Paige's Portugal Papers: Week of Miracles

This week was a blast! The October chill of 75 degrees left and it was back in the 85-90s! Whoop! I have seriously forgotten what cold is like. On Monday Sister Selman and I went to Belém with Sister Carr and her greenie, Sister Bleyl, and Sister Brockbrank all of which are from my MTC group. We joked around about the good old times in the MTC and when we thought we knew what we were doing. Granted, a year and a few months later I still have no idea what I'm doing but that´s okay! There's still two more months to learn! In Belém we went to this awesome restaurante called Pão Pão Queijo Queijo (bread bread cheese cheese... weird I know) And had some awesome food. Then Sister Selman and I rode the riverboat up and down the River Tejo.

We found two families this week!! One is a family from Brasil and they have a little two year old boy that is literally the cutest thing ever. He loves to steal my planner and draw in it while we´re teaching lol.

On Tuesday the Elders bought our District Pizza before a Workshop that we had with the AP´s and ZL's. (Deus vos-abençoe) Then we had a day where we had 10 appointments marked with a few of them being double booked and every single one fell through. It was sad but the next day we set out to find new people. While we were following up with old contacts and ex investigators this drunk guy comes staggering up to me and introduces himself as Charlie. Surprisd, I asked him where he was from because Charlie is not a portuguese name and he said he was from outer space and that he was stuck here on earth for 3 years. Trying not to burst out laughing, we pretended to be very concered and asked him what space was like and how he got stuck here. He said that his parents were Priests and Nuns from the Catholic church. Oh man. I love drunk people. We gave him a card and told him to pass by the church someday and we could help him figure out how to return home. hehe. #planofsalvation

The next day Sister Selman and I decided to go break in a reather untouched area called Charneca. After about an hour of contacting and visiting some old contacts and less actives, we were walking past an old abandoned lot that had this cat sitting in the middle of a dirt path just staring at us. Sister Selman looked at me with a grin and said "Do you want to go on an adventure?" I was like heck yeah! So we start following the cat. We walked and explored until we found this huuuuuge white mansion. Like you know the old English estates on Pride and Prejudice? Like that. I looked at Sister Selman and I said "I dare you to knock it." She looked and me, scoffed, and said "Is that a challenge?" She marched up to the door and knocked and an old Portuguese man opened the door. We smiled at him and started talking. I asked him about the history of this old house that apparently the Portuguese Salazar had built it as like a vacation home. Then he gave us a tour!! It was awesome! #makingfriends

Later that day we were back in our main area and we got a phone call from this guy that went something like this:

Dude: "Hey I'm here!"

Sisters: "Oh.. hi... uh... great! Who are you?"

Dude: "I'm miguel, You're the missionaries right?"

Sisters: "Yes...."

Dude. "I met your friends in Angola. They gave me this number. I'd like to meet with you to talk about your church."

*exchange of surprised and excited looks between the sisters*

Sisters: "Great when can we meet with you?"

Dude: "Well I'm getting off the airplane from Angola right now. I'll be in Costa da Caparica in an hour. Does that work for you?"

Sisters: "Sure!"

Then an hour later this guy gets off the bus with his suitcases, sits down with us on the closest bench and says, "Teach me everything you know. I want to be baptized." We were like... YES SIR. Now he's marked for baptism and eating up everything we teach him. WOW!!

The thought that I can count how many weeks I have left on two hands.... I've entered into the phase of denial. So I might not come home. The only way I'll go down is kicking and screaming.... Sorry fam. But that's life. It's not fair ;)