Peace, Love, and Portugal: Deus escreve direito por linhas tortas

OLÁÁÁÁÁÁÁÁÁÁÁÁÁ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GUYS. THIS WEEK WAS SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh my gosh.

Where do I start?!

Hamburgers!!!

I´m warning you all now, I sent a MILLION pictures so I hope you all like seeing me and random Portuguese things. It was such a fun week!

Alright, let´s just go by days. Monday- P-day. It was a pretty chill normal day, we
did email and shopping and such. We also got hamburgers which was like a taste of America so ya know, always fun. We also got some pictures developed and the guy there told us all about his whole life, family, kids, job, everything. Then he gaves us all sorts of discounts just because he thought we were nice. Fun times. THEN... that night we taught Brito, Eduardo´s friend and MARKED HIM TO BE BAPTIZED. He´s so cool!!!! So receptive and smart and just gets it. We´ll talk more about him later.

Our District

So then, Tuesday rolled around and we had to go to Cascais to have our district meeting. The thing is, it was Elder Lindsey´s (our district leader) last one because this week we have a mission tour with Elder Kearon (a seventy) and he goes home after this transfer! So we made this cake with a tombstone that said ´RIP Elder Lindsey,´ wore all black, brought candles, and hopped on a train to Cascais. It was quite and adventure with the chocolate melting and all but we made it! The joke behind all this is, when a missionary ends his mission, everyone says that he ´dies.´ Sooo we threw a surprise funeral! Turned out pretty hilarious if you ask me.

Elder Lindsey's Funeral

Elder Lindsey's Funeral RIP

THEN... that night we had the big 40 years of the church in Portugal celebration thing! It was really cool, there were a TON of people there. Even though Oeiras is the biggest chapel in all of Portugal there still wasn´t room for everyone so we were kneeling in the back peeking through people´s heads the whole time. It was super well done though and I got to see so many missionary pals and members. They had all sorts of cultural stuff, flags and outfits songs and dances. They went through and told the whole story of how the church got to Portugal and got started here and had some video interviews of some of the first members. It was really neat!

Ward member, Eva, in Traditional Costume

More Traditional Portuguese Costumes

Tons of people in Oeiras

My Brazilian Friend, Niza

My Brazilian friend Claudianir

Wednesday was a cool day, we did divisions with our sister training leaders Sister Call and Sister Dumas. It´s cool because Sister Call served in Sister Hirschi´s last area and Sister Dumas and I both started our missions in Caldas. That day we also taught this guy Antunes, a reference from the elders. Like the first thing he told us was that he wanted to be baptized! We told him we could make that happen. SO COOL.

Sister Trainer Leaders made us crepes!

Sister Trainer Leaders made us crepes - Yipeeeee!

Brito

Thursday...I don´t know what happened Thursday. Lots of good stuff as always I assume.

Friday...we prepped Brito for his baptism!

Saturday was one of the funniest days of my life. We went to have dinner with the Albino family and Brito. They made us burritos! Remember people, Portuguese people don´t know a thing about Mexican food other than what they have learned from past elders. They had the general idea of tortillas, meat and beans but then they just brought out all of the sauces in the world and were making them with sweet and sour sauce, barbeque sauce, and things I´d never even heard of. It was SO funny! Irmão Albino´s was the best. He had all sorts of sauces on it with chips and olives and he made it more like a quesadilla. (How do you spell that?!) You get the idea. All in all a fun night.

Albino Family made us burritos!

Irmao Albino

Irmao Albino's burrito - too funny!

My Burrito . . .

THEN.... SUNDAY!!!!!!!!!! Heavenly Father is...amazing. We were running around getting everything ready for the baptism and trying to take care of people and it was pretty hectic. When sacrament meeting rolled around, Heavenly Father just whipped out some amazing miracles and we had SIX INVESTIGATORS IN CHURCH. For Portugal, that´s like... a lot. Then, so many people stayed for the baptism after church, including 3 investigators, and the members brought a ton of food to celebrate and they were all so happy for Brito! He was so happy too he was even crying a little bit afterwards. SO MUCH HAPPINESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sister Hirschi and I were just over the moon! All in all from the week we reached the standards of excellence that our President set, something I haven´t done since like 2 transfers ago in Matosinhos. SUCH a great feeling, especially doing our pinkwash. Heavenly Father really just provided and guided everything. he takes such good care of us.

Brito's Baptism

Baptismoooooo!

As to the translation for the title, in english it means, ´God writes straight with crooked lines.´ At least that´s my best attempt at a translation. People in Portugal say it a lot and it´s so true! Sometimes it feels like Heavenly Father is taking us all over the place doing crazy things, talking to so many people and then we have days or weeks like this Sunday and this past week and everything comes together. Then we look back and we see that He was really guiding us so perfectly all along, teaching us, holding our hands, and taking us to the people who need us right when the time is right. It´s amazing! I´m learning to really trust the Lord and let Him lead me. Whenever I do that, it all turns out great.

I love you all!!! I know this was a long and crazy email but hopefully I let you see a little bit more of what my life is here on my side of the world! Enjoy the bajillion pictures :)

Abraços e beijinhos,

Sister Swasey

P.S. I forgot to tell you about my cute african friends! We went to try and visit an investigator but she wasn´t home. Her family was shelling this enormous bag of peas though so we started helping. I wanted to take all three of those little boys home with me! One kept trying to sit on my lap and it was killing me because as missionaries we´re not allowed to! Super fun though :)