This week went by really good and we had some really fun experiences. On Tuesday we were invited to come to a Bible study with some other people and we spent about an hour with them reading and studying Ephesians. It was pretty interesting and there were lots of different ideas about things. We met a lot of good and kind people through that little activity we did. 

This week me and Elder Knight decided that we need to do more street contacting and so we made it a goal to take about an hour each day and dedicate it finding. We have had a lot of fun with that. We were able to get several peoples numbers and spend some time sharing some Christmas messages with people. This time of year is always so nice and fun because you can talk to almost anyone about Christ and Christmas and it's also a good conversation starter. 

On one night we were driving around and I felt prompted to drive to a place I had street contacted when I only had a bike with Elder Lemke. We parked our car and began to walk around. About 5 or so minutes later of walking we come by this house with a person who is about to leave to go drive somewhere and she stopped and asked us if we were from the Mormon Church. We began to talk to her and exchanged phone numbers. We set up a time to talk to her next Tuesday as well. It was really cool and a testimony to me that God knows us personally and that he puts us where we need to be at the right time. If we follow the prompting's of the Holy Ghost we will be led to those who need help or are ready. 

On Wednesday we had our mission Christmas Party. It was really fun because we got to see most of the mission. There was also really good food and barbecue that some members make for the missionaries each year. The mission had put together a Christmas program and so after eating we watched different missionaries sing songs and play instruments and such. It was really fun. We ate so much and were so full afterwards. Later that day we had a dinner at a member’s house and we were so full. They were feeding about 6 of us and they gave us some barbecue ribs and spaghetti. We were dying inside but the food was super delicious. After getting through that dinner appointment we were basically in a food coma haha. My stomach hated me so much haha. 

On Sunday our church was doing the Christmas program and we helped out with that. All the missionaries in our branch which is six of us got to help read parts of the program in Spanish and what we did was we read from the book of Luke when Jesus comes to the world. We sang lots of songs and it was really fun. I also got to see Rita Martinez which is one of the people that I helped get baptized back when I was with Elder Corry. It was a really cool tiny reunion and they said they might come to the branch more often because they live in our area. We helped wrap Book of Mormons and set up for a light the world activity we are doing today and Tuesday and Wednesday. We are basically showing the Christ child video in the church parking lot and handing out book of Mormons, popcorn and hot chocolate. It's going to be fun. 

I love this time of year because we get to remember the true meaning of Christmas which is Jesus Christ. I know as we focus our minds on Jesus Christ in our lives this Christmas we will be more happy and feel of the love He has for us. 

I hope that y’all have a wonderful Merry Christmas

-Elder Portlock

1.Our district decorating cookies. We handed them out to members in our branch.

2. Some of the food we got from the Mission Christmas conference.

 12/14/2020

Hey Everyone I hope your week was really good! 

This week was very interesting. We had our transfers on Thursday and I got my new companion named Elder Knight. He is really awesome. We had a lot of member dinner appointments and we did a lot of finding. We did pretty well with finding this week so that's been good.

This week was also a little difficult. We tried so hard to get Maria baptized but literally everything fell through. We couldn't meet with her and she couldn't get married and lot of stuff. Last week we told Maria that this week Satan would do everything he could to stop her from getting baptized and that's what happened. What's truly amazing though is that Maria still has a desire to be baptized and so we will move the baptismal date to another time and work with her until she is ready. She is so amazing and nice and her testimony is growing very much. I know that this week was hard but I know that everything will be okay and that good will triumph over evil. 

Transfer day: Transfer day was pretty sad leaving Elder Lemke. We went to the Knights Cross building in Stone Oak and I was able to see lots of other missionaries and some old companions which was really fun. I got put into a trio with the English elders that I live with because my companion was staying with his old companion for a few more days. Basically his companion was waiting for his companion to get to the mission still so it was little weird for a few days haha. I was in an English area and doing Spanish as well. Lots of fun. I got my companion on Saturday and it was pretty fun. We get along really well. 

We are soon going to be out of a car share with the English elders and have our own apartment. We are so excited because we will be able to do so much more work. So hopefully sometime this next week they will move out. It's fun being in a 4 elder apartment but not at the same time. 

We found someone named Pablo and he was super interested. The only thing is that he lives in Austin. So we will pass him off to the Spanish missionaries over there. We did some street contacting this week and it was pretty fun. It’s getting a little more cold so we have been putting our sweaters on more and getting bundled up. In Texas it doesn't snow but it sure does get frigid out there because of the humidity. We get super cold air and it gets windy to so it's like ahhhhhh get inside haha. 

I hope you all have a super great week! Keep being awesome and God be with you.

-Elder Portlock 

Picture's:

1. I got really bored transfer night when I didn’t get my companion so I made a fort.

2. We stopped by the Temple on the way back from transfers.

3. Me and Elder Lemke before Transfers. 

4. Me and Elder Knight

 12/7/2020

Hey everyone! I hope your week was very amazing! 

This week went by really quick and we had so much fun. On Wednesday we had our district council and after we made and decorated a gingerbread house. It was super fun and all the missionaries in the mission for district council did the same. We only had 30 minutes to decorate for a competition we were doing and after everyone sent pictures to our mission chat of all the district gingerbread houses. We decorated ours to look like the first vision with Joseph Smith. 

The work in the area is going super good. We have been working a lot with the members and visiting lots of people. We have been making lots of light the world videos and getting others excited about light the world. We had a really cool lesson with some people we are teaching named Kierra and Xavier. We are going to pass them off to the new Braunfels Elders soon. 

We are almost ready for The Baptism of Maria!!! We just have her baptismal interview and we are hoping that everything works out for this next Sunday for the baptism.  She is amazing and her testimony has grown so much since we met her. I can't wait to meet her family and everything. Maria has been cooking us food and giving it to us on Sundays because she wants to make sure we have food and it’s so funny. She calls us skinny so she cooks a ton of food and stuff and its soo good haha. 

On Sunday we watched the Christmas devotional by the church with the whole district. It was so good and I really liked Elder Holland's talk. If you haven't seen it yet, you definitely need to go watch it.

We got transfer news last night and Elder Lemke is going to a new area and I'll be companions with another Elder Named Elder Knight. We’re all super excited. I'll also be staying in De Zavala. 

I hope you all have a really good week!

-Elder Portlock  

Pictures:

1. Me, Elder Lemke and Maria 

2. I saw Elder Wadsworth this week and it was his last week in the mission. We were both serving in Eagle Pass at one point.

3. Because of transfers, Elder Michie is moving so we opened a bunch of presents from Elder Michie's mom that she sent us.

4. Our District 

5. Another picture of our District.

6. A picture of us with Kierra and Xavier 

7. A member who gave us food last week for free at his restaurant.