WOW! I am so sorry that I have not posted in so long! I told Kimberly I would do my best. . . Well, here are all the letters I missed posting:
Welcome to BRAGA Nov. 4th
Ola minha família,
So here I am, in Braga. That´s north of Porto. We are neighbors with Spain. And it is winter. It is cold. More than cold, it´s humid. 75% humid. But the good news is, there are lots of socks in this apartment.
Alright so I got transferred, as you know. When I was leaving Massamá I will admit I was pretty upset, because SIster Juilfs and I opened that area so every single person in the area book, we knew. Every investigator, we started teaching. And every recent convert was our recent convert. It was really hard to say goodbye to everyone. But luckily, Braga is equally as awesome as Massamá. For you history nerds, it is one of the oldest cities in Europe. There are Roman ruins (like walls and stuff) everywhere. This was also the most important city to Catholicism outside of Rome, so there are crazy old cathedrals and things everywhere. It´s really really pretty. But it´s also a little weird because walking down the streets in the bairros it seems really American. I´m not sure why exactly, but Braga is Amercanized. Luckily for me, it is also the only city in Portugal (it seems) that celebrates Halloween. But I´ll get to that later.
So on Tuesday it was our first day of "real work". Sister Bollinger and I are getting along great and working hard. She is super nice and funny and I think we are going to have a fabulous transfer. Also on Tuesday I met one of the recent converts here. He said I look like a prophet. I´m not sure if that´s because we´re related to the Kimballs or if he is trying to tell me I am getting all wrinkly and old.
On Halloween, the ward had a Halloween party! Oh so Halloween here. The little kids wear costumes to school and I think some of them get out early, but no one trick-or-treats. They just go to the cemetary and put flowers and candles on the graves. Because it´s also Dia dos Mortos. But at the church we had a real party. They had donut-on-a-string contests and weird looking desserts and music and it really was like an American party. Also the family that likes the missionaries the most is from ENgland so they spoke to us in Enlgish the whole time so basically we were in America all night. It also snowed one snowflake.
On Friday we had zone meeting. Turns out Porto Norte has a shortage of Book of MOrmons, so we only have a couple left. We are trying to ration them out to the people wth the most potential...
This week was a little weird because I am still trying to get used to the area. It doesn´t feel quite like it´s "mine" yet. But I am starting to like it a lot here. It´s a lot different from Cacém... there are no black people and EVERYONE is Catholic. But we are meeting some WONDERFUL people. I am excited for this transfer.
So I started reading "Jesus the Christ" a couple weeks ago and just finished yesterday. I don´t really have anything to say about it except that I learned a lot and that everyone should read it.
Funny/awkward moment of the week: We were walking home one night, at a missionary pace, and there was this short little balding man walking toward us. Suddenly he started singing, like serenading us, and walked behind us a little way to finish his song. Then without saying anything he turned back around and walked away. Wouldn´t even take a pass-along card.
So that´s all I have to say. I don´t really conheço this area yet, but I am really excited to be here to work. Sister Bollinger is so amazing! I can´t believe she has only been here for two transfers. She speaks Portuguese almost as well as I do, and she already is so confident in making phone calls, contacting, and teaching lessons. I am so excited to work with her this transfer, and learn from her as well.
There are so many eleitos here in Braga. I can feel the Lord guiding us and I know we are going to see so many miracles.
I hope you all have a fantastic week! I love you all sooo much and pray for you everyday. I know that we get blessings when we obey. The only reason I feel alright leaving you all alone in America is because I know the Lord is watching over you :)
VOS AMO,
Sister Gidney
Ola minha querida família,
First and most importantly, here is a part of Presidente Fluckiger´s letter this week: Christmas Mail deadline! If anyone would like to send you a package for Christmas, be sure they send it before the 21st of November… or it is not very likely that you will receive your Christmas package any time soon. So just like, in case you were, you know, wondering about that....
Alright now it´s a story time. This week was sooo long. I have never been so tired in my entire life. Sometimes we come home at night and I can´t even make it through planning without falling a little bit asleep. But the weird thing is, I am still happy.
So we had some interesting experiences this week:
--On Friday we went over to teach this nice little old lady the first lesson. She wasn´t super interested but we could tell she could feel the Spirit when we talked to her. We had just started teaching her when in walked her son-in-law. I knew it was going to be rough when she said "oh he is studying to be a minister". And well. Here´s what happened. Everytime we started speaking he would 1. interrupt to quiz us "oh where is that scripture? are you SURE that´s the reference?" 2. smile an evil little smile and start rustling through his Bible to find a verse to contradict us. 3. Interrupt to say "hold on I need to tell Maria the TRUTH real quick" (after he said that the fourth time, I was so annoyed that I said "She has a brain. She can think for herself", to which he replied "no she can´t"). He was just very contentious. He hardly let us talk and basically just sat there and attacked us. He told us that we are liars and that we´re going to hell. He told us he would pray for us to find the truth, so we replied "We already have. We testify as representative of our Saviour Jesus Christ that these things are true". His only response was, "you were very well trained". I was very annoyed. I mean, call me stupid. Call me confused or naive or brainwashed. But do not call me a liar. Yeah I am really going to leave behind my whole life to fly over here and LIE to people to make them closer to Jesus. That makes sense. I kind of wanted to cry the whole lesson. Not because he was attacking us, but that he was attacking the thing most precious to me--the gospel and the truth. I guess it´s like that scripture, "neither cast ye yourpearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you" That was exactly what happened. We were trying to present precious truths. He began to trample them saying "that´s not what we believe". When we replied, "Bem. You shouldn´t believe them yet. You havne´t had a witness from God. That´s why we invite you to pray and learn for yourself", he stopped and "turned to rend us", calling us liars and saying we´re going to be lanced into the inferno. But that´s okay because he will "pray for our souls".
--On Tuesday we were walking home from district meeting to go eat lunch. It was almost 13h30 so we were all full of hunger. We were passing the road under the freeway when we saw this tiny little lady with these two HUGE pingo doce bags. We paused for a second and thought, let´s help. So we go over; the bags are full of milk, canned food, and rice and beans. Each one probably weighed 30 kilos. (That´s like 60 pounds). Even better, we thought; she really needs the help. So we start helping her, thinking she lives up the road. We keep walking... and walking... and walking.... up the hill, through the cemetery, past the other pingo doce... We´re thinking, what is going on. Our hands are dying so we start just carrying the bags in our arms. These people are staring at us. One lady walked passed and said "that´s really heavy". Another said "I would help if I had time". We kept going and going and I thought I was about to die. Finally 45 minutes later we get to her house. We ask if we can share a brief message about Christ with her... And she says no. She didn´t want anything to do with us! At first I was kind of, I don´t know offended or something. But then I remembered a talk I saw in the MTC. Elder Holland said, "To walk in the footsteps of Christ, we have to be prepared to suffer at least a tiny portion of what He did". I thought of how Christ carried our sins, our sorrows, and then even His own cross. He carried that heavy burden, and still was and is rejected. Every day He is rejected, when we are. And I thought of how He must have felt. "I was just trying to help you! I carried your burden, to the point of hurting myself. I saved you time and sorrow and effort. And now you don´t want anything to do with me?"
--This week we also saw a lot of miracles. We found this lady in our area book that is absolutely amazing. We are going to try to mark her for baptism this week. We also had a confirmation in church yesterday that was incredible. Ana started crying. The Spirit was so strong.
--I also made a lady cry on the street. We asked her what she was needed and then started testifying that the gospel can help and she started crying and said she really wants that help.
--The funniest part of our week was when we were in Center (the praça with all the churches). There was this teenager sitting by the fountain playing guitar. I told SIster Bollinger, "Go contact him!" She said it would look like we were flirting. But we went to talk to him anyway. After a business-like handshake, we found out that he not only already has a Book of Mormon... and thinks that it is true! He came to church yesterday, and brought a friend. We are meeting with him tomorrow to teach the first lesson. He said he was also going to bring a couple friends to that.
Besides that, we have been working hard and having tons of fun in the process. The other night we sang hymns as we walked an hour home in the rain. Sister Bollinger and I are getting along great and I am excited for the rest of this transfer!
Also last night I had a dream that I got transferred to San Jose California speaking Spanish and that I stopped at home for Christmas. (I´m obviously super excited to be in a foreign country for the holidays. Ha).
Alright well I think that is probably enough. I hope that everyone is happy and healthy. I pray for you all the time so be good to answer my prayers! I love you all tons,
Com muitíssimo amor,
Sister Gidney
| chesnuts roasting on an open fire.... |
| Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 7:52 AM |
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Ola querida família!
This week was the celebration of Magusto. There is a story that St. Martinho (or someone) was wandering around in the cold with a cape on. He got to a town and there was this freezing beggar lady who asked him for his coat. As he placed it on her shoulders, the snow stopped and the sun burst out and it was warm for a week. And now the Portuguese people celebrate that day by eating a bunch of chesnuts. So we had a party here at the church! It was really good--we had quite a few investigators, recent converts, and menos ativos come. I ate a few chesnuts... they kind of taste like a potato mixed with corn and bread. I got sick from them, but I guess it was worth it. Speaking of sick, I guess it IS worth it to buy water here... the tap water only made me a little sick at first, and then I got used to it... But NOW I HAVE A CAVITY. It is in my tooth. So if you could set up a dentist´s appointment for next year... that would be great.
We had a lot of milagres this week. We keep meeting people on the street that we would have no way to contact otherwise (a couple of inactives who moved here and their info was never transferred; someone whose phone broke, etc). My favorite thing of this week though was a lesson we had with this really nice lady. We were asking her to pray at the end and she didn´t want to pray, she wanted to recite Pai Nosso. Finally she was just going to start... and she couldn´t remember past the first line! She was saying "what is going on, I have done this every day for 40 years" and she finally had to just say a real prayer.
Sister Bollinger and I have been getting a lot bolder this week because we are sick of putting up with people. We keep saying things like, "Don´t lie to us. Are you really going to be there or are you going to hide?" We also had a lesson with an investigator we were dropping and we told them it was his choice, salvation or not. (Really sadly he said no... but I guess at least we gave him a clear choice...).
Besides that, we have been talking to a lot of interesting people. One told us they believe in Joseph Smith because they, too, has seen God--twice. Another tried to get us to explain the name of the Holy Ghost. We never really know how to respond so we just normally pretend we didn´t understand the portuguese and change the subject.
Today for P-day we went up to Bom Jesus, a giant catholic church on a hill... I will send some pictures next week. It was kind of creepy.
I don´t have much else to say... except HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATY! I hope you have a fabulous day. Eat some cake for me.
It is cold here. I love you all TONS. Have a wonderful week,
Com amorzinho,
Sister Gidney
let´s just take all the eleitos, and put them in the font
Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 6:46 AM
Queridíssima família,
First of all, AWESOME NEWS. I got a call yesterday from Sister Juilfs, and Sabino finally got baptized! We contacted him in our first transfer in Massamá. I was so happy. Besides that, this week was really interesting. Half of our pesquisadores decided they want nothing to do with us.I think something really good is about to happen otherwise it would be easier. On Tuesday we had interviews and zone conference. We had ot get up 2 hours early to get there on time, but we got mail! John and Jen sent me peanut butter, so that was the best thing ever. We locked ourselves out of our apartment on Wednesday. The doors here are weird; if you don´t have a key, you can´t open it, even if it isn´t "locked" (because they have no doorknobs). But it turned out to be a really miraculous coincidence because we went over to this member´s house to get the spare keys, and she invited us to teach her husband! We had a good lesson with him on Friday. He has already been taught by missionaries before but maybe this time his heart is ready. Speaking of locks, we also got locked in the basement under our apartment building. So never going exploring again. Other fun things: picked an orange OFF OF A TREE and ate it yesterday.Mostly this week we just worked. But because of everything this week I am really grateful that I was born into the church! We see so many people every day who are lost and sad and completely hopeless. And WE know how much the gospel could bless them, but they don´t understand. We have such an amazing perspective and so much light, but they are stuck in the dark. Sometimes I just want to climb on top of the Braga Parque and be like, "Olha, everyone. This will make you happy. Just try it out." And some of them are. We have some really great investigators who want to change their lives for the better.That´s all I really have to say... I´m cold and tired. And very very happy. :) I hope you all have a fabulous Thanksgiving. Eat some pie for me.... Love you TONS!! Sister Gidney
| Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 5:32 AM |
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Querida família,
So guess where I am right now.
I am in SÃO JOÃO.
Remember, my first area?
I am there RIGHT NOW.
Here is the story. Sister Bollinger had to go today to Lisboa to get her residency card. I found out that one of the sisters in São João also had to go. So rather than having me and her companion both stay in Porto, when the executives called to arrange everything, I asked if I could come stay here.
And here I am!
I got here last night and I already got to visit Paulo and Linda. It was so awesome because I stood on the stairs where they couldn´t see and Sister Hill knocked on the door. Linda answered and was like "What are you doing here alone? Where is your companion?" Sister Hill said, "She had to go to Lisbon! So I decided to bring a Christmas surprise to you!" So then I popped up and I thought Linda was going to have a heart attack. She gave me a huge hug and Paulo gave me a huge handshake (ha) and we were all just so happy. It was a Christmas miracle to get to see them again :)
One of the neatest miracles we had this week was with a lady named Teresa. She lives next to some membros who brought her to church. We met her there and then had a lesson a few days later. She said she really loved church and she even told the member "Even if you aren´t going to be there I´m going to church every week!" so then we asked her "so... would you like to be a member?" And she said yes! We haven´t even taught her the first lesson yet and she is marked for baptism. Church is so so so important and can really change our hearts.
We had a "tour da missão" this week with Elder Dyches from the 70. I really learned a lot. He also told us about what it was like to speak in General Conference. (It sounds awful). He and his wife are really, really nice and so inspirational (prerequisite for the job?). One of my favorite things was this quote: "I, for one, choose faith over doubt, desanimo, and fear. I know in Whom I trust. Let us, no matter the trial of our faith, hope on, pray on, press on!"
On Thanksgiving we had lunch with the English family in our ward. They made us chili, because it´s "cheerful and cheap".
Another thing I realized this week is that the people here recognize me and my companion and other missionaries as "different". We were talking to a girl on the street and she said "I am seeing that you are really happy and I feel this inner peace. Maybe that is power from God?" Even though she doesn´t really understand who we are or what our calling is, she recognized that we have POWER. That is because we were called and set apart by the priesthood of God. We have authority to represent our Lord and Saviour Jesus Cristo. And even though the people don´t know what exactly that is, they can see we have it. And now we just have to live up to it :)
Basically this week was cold and wonderful. I hope you all are reading your scriptures and I hope you know that I LOVE YOU!!
Com amor,
Sister Gidney
| Mon, Dec 9, 2013 at 8:37 AM |
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Queridíssima Família,
So we got transfer calls last night... I am staying in Braga! Sister Bollinger and also our district leader are leaving. (I must be good luck because all my district leaders become zone leaders). My new companion is Sister Warburton. She is from England so maybe she will teach me to be a little more cultured.
This week was kind of a roller coaster! We had two people who were supposed to get baptized who ended up running away from us, and then another who we thought wouldn´t, did. So Sol Amor got baptized on Saturday! Sister Bollinger and I contacted him in Center while he was playing the guitar sitting on a fountain. It was just as awkward as it sounds. But he ended up coming to church and now he is a member! (Yes that is really his name).
So I am basically a model for the Church now. Sister Fluckiger called us up on Tuesday and asked us to send her a picture of us entering a pesquisador´s house. So we aquardly had a photoshoot for five minutes. Probably that picture is just for the next Preach My Gospel or something. No big deal.
A pigeon pooped on Sister Bollinger´s ankle on Saturday. We wiped it off with a leaf.
One of the most miraculous moments of the week was on Thursday. Our appointments had fallen through and we didn´t know where to go so we prayerfully decided to pass by a member (recent convert of a little more than a year). When we got to her apartment building. she was sitting outside in her car with her son just looking really upset. We went in with her and had a little lesson and turns out she was having car problems and was really really worried but she said we showed up just when she needed help. We got to comfort her just in the moment she needed.
Oh yesterday in Sacrament meeting it was the primary program. The kids here are sooo cute. There are probably 12 or 15 of them and they all did a great job. It was exactly like america though--every single one forgot to say "In the name of Jesus Christ Amen" so they all had to run back up, hurry and mumble it, and run back to their seat all embarrassed :)
I am excited to stay in Braga one more transfer. This is an awesome area with a great ward and wonderful people.
I hope you are all surviving the snow and that you have a wonderful week! I love you tons!
Com amor,
Sister Gidney
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| Welcome to Porto Norte... |
| Dec 17, 2013 at 6:41 AM |
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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
| T´was the week before Christmas.... |
| Mon, Dec 23, 2013 at 8:36 AM |
Querida família,
Merry Christmas! Almost! Sister Warburton and I are probably way more excited for Christmas than we should be. We have all our little presents laid out by our fireplace (that we´re not allowed to use) and have a counter on the wall. Just two more days!
This week was full of surprises! My rainboots started leaking, which I didn´t even know was possible. If I calculated correctly I walked about 400 miles in them. But I got new ones today that are a lot cuter, so it all worked out.
So one of the fun things about Braga is the university. There are always poor little freshmen trying to get into sororities and fraternities being paraded around by the seniors. This week we saw a parade of them dressed up like Santa Claus. One of the Santas ran over to us and said "Merry Christmas!" in English and then hugged us. I
froze and then awkwardly tried to escape. It was awkward.
On Thursday, one of our recent converts, Cristina, called us. She was really quite sick and needed our help.
We went out with the Elders so she could get a blessing, and then we went with her daughter to the pharmacy.
Turns out the medication she needed was prescription-only, so we went back empty-handed. When we arrived, Cristina started crying because she didn´t think she would be able to get any sleep without it. We prayed with
her and told her everything would be okay and just to trust in the Lord. We left after doing some of her dishes. We called the next day and talked to her daughter who said everything had turned out okay. Turns out that almost right after we left, her stomach pains went away. She still wasn´t able to sleep but she finally thought "Maybe it´s
because I don´t have enough faith" so she said a prayer and right after fell asleep and sleep longer and better than she has in weeks. She told us that she realized that sometimes we will have a battle, but after we make it through, Christ will take it all and we will have huge miracles.
Speaking of miracles, on Friday we got to teach with Margarita, our awesome recent convert who is 13 and
more than 6 feet tall. Everytime she shared her testimony in our lessons, it was the perfect thing said in the
perfect way with such strong faith that we ended up seeing a huge difference in our investigators. It is amazing
how one little girl is already changing lives.
So in case you didn´t know, Heavenly Father has the biggest sense of humor. On Saturday we had a bunch of compromissos, and then we found out we had a meeting as well, so we were running around all day. Then we
couldn´t find one of our investigators´houses, so we stopped in a few cafes to ask directions and ended up
finding an amazing new investigator. We finally went home for jantar when we realized we had an appointment in 15 minutes, so we headed right back out the door. Sister Warburton said, "That´s too bad, I really wanted to
make soup for dinner". We went to our next appointment with Marta (the brazilian). We walked in and she
said "Oh I made you soup!" and gave us a couple of bowls of noodle soup. We went to our next (and last appointment) and THEY had made us soup as well. So we ended up having about 4 bowls of soup. So I
learned two things. 1. Sometimes it is better not to ask, because you will recieve. (D&C 4:6. haha) 2.
Heavenly Father really does give us "an hundredfold". When we do one little thing, like skipping dinner to go
help His kids, He will bless us more times than we can count. But thankfully this time it wasn´t one
hundredfold, but just fourfold :)
Yesterday Sister Warburton and I got to translate for an investigator. Michael is one of the elders´
investigators and he only speaks English so in church and the baptism after church we got to help them
translate. It was hard.
Yesterday afternoon one of the little boys in the ward got baptized! It was so awesome. A bunch of
non-member family members were there and the family gave them all Book of Mormons. And Bispo said after
the baptism "So who´s next?"
CHRISTMAS in two days! It will be weird to talk to you... Because everyone will look different. But it
will be awesome! Get your questions ready so it´s not awkward :)
Oh here´s a picture--we found the Road of Restoration!
Com muitíssimo amor,
Sister Gidney
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| That week where we usually don´t have school |
| Mon, Dec 30, 2013 at 8:28 AM |
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Ola famílinha,
This week was pretty good. I got to see you! It was not very busy as far as missionary work goes... We had some nice lessons and met a couple of new people, but what with it being Christmas and all, no one seemed to have much time to stop and talk about Christ.
Christmas eve was wonderful. We went over to the Marinho´s, the British family who lives here. We had gotten permission to see the Muppets Christmas Caroll! It was wonderful and we ate delicious non-Portuguese food the whole time and it was a nice little evening by a fire singing hymns in English.
So a few days ago we had a compromisso by Braga Parque, the mall in our area. We had a few minutes before the pesquisador would be there, so we decided to get out of the rain and grab some hot chocolate. Let me tell you, it was the biggest disappointment of a hot drink I have ever had. There wasn´t enough milk, so it was about as thick as chocolate pudding, and it was cold because the worker mixed it for about 5 minutes--not that you could tell, because it was all lumpy. It was actually really funny because we tried to drink it and it just stayed in the cup. Good thing they gave us spoons :)
On Saturday, the elders´ investigator Michael got baptized! It was awesome because he is American and doesn´t even speak Portuguese, so we all took turns translating. And then afterwards we got to play around with his two daughters (who are 6 and 7). Not to brag, but they love us.
We had a family home evening this week with this little Cabo Verde family (most of them are members). It was so fun because Nelson, the son/brother/whatever, plays guitar really well, so we just started singing a bunch of Christmas songs and he would play. As my companion says he played "chilled out acoustic". So it was fun.
It has been raining like crazy. And windy, so Braga is basically like an umbrella graveyard. On Tuesday afternoon between lunch and dinner we got to 44 before we stopped counting. The nice thing is, a lot of them aren´t even that bad, so we "rescue" them when ours die. (We have killed 7 or 8 umbrellas...)
I was sorry to hear about uncle Josh. Presidente Fluckiger called and told me on Friday. I hope everyone is doing okay. Know I love you all tons!
It was great to see you on Christmas! It kind of feels like it never happened, so I think it will be weird to come home. "Where have I been the last 18 months? Why do I know Portuguese?"
I love you all tons and hope you have a wonderful new year! I will be waking up when the clock strikes 12 in Utah!
Vos amo!
Sister Gidney
p.s. here´s a picture of christmas lunch.. and an umbrella (sorry it´s fuzzy)
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