Portuguese Novelas

Querida familia,
This week was probably the craziest and funniest week ever. I love it here. It´s basically like we´re in a soap opera.
On Tuesday during district meeting the elders flooded the capela. They don´t have gas in their house because they broke it, so they always cook at the church. They invited us to stay for lunch. The sink apparently leaks and there is a bucket underneath to catch the overflow, but they forgot and it overflowed and filled the entire relief society room with water. Took about 40 minutes to mop up.
On Wednesday, we went to LISBOA. We got our residency cards! So now we´re official. We went to a mall and got these really nice pictures taken, then went and sat in this DMV-like place for five hours. Finally they took my fingerprints and my signature and sent me on my way. Luckily we only live a 30-minute train ride away. But we got to see a lot of people from our MTC group. Everyone is more blonde and more tan. And can speak better Portuguese. The best part about it was that afterwards they took us to the escritorio and we got to get some pedidos and some mail. We finally got some pamphlets and things we needed. (And I got a package from Aunt Miriam that was super awesome!) When we got back, we had a meeting at the capela. The elders met us at the comboio station because we were bringing them a bunch of Book of Mormons. This lady stopped us and wanted the address of the headquarters of the Church. She wanted us to call the prophet and get the address and was really confused why we couldn´t...
Thursday was a great day. We talked to a ton of people. We also had Aula de Inglês, which is my favorite time of the week. This little old man in our ward always comes (apparently he is the stake patriarch. I didn´t know that until yesterday). So we had taught colors and clothing items so we decided to play "I love my neighbor" to help them learn. This is the game where you sit in the circle and someone in the middle says "I lvoe my neighbor, except for those with___" and whoever is wearing that has to switch chairs, and the person in the middle tries to get a seat. So this man got to be the one in the middle, and he looked around, then as seriously as possible said "I love my pants!" He quickly looked around for a spot to sit, but no one had moved, so he said it again louder "I LOVE MY PANTS!" We helped him... While trying not to laugh. Basically every game is better when the people playing don´t understand the language. To end the class we did a nice round of "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" because our zone leader said they love it. And they did. Everyone went crazy.
On Friday all of our compromissos fell through so we ended up goign to the north end of our area to try to find people. The only ones we met were a guy who said "I´d love to talk but I´m drunk right now" and a guy I think was on drugs. He was practically confessing his love to us as we walked away.
Saturday was hilarious. We went to a dinner compromisso but the lady got confused when she found out Sister Juilfs is allergic to meat so we ended up sitting behind the family at the table, and she fed us maria bolachas (these graham cracker-like cookies) and juice while the family ate chicken and rice. It was so confusing. We also met a man who grabbed our hands and read our palms. He told me I am good at art and drawing (yeah right), that I am going to have at least two children, and that I love cats. I tried to say "actually I don´t really like them" but he said "No I KNOW you like them. It is written. Here, in your palm. It is written."
Yesterday I got to play a violin! The elders had a baptism and wanted a special musical number so a ward member lent me her violin and I played "I Feel My Saviour´s Love" with Elder Taylor (he played the piano). I think it turned out alright. We also had someone tell us that the Book of Mormon isn´t true because the picture of Jesus in the front is white and "with where He was born He couldn´t have been white". So that was interesting.
The best part of the week is JESSICA. She is the best investigator ever. We were really worried earlier this week. Sister Juilfs and I both feel really strongly that she needs the Holy Ghost next Sunday, and so she has to get baptized before church. She didn´t want to get baptized yesterday because she wants her family there (makes sense), but also she wanted her friend to baptize her, and he will be in Spain until late Saturday night. So We were worried that she wanted to wait. But she said "No I´ve been praying. It has to be this Saturday. I don´t care who baptizes me as long as it´s on Saturday." So the member we had with us will be baptizing her. Also, her favorite scripture is 1 Nephi 3:7. "The Lord has already prepared a way for me. I just need to cumprir His ordens". She knows that there is a path for her; all she has to do is follow. I feel like SHE is the one teaching US-I always learn so much when we teach her.
I feel like there was more that happened this week but I can´t think of anything right now. Basically it is hard but we are having a TON of fun. I love my companion, the elders are hilarious, and I LOVE our investigators. (Not as much as some of them love us but.. that´s a story for another day). I also love you all TONS. I) hope you are reading the Book of Mormon. I am on chapter 16 now (in Portuguese!) Also one thing I have been doing that I love is writing down a miracle every day. Some of them are a stretch, but it is amazing to see how blessed we are. Good luck with the first few days of school--the Church is true and I love you!
Tchauzinho,
Sister Gidney

Com licença

Ola familia :)
We´re done with our second week here.. already. It´s starting to go really fast. Part of it is probably that we have been working to the last possible minute every single day (we usually end up running home to make it on time).
We got fed every.single.day this week. So I´ve now eaten chicken foot soup, octopus rice (including the suckers..), bacalhau lasagna, and some other fine delicacies. ..Yep.

Mom asked about the scripture I picked for this transfer. It´s D&C 1:4-5. I like it because it reminds me that God chose us, not just to be missionaries, but to be where we are when we are and with who. So He knew what he was doing when He put Sister Juilfs and I here to open an area still trying to figure Portuguese out. And it´s also nice that nothing will stop us if we are trying our hardest. Not only will the people or Satan or whatever not stop us, but our own weaknesses won´t even be able to "deterá", because this is God´s work. He´s got this. "Porque eu, o Senhor, os mandei ir."
So we started teaching this AWESOME girl this week- Jessica. She is the friend of a member who just got his mission call. She´s probably the only blonde in Cacém, and she is SO elect. We marked her for baptism the first time we talked to her! She is 19 and was never baptized in any church, and said that right before we showed up she was looking for what she should be doing, if she should get baptized, or what should she do in her life. (Miracles happen). This weekend she came to a baptism at the capela and then to a ward activity, and then to all three hours of church, and the came back for choir. I think the most impressive thing though was that after the second lesson she asked "So what are the basic steps we need to take in this life?" So we left a 3ª lição panfleto and all the mandamento pamphlets and when we came back the next day she´d read all of them, the chapter we left in the Book of Mormon, and started reading the Book from the beggining. And her only question was "So how do we repent?" She´s really awesome. I am really really excited for her. Another awesome pesquisador we have is Nené. He is atheist, but after reading some chapters in Alma, he said he is starting to believe in God!
One miracle we saw this week was Quarta-feira night. The zone leader challenged all the areas to find 3 novos during the day. It was 9:20 and we still needed one more, and we also had to walk home. We stopped and said a prayer and said we knew it was possible, but that we needed to help. After we said ámem, we looked up and saw... nothing. No one was on the street. We stood there for a few seconds and then started walking up the street, away from our house, thinking for sure it was hopeless and that we would be late. At the corner we saw this car pulling up, so we awkwardly waited until they started getting out. The two ladies had a bunch of suitcases so we asked if they needed any help. They said no, but one lady started talking to us about her travels (she is from Madeira). We asked if we could say a prayer with her for her viagem the next morning... and she let us, with her friend. Turns out that the friend lives in our area, already has a Book of Mormon, and wants us to come back and explain it. We set up an appointment and then ran (as usual) home. We made it home on time AND found our new novo. Even though we were expecting someone to be like right behind us after we prayed, we still had the miracle we needed, because we took those steps of faith.
Okay one funny story to finish it up. We contacted this old man who was hanging out by a bus stop. We talked about Jesus for awhile and then he interupted us and said "You have beautiful eyes. They remind me of a fruit. Do you know which one?" We were confused and just said "uhhh..." and then he said something we didn´t understand. He repeated "Azeiton. You know, like the oil?" Yeah turns out he said Olives. So I have olive eyes so that´s cool.
Yep all in all we´re trying to get this area "up and running". We have a few great people to work with and are still working hard to find more. The hardest part here is that in our area (probably about the size of 3 BYU campuses) there are 9 churches. So please keep me and the people in Massamá in your prayers :)
I hope all is well with you all. I love you tons!!
Com muito amor,
Sister Gidney

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

TRANSFERRED

Ola familia,
It has been a CRAZY week. I probably don´t remember most of it.
Last P day we went to the castle in Santa Maria da Feira.. Hopefully I can send pictures sometime. It was really fun. And it makes me wonder who has walked where we walk every day. Tipo, anciently.
This week we had no novos until Friday. No one wanted to talk to us. Everyone kept saying it´s a waste oif time and not worth it. Finally on Friday we were talking to this lady, "Oh it will be a waste of time" and I just started talking saying "It won´t be a waste because God loves you" and just kept going and afterward she was like "oh" and then gave us her contact info and prayed with us. So I guess a little righteous indignation sometimes is a good thing :P
Alright since I am really tired I don´t remember much of last week. On Sunday night at like 10 p.m. we finally got our phone call about transfers. I thought I was staying, but nope! Sister Cutler and I both got transferred. So did Sister Valdez. They are combining the two areas and leaving Sister da Silva (who got there three weeks ago) to do them both... while she´s training. So we stayed up until 2 ~packing (and crying) and finally got to bed. Just in time to get up at 5 so we could catch our 6 a.m. bus. We went to Porto and then rode the train to Lisbon and to the mission office. There I met my new companion-Sister Juilfs. She got here the same time as me. She is really really nice... and also knows the same or less Portuguese than me. This is going to be interesting! We are whitewashing an area that was only opened last transfer-basically opening-- in Massamá. Near Cacem. Near Lisboa. I am in the Oeiras zone, which altogether is smaller than São João. But everyone keeps telling us this area is bem eleito. We are the first sisters to be in this ward since 2007. Hopefully we do a good job.
I hope you all are happy and healthy. Love you tons-please pray that I will understand the people here :)
Love,
Sister Gidney

"we baptized a zoo"

Dearest familia,
This week was SO crazy! First of all, I am so so excited - we get to text now. Yes. It is going to be so much easier to follow up with everyone and set up appointments,
Alright first of all - THANK YOU for the package (and all the letters from Katy)! Made my week.
So on Wednesday André got baptized! I´m 99% sure he will have a video on mormon.org someday. Listen to this. You already know he´s a doctor of Chinese medicine. He has already read the Book of Mormon through part of Mormon. We had exactly 4 lessons with him before his baptism. He accepted everything SO easily. Seriously it was so easy to teach him. We´re just like, Hey Word of Wisdom, hey tithing, and he says, Okay awesome. Not to mention he speaks English fluently so if we don´t understand he translates. Also he plays drums, guitar, bass, upright bass, didgeridoo, and the bagpipes.

Sister Gidney, Andre, Sister Cutler, Paulo

On Saturday, Mario got baptized! We were really, really worried about him. I think maybe he used to be the town drunk... And we weren´t really sure if he was actually understanding us becuase he can´t read and his learning capacity isn´t as high. So we were praying SO hard to know if he would be ready or what. And when we taught him and prayed about his baptismal date we felt really good about it. He passed his interview, but some of the members were still a little worried. But we had him come early for his baptism, and we asked him why he wanted to get baptized and he said "To get more help from God, and so I can help more people". And after his baptism, we asked how he was. "Estou a sentir melhor" (I am feeling better). It was really wonderful to watch how the church really is for everyone-and that everyone needs the gospel.

Mario, Paulo, Sister Gidney, Sister Cutler

Probably one of the neatest parts about the baptisms was that both asked Paulo to baptize them! I don´t know how it feels to baptize someone, but I think watching one of your recent converts use the priesthood to enact the ordinances of salvation for others is probably pretty close.
Some funny moments this week: 1. I asked Sister Cutler if she was a fruit, what she thought she would be. Her answer "probably a raisin..:" (okay I thought it was funny. She said it so sadly).
2. We were talking to Linda after one of the baptisms. She was telling us her neighbors see us all the time and were asking about us. She said, "Basically they just think Paulo has two pretty girlfriends".
We started teaching this little old couple this week, Maria and Amelio. They are probably 70 ish and SO cute. I love them. We went by to invite them to the baptism and Maria answered. She was trying to tell us Amelio wouldn´t want to come, that he´s "a hardened and stern man", but finally we convinced her to let us ask. When we went in and asked and he said, "yeah sounds great!" and then Maria looked at us and very seriously told us, "He gave his word. We´ll be there". And sure enough, they came. It was the first time they´ve been in a church since they were newleyweds. And they really liked it. Maria almost cried when Sister Valdez and I sang for a musical number. Maria has also been reading the Book of Mormon every day. Amelio is SO funny. We told him to pray for the things he wants and he said: "But if you pray for everything you want, you´ll be praying all the time!". They are really great. I hope I am still here next transfer, because I think they will get baptized.
Oh yeah. On Thursday Sister Cutler and I saw two ladies get in a fist fight. They were rolling around on the ground yelling something about a marido (husband). It was really sad and luckily there were a bunch of people around to stop them. We left before cops or news or anyone showed up.
Our district went to the castle in Santa Maria da Feira this morning! It was really cool, even though we couldn´t go inside. I wish I knew more about the history of it. It is crazy to think about how old it is and what kind of people must have walked around on that very spot.

Basically this week was pretty great. This is the last week of the transfer, so I really really hope I get to stay here at least one more transfer. I really love it here, even though I miss you all a lot. But time is going by so quickly-this Saturday will be 4 months! Be sure to keep sending me pictures so I can recognize you when I get home :)
Thanks for all the news and emails. I pray for you all all the time, and love you TONS!
Fique firme na fé- a Igreja é verdadeira- e vos amo!
Love,
Sister Gidney

It's already week 5 of this transfer!

Ola familia!!
This week went by so quickly! Probably partially because I was on drugs the whole week! For my hand, you know. It´s looking a LOT better. Almost normal. Probably only looks a little different because when it got swollen my skin got all stretched out. So one of my hands might be chubbier than the other for the rest of my life, but at least they didn´t have to amputate (I don´t know why I was afraid of that but when it started swelling I just could only think: "This is infected and it´s going to get gangrene and they´re going to have to cut off my hand and then I´ll have to go home from my mission early". So it was a relief).
So this week on Wednesday Sister Cutler had to go to Lisbon to get her residency card. So Tuesday night during English class she LEFT. It was so weird. I was with the other sisters but I felt like I was breaking the rules. Especially because I slept in my "own room". On Wednesday I spent the whole day following the other sisters around. I talked to this guy on the train all by myself for like 20 minutes (we took the train to part of their area that´s farther away). He thought I was weird and I didn´t really care. I told him that "yeah I´m weird. But it´s true". Luckily Sister Cutler got back that night so we could work in our own area again. I LOVE our area. On Thursday we went out to Santa Maria da Feira and we found this awesome little family. A mom and her two daughters. We just saw them at the playground and went over to talk and the mom let us teach the first lesson. And we have an appointment to go back this week (it was Saturday but she called to reschedule). The best part was the 12 year old´s prayer. Well first she tried to get her mom to say the closing prayer (we asked if one of them would), so she read the description in the pamphlet to her mom 3 times. Finally she was like "Fine I´ll just do it". She just said "Jesus, protect me from the bees. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen". It was so cute and so funny.
Yesterday in church we helped a family of menos ativas come :) the mom and four kids. The two youngest kids are 8 (they´re twins) and haven´t been baptized, so maybe that will be happening soon? There is also another MA who came who we are helping quit smoking. It´s really great to be able to help people find AND refind the gospel.
Our investigators are so great. Well Mario we have marked for baptism this Saturday but we still aren´t sure if he understands completely, so we might have to move it to next weekend. Bernardo is getting so much more brave- he wants to get baptized and is trying to convince his parents. We challenged him to read the Book of Mormon before the end of the year and when we called to see how the reading was he said "So great! This book is like a dictionary with all the answers!" That was great to hear because it really is! Also, André is probably the most elect person we have ever met. He is almost done reading through Alma now (remember that we met him less than a month ago and he´s had a Book of Mormon for two and a half weeks). He told us "Oh there was a passage I really liked". It was Alma 32:21. Scripture mastery-good choice. Also he invited some of his friends to his baptism (this week) and some of them can´t come but "it doesn´t matter; I´m doing this for myself". It is seriously such a privilege to teach him. It´s so EASY. We´re just like, "Hey, tithing. Hey, word of wisdom". And he says, "Hey, cool. I´ll do it."
Random: In Relief Society yesterday, Linda was sharing a personal experience and she started crying and saying how grateful she is for me and Sister Cutler because we helped her find the church. She was saying how much better her life is and how happy she is now and then afterward gave us these slobbery kisses on the cheek. It was really crazy to realize how much the gospel means to people-we are really lucky that we get to share it.
Oh and one funny/weird thing. Last night we tried to visit a menos ativo and his brother and we got trapped there for more than an hour by their Russian mom who was asking us all these WEIRD questions. We tried to explain but we didn´t want to Bible-bash so we just basically ended up saying, we don´t know. So she gave us some chocolate and told us to never come back.
So basically even though sometimes it´s still really hard, it´s also really great. Also it helps that it hasn´t been as hot. Oh hey, guess what. Sister Cutler and I go running like every other day. Lots of new experiences... We are always SO tired but also really happy. I can´t wait to send pictures of André´s baptism-he asked Paulo to baptize him! :)
I hope you are all doing really well. Don´t miss me too much - I am already 20% done here. Time is going so fast. It´s kind of sad. But I miss you all lots. And love you TONS. Remember who you are... The Church is TRUE!
Tchau, tchau, bacalhau :)
Love you,
Sister Gidney

crazy week!

Ola familia!
This week felt like it was twelve years long. On Monday we went out to Escapães (like 3 miles from our house) to try to talk to some menos ativos. We found one. She wouldn´t let us in.. but she talked to us out of her second story window for more than two hours. It made our necks hurt, but mostly it was sad because she was saying she knows it´s true but she got offended and so she doesn´t want to come. Hopefully we can help her strengthen her testimony.
Tuesday was a good day. We found a bunch of people who are interested. Also remember André? The pesquisador who is almost done reading the book of Mormon? He´s in Alma now. Also during our second lesson - he said he would get baptized - this weekend! Well we had to move it to next Wednesday because the nurses are on strike so he has to work all weekend... But he will get baptized :)
Wednesday we had zone conference with President and Sister Fluckiger. It was really great. They fed us pizza, too. But I liked it because we got to hear their testimonies and counsel for us.
Oh Wednesday night Sister Warner got emergency transferred :( One of their pesquisadores asked her to marry him. So now she´s gone. But we have Sister da Silva! She is from Brazil and got here the same time as me. She is really nice and I am excited that we have someone who only knows portuguese to force us to speak it at home. Oh speaking of Portuguese this week we were teaching a lesson and or a minute I wasn´t thinking about speaking Portuguese I was just SPEAKING it! It was so cool but then when I noticed I couldn´t do it anymore.
On Thursday we had a division- I was with Sister Alves, from Brazil... So we only had Portuguese all day! I think I did all right. We had some really good lessons and contacts. I like divisions becuase we can learn different ways to do things, like contacting. It is really helpful and we learned a lot.
Saturday we got attacked by a dog. Not really, kind of. It´s a funny story: We went out to Escapães again to try to find the house of the guy we contacted in like, May, whose house we could never find. We finally find the road so we were walking up. The right side of the road had houses, and the left had warehouses. This dog up ahead in a chainlink fence started barking but we ignored it. When we got up parallel to it, we realized there was another on the left side too. It looked kind of like a wolf. All matted and dirty and for sure had fleas. We thought it was behind a fence too, but turns out it was just one of those parking lot gates... Because suddenly it was running towards us snarling and barking and trying to kill us. Sister Cutler froze. I remembered that one of my MTC teachers had said pretend to throw rocks, so I stooped a little and just start chucking air at this dog. It was kind of lunging at us and snapping but I just kept pretending to throw. I was trying to get a real rock, but couldn´t seem to bend over all the way. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Sister Cutler just standing there holding a Book of Mormon so in my panic I just kept throwing and screamed "Throw the book!" She jolted out of the daze and started throwing rocks too. We finally picked some up and just ran away throwing them behind our back. We escaped. We were still holding a bunch of rocks, and were really freaked out. So when we passed this little weiner dog just sitting on the sidewalk Sister Cutler threw a rock towards it. It skittered away and she went "Yeah that´s right!" hahaha. It was so scary but also really funny. Don´t throw scriptures.
Also on Saturday I got stung by a wasp four times. We tried to take care of it and thought it would be fine. But Sunday it was really swollen. I got a blessing from some old men in the ward. But this morning it was still really swollen, so the Senior Sister missionary in charge of health (we´d called her Sunday morning and have been working with her since) said we had to go get it looked at.. So this morning we went to the hospital (it´s more like insta-care). We went with two members, Ana and Renata. I hope I never have to go to a doctor outside of America ever again. We signed in, and were sitting in this weird little waiting room. Right outside the window was someone smoking. But I was reading the Book of Mormon and in Mosiah 28:7 underlined "the Lord will preserve thy.. hand..." which made me feel better. Haha. Luckily we were only in there for like 40 minutes when we got called back. We go in and the doctor and the nurse barely look at my hand when he hands me a prescription. Luckily the nurse was really nice. She even spoke English. They decided I needed a shot... They tried to do it in the inside of my elbow but couldn´t find my vain so they stuck me like 4 times. And then when they finally got it she walked away so I thought she was done so I looked at my arm and the needle was just sitting there inside my arm. I gagged. Then I passed out. So Ana and Renata called a taxi and took us home in a taxi. It was a fun little adventure. I got some antibiotics (after getting it approved by Sister Fluckiger) and I think it is helping a little. It´s a little less swollen than the picture. The worst part is that little wasp is probably still alive. Now we can never go near Mario´s house again because it has a taste for my blood.

Yesterday Sister Cutler, Sister Valdez and I gave talks in sacrament meeting. Everyone laughed during the right places in mine, which was good. I think they understood. We talked about missionary work so I mostly talked about the "what", like what to share, the doctrine of Christ. It was a good experience.
This week is going to be less hot so hopefully we will not sweat so much. Thank you for all the emails and love and prayers - I love you all TONS!
Continua firme na fé e vos amo! <3
Sister Gidney
p.s. picture with sister cutler and sister warner right before she left-do I look less white?