first week in cacém

Ola familia,
Well as you know I got transferred. I am now in Cacém B. We live and work in Massamá. The area is TINY compared to São João, but there are SO many people here. This week we found 28 novo pesquisadores- that´s in the 5 days we were working here. My new companion is Sister Madison Juilfs from Las Vegas. She is 19 and also goes to BYU. In our district/ward there are 3 duplas-us and four elders. Apparently we are the first sisters to be here since like 2007. So we went to ward counsel yesterday and the bishop was like "Yay! Sisters! We´re going to treat you like princesses!" And then elder Lopes was like "and not us?" So I guess all six of us will be princesses. And by princesses, we mean pigs. We got jumped on by four famillies wanting to feed us this week.... Hopefully we don´t gain weight... Probably not though because I think my stomach might not be able to handle the food here. It tastes good but it is just not what I am used to... (see the picture of chicken foot soup).
So we are basically opening this area. It was opening last transfer, kind of, and now we are whitewashing, so we just have to go out and find people. As usual, we meet a lot of weird guys who are interested... in us. So that´s fun. We met a guy this week who tried to hold our hands. I decided if there is one word to describe being a missionary it is "awkward" (but a close second is "AWESOME").
Oh so we live with a member. The ceilings are tiny. She does our laundry I guess, and also cleans once a week? It´s kind of like we have a maid, except I want her to let us help. She also has this fat little dog that´s pretty cute and really likes missioanries.
So when you first arrive in an area and don´t know anyone, funny things happen. We found a menos ativo in our area book so went to visit her... turns out she´s actually been active since 2010 so. Oops. Also, we met a guy who asked if we spoke ENglish. When we said yes, he started speaking to us in Creole. Oh and last night, probably my favorite. We got a call from a potential investigator... we thought, who said meet by the school we met at the first time. We show up, and he´s not there. Turns out it wasn´t the right guy. So we ask where to go and we start walking there. We still aren´t sure who it is, so we decide that it was probably this other guy we talked to. When we got there though, it was a THIRD guy we had talked to...and we didn´t remmeber his name. To be honest, we still don´t know it. We may never know.. THe names here are a lot harder because there are a ton of Africans, so not everyone is named Maria and Paulo.
Hey cool thing. I can understand people here! Not everyone, and not all the time, but I understand probably 80 or 90%. I don´t know if it´s because the accent is easier or if I finally have the gift of interpretation of tongues but it was interesting. On the way here, I still couldn´t understand. But as soon as we got into our new area, I started understanding a LOT. When we´re on the street and in lessons. But still not in church. So I guess it really is a blessing. We´re called and so we´re qualified. Sweet.
I´m not sure what else to say. We talk to a lot of people every day so we can build up a base of pesquisadores (we are basically starting with nothing). Everyone says this area is "elect" so we are trying really hard to find people that are ready for the gospel. It´s hard here, but also not. I can´t explain it. Also I am really tired so I will go now.
I hope everything is going sooo well with you all. Good luck getting ready for school to start. Don´t forget to read the Book of MOrmon with me! I am reading it in Portuguese. It´s hard.
I love you all TONS- siga sempre em frente :)
com amor,
Sister Gidney