Ola familia!
I realized that last week was memorial day. It´s so weird that holidays are different here. But even though there was no Memorial Day, on Saturday we got to help out with a branch picnic. And guess what, we even got to wear pants! It was soooo weird.
So we had a cool experience on Wednesday. We took a bus to Santa Maria da Feira and we were trying to visit menos ativos. Our appointments all either cancelled or took way less time than we expected so we had about an hour before the bus came. So we were wondering what we should do, and Sister Cutler said we should pray (which it´s still kind of weird for me to like stand and a street corner and pray... but we did) and we felt like we should go down this esquisito little alley. So we went down there and I felt like we should go to the second door and we went and, oh by the way it was pouring rain this whole day, and this lady answered and let us in, I think maybe because we looked so pitiful and wet. But we started teaching her, and then her husband. And they want to come to church and said we are welcome anytime. They were really really nice and I am excited to teach them again to see what happens.
On Thursday we met a nice gypsy man (there are a lot of gypsies here) on the rua and we tried to give him a pamphlet but he couldn´t read so wouldn´t take it. But as we were leaving Sister Cutler tried to shake his hand and he kissed her hand. He held out his hand to me and I saw it so I went for the shake, I was pumping up and down pretty vigorously, but he like timed his face against the shake and kissed my hand anyway. So I´m not sure how I feel about that.
Also on Thursdya, I HAD MY FIRST REAL CONVERSATION WITH A PORTUGUESE PERSON BY MYSELF. So we were near-ish to our apartment and Sister Cutler was calling our next appointment and we saw one of our pesquisadores. She was still on the phone so I started talking to him and we talked about how many missionaries are in Portugal and what a mission president is and how we don´t choose our mission or our areas, we get assigned, and we understood each other! It was so cool! And I haven´t really understood anyone since then but that´s okay.
Hey guess what- Linda is getting baptized tonight :) I am so excited for her. Her and Paulo both already seem like part of the ramo. They come to church the whole 3 hours every week and he comes to activities and English classes and everything. They are both so much happier and it´s really cool to see the gospel changing them.
Speaking of the ramo (branch), the members love us. They are always complimenting us and calling us about missionary appointments and things like that. And there is this little 12-year-old boy that always hangs out with us at church, plus the young women always follow us around. I love it.
One more thing really quick. I decided I´m going to pick like a theme scripture for every transfer. Last week I was reading in the Book of Mormon during personal study and I read Alma 38:12 so that´s the one I picked for this transfer, because RMs always talk about how much they love the people, and I want to love these Portuguese people, even though they never brush their teeth and are really hairy, so I picked this one because it says how to be filled with love. And it basically tells you how to be a good missionary, like when you´re teaching. "Use boldness, but not overbearance;" (you have to be bold, but you don´t want to be annoying and force people into it) "also see that ye bridle all your passions, that ye may be filled with love" (you have to forget all the things you loved to do, like facebook or pinterest or going on roadtrips or sleeping in. You have to have ´both feet in the mission´ or you won´t love the people.) "see ye that ye refrain from idleness" (I´m here to work!) So yeah that´s my theme for this transfer. I like it. Amen?
That´s about all. We walk 400 miles every day and teach a lot and also get turned down a lot but I´m starting to get to the point where I am liking being here. It´s not as weird anymore, so that´s good. I still get overwhelmed a lot but I think I am learning a lot. About Portuguese and the gospel and myself. So it´s pretty cool. I miss you all a lot and love you lots!
Have a great week-don´t party too hard with school getting out :)
Love,
Sister Gidney
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