09 de Abril

Hi Family!

I don´t have lots of pictures, but here are a few. Also, pictures from Gel´s baptism, in Braga, it´s a few weeks old but I thought I´d send them anyway. I will try to take some others. It is hard because we can´t really take pictures during the week, and there isn´t anything particularly interesting to take pictures of on the way to the chapel (where we write emails) on P-day. I didn´t think to take pictures of my apartment, if you really want I can send some next week, but it´s just normal-looking. (and we do have a washing machine, thank goodness. We did in Braga, too. Although I heard in Porto, they don´t, they pay members to do their laundry) Like any place, there are neighborhoods where the people are poor and neighborhoods where the people aren´t poor. And some of the people in the ´poorer´ areas are poorer than others. It is just kind of odd because there are some places that are really poor, but then if you walk forty-five minutes or so, you can get to the mall or whatever. Thank you for offering to send Fruit Roll Ups, but I think it would be easier if I just went to the grocery store and bought fruit snacks or something, if we wanted to give them to some of the kids.

I hope you all had a good Easter! Thank you for the Easter candy, I am really enjoying it! It rained like crazy here yesterday. It rains pretty much every day, but yesterday it was pouring all day, with loads of wind. But it was actually a good thing, because nobody wants to talk to us when it´s raining, and nobody wanted to talk to us because it was Easter, so it was good that it happened on the same day. And actually, we found a few people to talk to. We had dinner with a less-active family, they are super awesome and super nice to us. Their cat had just had kittens, so it was fun to see tiny baby one-day-old kittens. They aren´t really cute yet, but maybe in a few weeks. Ha.

So we were talking to this twelve-year-old boy the other day, a somewhat-recent convert, and he was trying to explain to me that he had gone rappeling (I don´t know how to spell it, but you know, with the harness and you kind of slide down the wall), but I couldn´t understand what he was talking about. I told him I could look it up later, but he was so excited about it, and he wanted me to understand, and we couldn´t find the word in the little dictionary I have. So this poor kid, he had hurt his foot somehow, (maybe rappeling, I don´t know) he hops off to go find someone who speaks English so he can explain. (he´s at a boarding-school type place because he was ditching school, so he went to go find the residence person in charge of him) And I felt so bad, because I could hear him hopping around all over the place, and then he finally comes back. And it turns out that it´s the same word in English and in Portuguese. And then I felt even worse. But he thought it was hilarious. So I guess it is okay.

I am trying to think of other stories... ha, I don´t really have tons. Life is exciting. The people here are awesome. We have a new investigator who is amazing. We taught the first lesson, and left a copy of The Book of Mormon, with a few verses for him to read that night. And we came back the next day, and he had read the little bit and a whole lot more, he was just so excited about it. He has so much faith, it strengthens my faith to talk to him and to hear how much he loves the gospel, already, and we´ve only been teaching him for a week! I think he is divorced but he has a couple of kids who live with him, so we´re hoping to be able to teach them too. His mother lives with him also, and we´ve been teaching her along with him, she is this awesome old lady. She is super Catholic, but she likes to talk to us anyway. And I think she memorized the whole Bible, because whenever we say we´re going to read a scripture from the Bible, she recites it. She is funny. The only problem is I don´t really understand her often, and she is always directing her comments to me. So I just smile and nod, and apparently that is sufficient because she smiles and nods back and keeps talking. Ha.

Anyway, that´s all that´s happening here. Oh I think we have interviews next Monday. I don´t know when or if I will be able to email on Monday, but if I can´t on Monday, it will be sometime during the week. I will find out about calling on Mother´s day.

I love you all! Have a good week!

Julia