One year older and wider too

I don't have a lot of time today, we had an awesome pday! So this email might be a bit shorter! Sorry! 

Tuesday - we had district counsil of course and then we did our studies. We had an appointment but she canceled so we decided to finish up the last session of general conference! It was so so so good! I loved President Nelson's talk! I now have a goal to memorise the full version of the first vision. I have the missionary part done, just need to do the rest! Then we spent the rest of the day finding. It was one of those days where you knock a ton of doors and they aren't there or don't want anything and you contact people and they ignore you. But we did our part! 

Wednesday - We did Divisions in Gaia! We went over there and we got off at the wrong metro stop without knowing and they "weren't there yet" so we bought some cool jewelry from one of those pop up places in tourist spots and took some pics, then they called us and asked where we were! We hopped back onto the metro and went like 4 more stops! The division was really fun! I went with Sister Nilson and we got along super great. She reminded me a lot of Lizzie. Blond, athletic, smart, and super easy going! We got along super well and we already have plans to hang out at BYU! We taught two lessons and walked a lot! That night she took me up to the roof of their apartment building and we saw a super awesome view! It was dark so it was just a bunch of lights, but there was a big black place. The ocean! You could see little speck of light in the middle that were boats! Super cool

Thursday - ONE YEAR! WOOT WOOT! That morning we all woke up and Sister Allred told be Sister Fernandes and her were gonna go running. So Sister Nilson and I stayed and exercised. Then she asked if wanted to see the same view but during the day, I said yes of course! We went up and it was beautiful. But we stayed up there for a weirdly long amount of time, I thought we were waiting for the sisters to get back so they could come see it too! Then they call us and say they are already at home. So we go down and they have set up a super cute breakfast party to celebrate my one year! So I had a chocolate croissant and coke for breakfast 😂 It was awesome. Nothing much happened the rest of the day just normal missionary stuff. One funny thing happened though! We were on a bus and it was super full! Like packed. And there was these two guys standing right in front of me facing me. One of their hands kept touching mine on the pole so I moved mine to make more space and then they start talking about me! In Portuguese! They didn't know I understood! At first they said that I must be an immigrant and that I must be married because I moved my hand. It was funny. Eventually though I started getting a little annoyed that they would talk about me right in front of me so I looked past them at Sister Allred and ask her. In Portuguese. When our stop was. You should have seen those guys! They go silent and get all awkward. It was hilarious! Luckily we got off on the next stop and we just start laughing! It was super funny. Love being a blue eyed girl in Portugal!

Friday - today we had a meeting over zoom with President and the whole mission! He told us he felt we should do a fast as an entire mission! It was cool. We would start in on Saturday. So we went and ate lunch and studied and then we went and met with two of our members! She has a car so we drove over to a neighborhood and start passing by people! It was super cool because when we work with members they can do things that missionaries simply can't do. We visited a member and she started talking about some of her financial struggles and how sometimes they hardly had enough money for food and the man we were with immediately had an idea! He had a friend who works for some kind of food bank thing and so they exchanged numbers and he is going to help her in a way we missionaries never could! Working with members brings miracles! 

Saturday - today we went and visited one of our returning members. She has a lot of challenges in her life right now including cancer but it has always impressed me how when we visit her she always is smiling, positive, and happy. This time though she seemed extremely sad. She is usually very chatty, but she hardly said a word during our whole visit! We showed a conference talk, and we promised her that if she came to church she would receive the strength she needed to continue on. We tried to cheer her up but soon we had to leave. It was heartbreaking. She didn't come to church. We do all that we can. And all we can do is love them and invite. That night there was an activity for the young adults! We got to go, but it was funny because there ended up being more missionaries there than young adults! We watched the face to face with Elder Soares! It was awesome! So cool to see Max too, what the heck? I wished they hadn't dubbed it though because we could have understood it all anyway. We speak English, Portuguese and we understand Spanish! Then they had a dance so all the missionaries had to leave. We had a ton of messages and things to send and calls to make so we spent the rest of the night getting caught up on those. 

Sunday - CHURCH! Good times. We had 9 less actives show up and it was interesting because we hadn't been working with any of them! It was two families! So now we have appointments with both of them. Of course. It was really cool. Then we did studies until the time we did another zoom with the whole mission to pray together and end our fast! We were hungry so we went home and made dinner! I have learned how to make Brazilian rice. I will repeat, I know how to make Brazilian rice. It is so good. Those who know, know. Those who don't, will when I return. And I made a type of strouganough. I don't know how to really make it and I didn't have mushrooms or chicken, so I just made it up using zucchini. It ended up being really really good. I was proud. (thus the wider part in the title.) Then we STILL had a lot of calls and messages to do so we spent the rest of the night doing that. We had some cool experiences. We messaged a member who wasn't at church (he was sick), he came from Brazil is really missing his family. He is working hard to pay for their passage, but he misses them. We sent him a video about Fathers (that one about the eternal father and earthly father) and he said that it truly touched him. It was cool. 

PICTURES:

-I live here!! 

-Escape room fun

-we did facemasks, but didn't have enough time to let them dry all the way. The aftermath

-saw this cool grafiti in a neighborhood "Bairro" means neighborhood. So it looks edgy... But it's not. Lol