Monday the miracle was that we were able to do email. It took about three hours and we had to wait in a couple of lines and we had to pay to use internet, but we got to do a little bit of email.
Tuesday we didn't have district meeting because we had meetings later in the week, but we worked super duper hard. Our funny phrase of the week was "Okay, are we going to make time to sleep or time to eat? We can't do both of them." You know you're a missionary when... :)
Wednesday we had to leave in the afternoon to take a bus to Coimbra so we spent the whole day working as hard as we could so that we could get as much done as possible. We used literally all of our time. :) We ended up running to the bus stop and it was pulling out as we ran in. We had bought our bilhetes earlier in the day and the Sister Larson ran alongside the bus until the driver stopped and let us on. He wasn't too thrilled, but Heavenly Father wanted us on that bus so He stopped the bus for us and we got on. If we hadn't gotten on that bus we would not have made it to Coimbra and Sister Larson had to be in Porto for Mission Council the next morning at 9h00. It was a huge blessing. We made it to Coimbra, then with the other Sister Training Leader and the Zone Leaders we walked to the train station in Coimbra and took a comboio up to Porto. I got super sick on the comboio... worse than on an airplane, but the blessing was that nothing happened. It just felt really badly. Then, because I served in the Porto area for 5 months I was able to help everybody navigate the metro and we made it up to the mission home in Porto by 22h00.
We spent the night in the mission home... probably the nicest place I have ever been in... and then in the morning Sister Larson went to the mission council and I spent the day working in Amial with Sister Waddel and SISTER PARKINSON!!! It was one of the funniest days I have ever had. It was so much fun to work with Sister Parkinson de novo e durante a tarde trabalhamos com um recém converso que eu já conheci quando estive em Gaia. O nome dele é Pedro e ele foi batizado alguns meses atrás e ajuda os missionários quase todos os dias.
Sorry... I get going and sometimes the Português comes out. Google translate can help you because I'm on a time crunch. :)
After the mission council I had an interview with Presidente Amorim and then we took a train back to Coimbra. We spent the night with the Sisters in Coimbra and then the next day we went to a zone meeting (I realized that I am now one of the old people in the mission. Most people have been in the mission a lot less time than I have... I feel old). After the zone meeting while we waited for our bus we stopped and visited Raquel's mom and then we took the bus back to Leiria at 17h00.
We had two full days out of our area but we worked super hard and we made tons of plans so that the work wouldn't be interrupted and Heavenly Father blessed us a ton! On Sunday morning we didn't have anyone coming to church with us. Some guy started following us and at first we were weirded out by him. Then after we both were thinking that we should have invited him to church. Before church started we decided to go out contacting to try and bring someone to church with us and the first person we talked to ended up being the guy that followed us. Turns out he followed us because he just wanted to know where the chapel was because he knew we were from a church and he wanted to come to church with us (face palm... Heavenly Father sure is merciful with His missionaries). That man lives in the Elderes' area and they are teaching him now. We also have a mom from Brasil that moved into our area and her daughter is 11 and was never baptized. The little girl told us that she wanted to be baptized and she asked us if we would help her be baptized. Obviously we said yes. :) Then, one of the young women in our ward decided to just invite two of her friends to church with her. They came and we talked to them and now we are going to meet with them on Friday to teach them about the Restoration. Two other young women in our ward did a presentation in school about the Church and they gave out copies of the Book of Mormon to all their friends and their professores. Apparently it was so good that some of their friends asked where they could find videos about the church on the internet. :)
Seriously... I don't know what we did to be receiving all these blessings... but we're super grateful for all of them. Sunday we also did this huge project called the "Listão" with the bishop's family. It's a project of Presidente Amorim where we have the members write down the names of everyone they know and make plans to help them meet the missionaries. It was super cool. The bishop's family gave us 602 names and they are still making a list for us this week. It's pretty incredible. :)
Today for p-day we went to Batalha with Raquel. Sister Larson and I were having so much fun and there were a couple spots that reminded us of the temple and we maybe cried because we were so happy. :) It was pretty good. Then we had a goodbye picnic with a recent convert Alyssa who is moving back to Cabo Verde this week. It was pretty fun and she was showing how far away the capela is from her house in Cabo Verde. All in all it's been a really good, crazy, and happy week. Generally everyday is good and crazy and happy when you're doing what you're supposed to do and not making excuses. :)
Sister Smith
P.S. Sister Larson and I have decided that we're going to send out Christmas cards if we're together next transfer.... so we want addresses. :) Lots and lots of addresses. :)
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