Sister Paige Hardy

This week was not your regular ordinary week in the mission field, we actually spent less time out in our area working together than usual, but if there is one thing I have learned, obstacles are nothing to the Lord. He does His work rain or shine, 2 hours or 10. We started off the week with an exchange! I stayed here in Oeiras with a sister who has only been out for 2 transfers! I have more experience being a missionary than her, but only a couple more weeks of actually being here in Portugal and my Portuguese was only marginally better than hers. So I was really nervous and made sure to do some good stretches that morning in case pantomime was required. But the day actually went really great! We did a lot of contacts, taught a lesson to a returning member, bought food, did service, and found 2 new people to teach!! We got along really well too and just had a lot of fun talking and laughing and swapping stories. Another wonderful blessing of exchanges is the opportunity to s...

See the title. That's it for my email this week. Stay cool.   Just kidding. Though that was pretty crazy! We went over to the house of a less active and her mom is not a member and so we were going to teach them, but before we got started they offered us a bunch of food, including snail. She said that we didnt have to try the snail if we didnt want to. I didnt want to, but then I thought about telling someone that I had the opportunity to eat snail and didnt take it. I didnt want to face that kind of shame. So I took a toothpick poked the face and pulled it out. It was really long and slimy looking. After some deep breaths I popped it in! To be honest it didnt taste that bad at all. It was just knowing that I was eating a snail that made me feel a bit queezy.   This week was awesome!! I feel like I am finally getting into the swing of this whole missionary thing. I can tell because this week just felt like your average missionary week! We walked and rode buss...

Ok, this place is BEAUTIFUL! There are a ton of houses here, which is a thing I was starting to think Portugal didn't have, and many of them are these really geourgeous old houses all done up like new or modern style houses all mixed in with trees and fields. On the way to the train station from our apartment is this field with a giant cow just hanging out in it! There are tourists here too, which is a new thing, because of the beaches here and how close we are to Lisbon. That's been fun to be on the trains and hear so many different languages around me! Its even cooler now that I can understand portuguese!   Anyway, this week was really cool! The first week in a new area is always a little odd because you dont know your way around and you don`t know any of the members or people we are teaching and so its just like being a kid walking around with your parents. You have no idea whats going on or where you are, but you trust the person leading you so you are just happy to ...

been thinking about that lately. We may have an idea of what we want and what would be best and then God throws a curveball. But when you think about it more you realize that God is just setting you up for a home run. I was so ready to stay in Barreiro for one more transfer. So ready. I had made the apartment my own, bought my favorite food, really formed strong bonds with the members and had many ideas for the work. Then the APs called. And I am leaving. Not only that. Our area is closing. About 20 sisters are going home this transfer and only 8 will arrive, so several sister areas are closing. But it will only be for now! The other sisters will get there visas and next transfer Barreiro will have sisters again! Meanwhile, I am going to a city called Oeidas. It is on the same side of the river as Lisbon. I don't know very much about it, but I think we have a beach really close by which I am super excited about! And I will be serving with Sister Romney. The people I have ...