Ola família,
Sorry that this is a day late! Yesterday we had Christmas Conference so we didn´t have time to email! I am sure you were all up all night worrying about it.
We survived the first week of the transfer. It was actually a really great week! We had tons of miracles, and, more importantly, tons of parties.
Saturday was the ward Christmas party. It was probably the best party I have ever been to. First of all, when we got there, one of our pesquisadores was there and she said "I have good news. I want to get baptized"! We have been working with her since I got here and she finally has the desire to follow Christ. That was super exciting. The actually party itself was hilarious. The primary kids had a nativity play. Sort of. I have some videos of parts of it that mostly include the kids running off stage, singing the wrong song, or forgetting their lines. The cutest part was the little 5 year old girl who was playing Maria. She had her little baby doll and was kissing and cuddling and rocking it the whole time. After the primary kids, some of the ward members played guitar and sang. Then, the creepiest and best part of all--Santa showed up! Ou seja, Pai Natal. This member came in with this fake beard on and was giving all the kids chocolate bars... but only after they kissed his cheek. And I thought American Santa was scary. Finally all the candy was passed out, and we had a HUGE dinner. It was delicious. But the best part of all was that we had 6 or 7 pesquisadores who were there and making friendships with the ward and really becomming a part of the ward. We are teaching this wonderful girl Natália (I will tell her story later) who is only 12 but she is taller than me. Margarita, our 13 year old recent convert, is taller than 6 foot. When she saw Natália she ran over and said "You are tall! I love you already!" and then took her off and they are already best friends.
Yesterday was Christmas Conference for the missionaries in Porto and Porto Norte. We got our packages! I had a silly miracle. When we first got to the stake center, all the mail was on the hallway so naturally we looked to see if we had anything. I saw a couple of things but no package from you. I was thinking "That´s the only one I want!" So we went in and had a training on helping our pesquisadores pray with specific questions to get a specific answer, so I thought, "Bem it works for them it will work for me" so I said a prayer and was like "this is silly but please bless that the mail from my family is here. for Christmas" and then I stopped worrying about it. At the end when they passed out all the mail, it was there! I know it wasn´t there earlier, but it was by the end. A true Christmas miracle :) haha
One of my favorite miracles this week was meeting Natália, and her aunt Marta. On Wednesday morning we had a lesson with a casal before lunch. We always have back-up plans written in case a lesson falls through. They were there, but we still had a few minutes that we could keep working before lunch afterwards. We decided to go to one of the backups we had written down. When we got there, the front door was open so we went up to the door. We knocked and it had turned out that this person had moved, but Marta answered. She invited us in right away and said she would love to come to Church, and bring her niece. They are from Brasil and have only lived here one month. They came to the Christmas party and to all 3 hours of Church and are reading the Book of Mormon together. they are so wonderful and so easy to teach. (Is this what it is like every day for Brazilian missionaries? It is nice)
Another miracle was on Thursday. We decided to go running for morning exercises and we wanted to run the trail by the Roman ruins so we started up the street. It was a little cloudy and overcast so I said to Sister Warburton it might be too dark and we might not want to run up. We decided to see what the trail was like and so we kept going. I felt like maybe we shouldn´t go but I thought that was probably just me not wanting to work out. We started down the trail. It is striaght for a while and then curves behind a band of trees, so you can´t see what´s on the path on the other side. We got down about 15 meters from the trees and then both of us just stopped suddenly in our tracks and said "Nope". That was when we realized it was the Spirit telling us not to keep going. We turned around and left. I don´t know what would have happened down the trail (maybe it was too dark and we would have tripped and gotten hurt) but I know that whatever it was, we were protected because of the Spirit. I thought it was interesting that we felt the Spirit so strong for something that was not technically "missionary work". I realized that we have a right to the guidance of the Spirit not just to help the Church grow or to help others progress, but also for ourselves. When we are worthy.
Also. I AM SO TIRED. Am I going to be this tired for the rest of my life?
I hope you all have a wonderful week!! I guess I will be skying with you a week from tomorrow. Weird. Have fun with your days off of school and get ready for Christmas! And thank you for the Christmas packages! I am excited to open everything.
I love you TONS! Merry almost Christmas!
Com amor,
Sister Gidney
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