Easter!

Hello y'all! and Happy Easter!

This week was great. It was a really special experience to study the stories of Jesus Christ each day of the week as the stories were happening. I really loved to study about the resurrection on Sunday morning. I was sitting at home before Church reading and imagining how it would be to be Mary Magdalene and to watch my Savior suffer such cruelty and to watch Him die on the cross. I tried to imagine the heartbreak that he felt as she left Christ in the tomb, completely distraught and questioning my faith if I would ever see him again. I tried to imagine going to the tomb on that Sunday morning and finding the message that Christ was not there. I think in the moment when Mary asked if "gardener" had taken Christ's body away would have been one of the most confusing moments for me... But then to imagine the  joy in finding Christ, alive, free of pain, and full of love!

It was awesome! 

I really felt my Savior's love for me and for each one of his children here. It was a great blessing!

We had an awesome moment in a lesson this week too. All of our plans had fallen through so we tried the good old prayer and then randomly choose a road on the map. We walked to the road we chose trying to talk to every single person but everyone was busy buying things for Easter and ironically didn't have time to hear a message about Christ. So we prayed again and chose one side of the road to start knocking apartments. In Portugal most of the apartments have doorbells and speakers outside the apartment so it makes knocking doors pretty fast and all the apartments are close together so I was knocking one apartment and my companion knocked the other side. We knocked about 150 apartments and got to the last apartment building on the road. 6th floor. Nothing. 5th floor, and angry Portuguese lady making food. 4th floor, elderly man who didn't understand us. 3rd floor nothing. 2nd floor nothing. and the 1st floor. Nothing. Feeling a bit down, I sighed and started to walk away when a cute little black woman from capo verde poked her head out the window and said she didn't want what we were selling. I explained to her that we weren't selling anything, in fact we were giving things away for free and we asked if we could give her a book that had the words of God in it. I showed her the Book of Mormon and she gave us a look and disappeared into the house. We started to walk away, thinking that we would never see her again, but then the door buzzer sounded and the door opened. I exchanged a look with Sister Carr and we entered. This woman, Maria, let us into her house and we taught her about the Resurrection in the bible. Then we explain that the Book of Mormon had another witness of the resurrection of Christ and explain the Restoration story. She started to cry.... Come to find out she had been praying to find someone who could help her understand the Bible because she wanted to have more faith but she couldn't understand the bible very well. It was a great and tender moment helping her read and understand the bible for the first time. I already love that woman so much!

There are a couple of pretty funny traditions that they have here in Portugal for Easter. One is that there is a cake called a Folar de Pascoa, which is a normal cake but it has one to four hard boiled eggs baked into it. When I first saw it i had the thought that maybe they forgot to mix the egg in and just left it on top instead!! Haha I asked how the tradition started and some people said that in the early Easter egg hunts someone hid eggs in the cake dough. I also heard that it was a symbol of prosperity, new life, and fertility. Normally the kids get to eat the eggs or they paint them too. 

Folar de Pascoa!

Sister Carr and I also found this pizza place that sells pizzas that are bigger than a tire! I think it took a whole week to eat that thing! Yay for Maxipizza!

Well have a great week! Love all of you!

Sister Ellsworth
​
​