Happy Valentine's Day!

Querida família,
Hurricane Stephanie has hit Braga!
Okay that is a bit melodramatic. It wasn´t a hurricane, but there was a huge storm warning yesterday afternoon (and it really was named Stephanie). It was a Code Red so we had to go home a couple of hours early. We went around and shut all the shutters and blinds and gathered up flashlights and candles and charged our phone, preparing for the worst. The rain began to pound against the windows, and the wind howled, but besides that nothing happened. But it looks like your fast for rain worked!
This week we had some fun adventures! On Tuesday we had zone conference in Porto, so we took the opportunity to get lunch there as well. We got the best francesinhas in Portugal (we know because one of the elders who works in Porto has tried them ALL). And it was delicious. A francesinha is basically a heart attack sandwich. It has two pieces of toast. In between the toast is about 6 big pieces of meat, including sausage, bacon, steak, and who knows what else. Then 3 slices of cheese are melted over the top, and it is all covered in a creamy red sauce. It´s served in a giant bowl, and eaten with a knife and a fork. It was delicious.
On the way home from zone conference, we got to the train station about 1 minute before our train left. We had paid for a round trip before leaving, but we didn´t have time to tap our little cards on the machine to validate them before hopping on the train. Normally there is a ticket man that you can have do that, but when we got on, there wasn´t one. We spent the next few stops standing in the door to see if there was a machine close enough for us to hop off, vlaidate, and hop back on. It was kind of stressful. But finally a ticket man appeared so we just had him do it.
On Thursday, all of our plans fell through before we even left the house, so we decided to pass by the members in our area. We made a list of a few of them, and started to pass by. Almost no one was home. Finally we got to the house of Catia, who is completely active. We were a bit confused why we had felt to visit her, but we knocked anyway. She was home and let us in. we began talking, and long story short, we were sent there by the Lord. She had really been needing someone to talk to and was feeling a bit lost. Because of that a bunch of doubts were attacking her. But she said because we visited, she knows God loves her and she knows that she is doing the right thing to continue in the Church.
Thursday night we had our first English class. The students wanted to learn a basic get-to-know-you converstaion, but it seems they knew more English than we assumed, because in the practices we heard conversations such as: "Hi how are you? I love you. Let´s go to Mcdonald´s:"
On Friday, we had an amazing lesson with a menos ativa member, Rosa. She one of the first members in portugal, baptized in 1976, but hasn´t been to church for about a year. We had passed by the day before and set up an appointment. We went back and began to just talk. She is 65 and has recently gone back to university, so we helped her with her english homework. We then gave her the first lesson pamphlet--In english. She read and translated the first paragraph, which says basically "God is your Heavenly Father. He loves you and wants you to be happy". She began to cry a little and shared that on Wednesday night, she had had a dream that she hadn´t understood until that moment. She dreamed in English, for the first time ever. The dream was that she had a ring, and she knew it meant she had made a promise. Someone came to take away the ring because she wasn´t keeping her part, but two people showed up and were helping her, in English. She said that after we gave her the english pamphlet she understood, and she interpretted her dream to mean that we, the sisters, were sent by God to remind her of her baptism promise and to help her return, to keep that ring. She has a surgery this weekend, but wants to come to church as soon as she recovers. As she was explaining her dream, I just felt the Spirit so strongly and God´s acceptance and love. "As Sisters in Zion" came into my head, the second verse where it says "the errand of angels is given to [sisters]". It was really, really... wonderful!
Saturday night we went over to Ana and Margarita´s house for dinner and their dog ate off my plate.
We are also trying to try all of the Bolo de Berlim flavors. There are 18. We have had 8.
I hope you all have a wonderful week. It sounds like you are having a bunch of adventures as well. Have a good Valentine´s day! Do and be good!
And also happy birthday Dad!
Love you all tons!
Sister Gidney