Fantastic Fiasco

Olá familia e queridos amigos! 

I am starting off this letter the way our week started, full of fiasco! Lol! We'll start with P-day. We had a zone pday activity that was really fun, though I had put my sunscreen on so hastily that morning that I ended up with this really funny goggle shaped sunburn! Really attractive. But we had a lot of fun. We left at about 10 that morning and didn't go back home until around 6. As we approached our apartment building we began to hear a faint beeping noise. As we ascended the staircase it got louder and louder until we open the door to our apartment to hear our fire alarm going crazy! We run in and there is no fire. Thank goodness. Just a crazy alarm. We hush it, but a few minutes later it started going off again! We have to go catch a train so we didn't have a lot of time to figure it out. We try taking off the cap so we can take the batteries out, but its stuck and won't budge. So then Sister Stalder is taking a knife to try to dislodge the battery from the side. We don't know if it worked but we have to go so we just decide to hope it was enough. We get home at 10 that night after a dinner with members and once again we can hear our fire alarm from the street. Screeching like crazy. We run up the stairs and hush it and the member who gaves us a ride offers to try and help. He can't get it open either and he ends up just cutting the chords of our alarm! It really was the only option. We were relieved but also feeling worried about our neighbors! One of them came up to talk to us and he was MAD! Clearly. Apparently it had started going off soon after we left that morning and then again right after we left for dinner and had been going off all day! He told us there was an old lady in the apartment next to ours and she had been going crazy! They almost called the police! I mean, we weren't there, there was nothing we could have done. I don't know why they didn't just try and contact us so we could come take care of it, but we felt really really bad all the same. We wanted to make cookies for them, but after our previous week of cookie disasters, and a house without a fire alarm, we decided not too. We should get a new alarm soon though which will be good. 

    OK. One more fiasco. A other cookie fiasco if you would believe it. A member in our branch invited us over to make cookies with her because she says American cookies always taste better when they are made by Americans lol, so we went. But I don't think we were quite the Americans for the job! First batch, a little burned, but not too bad. Second batch, undercooked. Because Sister Hardy was scared to burn them and took them out too soon. They looked done for the top! Third batch. Burned to an ACTUAL CRISP! Finally the last batch turned out OK, but all the cookies had spread so much it was more like one cutting board shaped cookie. They were good though! For the last batch we added pisoca which is a Brazilian sweet that is basically just dryer crumbly peanut butter. So the cookies were basically peanut butter cookies! I don't know what i was doing wrong though or why they turned out so weird. I followed the recipe and the dough was liquidy and the cookies just ok. Not amazing. Ok. But we had fun! We were laughing the whole time and the member kept teasing me that my kids would either starve because I couldn't cook or be fat because I would just take them to McDonald's all the time! We were laughing like crazy! I have decided that I can cook, I just can't bake lol, because we make a zucchini pasta this week that was to die for. 

     Later in the week we had an activity as a district for the temple open house! They all came here to Barreiro and we went to a park and set up a banner of the temple and then we contacted every person in the whole dang park inviting them to the temple! When we ran out of people we switched to the boat station and contacted people there! It was really fun. The funniest part though was when we were at the park with the banner and invitations for the temple open house, on the other side of the park were two missionaries for another church with their banner and flyers! There were no problems, but I think the people in the park were a little religioned out lol. 

       We taught some cool lessons this week, and even marked a remarkable young woman for baptism! If you get a chance to pray for the people of Portugal, please include Silva and Lais! 

      OK, this email is getting really long! Brief spiritual thought and then I'll get out of your hair. This week I had the opportunity to recieve a priesthood blessing, it was incredible to me how in this blessings I heard so many things that I had been needing to hear. The man who gave the blessing had no idea what was going on in my life, and yet the words he spoke were so wonderfully specific and perfect. I have a testimony of the priesthood, it is the power of God given to men, not the power of men. When we recieve an ordinance or a blessing at the hands of a man who worthily holds the priesthood, we are receiving those blessings by the hand of God. It is essential and beautiful, and I am so grateful to have been raised in a home with a father who holds the priesthood. I am working hard to help others recieve the same privileges and blessings of the priesthood that I have enjoyed my whole life. 

I love you all! Thank you so much for your love and support! 

Sister Hardy 

-We went to the zoo today for pday!

-The branch had a dinner for couples, and we came to help out with the food, but they told us sit down and eat with all the couples!

I have a lot of pictures this week, I'll send more in a seperate email! 

Most of these are from the zoo today! The last one is us with our pisoca! 

I also met a dinosoar and became a koala. It was a weird week....lol