Beautiful Leiria

So, Leiria is the most perfectly wonderful town in the world. I just wanted to let you all know. I think this place might actually be perfect. Ok. So it is a hot spot for families and there is this gorgeous park and you walk through it and there are just families playing around on all sides. But it is also Europe, so you can't forget that this park is full of really old beautiful sculptures and water features. There is also cute little river with fun, cute bridges going across it. Parts of it actually remind me of river front park in Spokane actually (we all know Spokane is actually the most perfect place in the world, Leiria is awesome, but Spokane has a special place in my heart). It is less poor and less racially diverse than Barreiro, and the people aren't quite as open, but we are still finding success! We are doing a whitewash, but the elders left us a giant list of the people they are working with and they even have someone who is marked for baptism! It hasn't felt like a whitewash at all because we have jumped right in to teaching and working! We are teaching this super cute girl named Wang. She is from China and is here as a student. She never knew much about God, but when she got here she got curious and thats when she met the missionaries! There is also this couple who has only received the first lesson but apartently when the elders invited them to pray at the end they told them they didn't need to because they could feel that it was true! What! He has come to church 4 times counting this Sunday, she works on Sunday so has only made it once, but they both love it! We hope to mark a day with them both and maybe invite them to be baptised! What ever happens we will follow the spirit, but they are so cool, I know they will join the church someday! Funny story/ miracle in relation to them. We contacted a woman on our first day and she was really cool, and then later that same day we saw her again! She didn't know her address becuase she is just here visiting a friend. The next day we decided to stop by the couple I was talking about earlier and, who opens the door? The woman! The couple wasn't there, but she was there staying with another woman who lived in that house! (it is pretty common for many people to live in one house becuase housing is expensive, so if you just pay for one room of an apartment it's better) when she opened the door she had been watching the mormon channel on her computer! She came to church this Sunday too, though she came a little late and left early so we didn't get to talk to her. But anyway, the work here in Leiria is already popping!

OK funny story time. So transfers werw crazy. There were a ton of missionaries in the Oriente station all chatting and taking pictures like normal, and sister Crowder and I are running around trying to figure stuff out! We were trying to find our SIM cards for our phones, trying to get the keys for our house and trying to figure out how we are even going to get to Leiria becuase our travel plans were way off! Finally we get everything and our train is leaving in like 3 minutes and we have 5 bags between us so we throw the keys into our backpack and run! We make it to Leiria after that with no problems. It takes about an hour to walk to our apartment becuase cobblestones and suitcases don't play nice. We'll they would if I only had two bags, but three was a definite challenge. Finally we make it we take the elevator up to our floor we get out the keys to open our apartment and.... They are the wrong keys. We were given the wrong keys. They are the keys to the old elders apartment. So here we are, four sisters exhausted from a day of travel and hauling suitcases, homeless with 11 suitcases. So we spend about an our calling everyone we can think of, and weighing our options and we discover that really we have only 3 options. The couple missionaries over our area with extra keys can't make it until the next day, so our options are: Sleep on the floor in the hallway, definite nope. Drag all of our suitcases over to the empty elders house and sleep there, also a definite nope, or leave all of our earthly belongings in said hallway, take only what it necessary and go sleep in the empty elders apartment. We choose that option. We organise our bags neatly by our door, leave a note for our neighbors, grab the essentials, and walk 30min to the elders house. Where we then discover that apparently the key doesnt work there either, the neigbor almost calls the police too because he thinks we are trying to break in! Finally we are thinking we just have to go sleep on the floor at the church, when we decide to call the elders who lived here before. We learn that the key is one of those retractable keys and we just had to press a little button and it would elongate. So finally we are in. The next day the missionary couple came with our keys and we finally got into our house. It was pretty funny. Well, terrible actually in the moment, none of us were very happy, but looking back it was pretty funny.

This has been another long email, so I'll just leave you all to have a great Monday. 

I know the church is true! I know the priesthood is on the earth today! I know we have a living prophet, and most of all, I know that Jesus is my savior and I love him!! ❤️

Sister Hardy

-My new colega!

-Barreiro buddies

-beautiful leiria

-the sisters we room with

-the best heart attack that has ever been done, I felt so loved!!! ♥️♥️♥️