Chapels, Apartments and the Surf

Late January 2013

The past couple of weeks has been spent traveling between Beja and Santarém and Faro and Lisbon and Peniche.  We have been apartment shopping, chapel shopping, and surfing.  Well, at least we saw the surf!  We have a Group opening up in Peniche.  A Branch is the smallest unit, not counting the Family, in the Church.  And this will be a Group!  Smaller than a Branch!  We had to find a place for the members and the investigators to meet in.  They have been meeting in a member´s home, but not under the best of circumstances.  We found a Sala to meet in.  It also needed to have a restroom, which this one has.  We looked at a lot of places and found this one at the very end!  It is a big room that will hold about 30-40 chairs, a portable pulpit, a sacrament table and a chalkboard!  Our members will meet in this room and hold Sacrament meeting and Sunday School every Sunday from 10 until noon.  We have just finished the finding, negotiating and deciding phase.  We are now waiting for the final contract, which should be here tomorrow.  We will start meeting here a week from Sunday.  We will be bringing in chairs, tables, a pulpit, pictures for the walls, sacrament trays, hymn books, manuals, chalkboards, wastebaskets, etc.  It will be a chapel in a couple of weeks.  We have about 15 active members and about 40 inactives that we need to go out and invite back.  Some of the inactivity is due to distance….the next closest chapel is about 25 miles away and only a couple of members have cars and there is no public transportation on Sunday.  It has been hard.  We also now have an apartment for missionaries and they will be moving here this week.  So, Peniche will now have a place to meet, 2 missionaries, several members, and now all we have to do is bring in the investigators!  Fun, huh?  That answer is Yes!

 

 

This is the chapel from the outside.  It is the window on the bottom floor that has the blue sign in the window.  We will have a sign with the name “A Igreja de Jesus Cristo dos Santos dos Últimos Dias” to put next to the window or above it, or someplace it can be seen.

 

 

The town of Peniche sits on the ocean.  It is beautiful.  It is famous for surfing and has gigantic waves come pounding in.  Surfers have had world championships held here.  Just north of Peniche is the town of Nazaré which just had a record wave surfed by a surfer from Hawaii.  Check this out.  No, it isn´t me!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd2jtwviyC8

 

 

Watch for the wave, here it comes!  And notice the big rock formation out there. Now you see it!

 

 

 

 

Now you don´t!  And the sound of the waves hitting sounds like thunder.  Amazing!  What power.