Sunday, September 20, 2009

The Latest in Coimbra!

Now presenting the words of Sarah L. Ray - It has been down for a bit, but here is the most recent she has written to everyone- Enjoy!!!
- Ridiculouslygoodlooking

"September 14, 2009

Well, as things have really slowed down in Coimbra we decided to go camping. Or actually the city decided we were going to go camping as we have been without water in our apartment for almost a week now. The city water was cut for construction and when it came back on, our apartment has only managed to dribble out of the faucets. And the hot water doesn´t exactly exist. Apparently it is just us that are suffering from this marvelous challenge, but we are definitely getting better at the sponge bath thing. Actually we usually start the bathtub running and by the time we get done with personal studies one of us can use the 4 inches of water that are in the tub. Then we start again and after companion study the other one can get clean. We are just hoping the massive amounts of calls that we have been making will come to some good this week and we can be normal again. We have been having some pretty good jokes about it at least. We have decided it must be the reason no one wants to talk to us :)

Also, this week was stake conference which meant that the Viseu Irmãs were staying with us too. More to party! It was actually really good. The temple president from Madrid was here and it made me realize just how much I miss the temple. It was also pretty cool because he only spoke in Spanish, but everyone understood him just fine. It was really interesting because he couldn´t understand us. I don´t know why Português can understand Spanish but not the other way around. I have also been able to understand a good bit of Italian and French. Who knew?

As for other news, School starts tomorrow and orientation was today...as a result I have started to adjust to living in Harry Potter land. For those of you who are familiar with the movies, the costuming of robes and such was actually taken from the Coimbra University traditional uniform...cape and everything. Luckily we have a member who is at the university so maybe next week I can send a picture. We are still having quite the challenge with the local take on the church, but we are hoping to change that. Due to a lot of working with the members recently we have a couple people willing to teach with us. Now we just have to actually find someone who will let us in the door. Even though it is hard, I am loving the mission. It is amazing to see the difference that the gospel can make in peoples lives. We have really seen little miracles, and we know that they will lead to big ones. Love you all and thank you for the support!

Irmã Ray

September 7, 2009

Well, unfortunately Coimbra was attacked by a fairly vicious round of sickness which resulted in the majority of the week being spent inside of our apartment...or rather shoebox that is sometimes referred to as an apartment. However, we did manage to find one new person who is our saving hope at the moment. She is a good friend of a member who has already given her the Book of Mormon and talked to her a whole lot. So, Cinda (the investigator) is really excited about the gospel, but moving kinda slow to understand everything. SO, as we are teaching her, Sister Lisete (member) stops us and says....she is going to baptized and it is going to be so pretty!!!! Poor Cinda looked scared to death. We will get there though! Good thing since our only really progressing investigator this week dropped us. Darn. Our excitement sure took a hit this week, but that is okay, it will come back. It is amazing how even when everything is going wrong, we are able to see the miracles of the gospel. We had a family night with a member and we were able to explain a little more about the atonement to her, in a way she had never thought about it. She was so excited to apply our lesson to her life and even called us halfway though the week to tell us the difference it has made. Moments like this that make a mission worth all of the times that we get yelled at, cussed out, things thrown at us....all the craziness of a mission.

The other highlight of the week is that part of our weekly soccer activity was used to teach the Portuguese how to play what we all know and love...real football. (in honor of the BYU game...looked like it worked!) I have to say I was able to get royally even for all of them mocking my soccer skills.
Well, thank you for all of your support and love...hope that everyone is doing well. Love you all

Irmã Ray"

The Best way to write Sarah is:

1) On the internet go to dearelder.com website.
2) There is a drop down box on the right hand side down just a couple inches. Enter her mission which is Portugal Porto and then click "write a letter" just below where you select the mission.
3) On the next screen enter your return address and Sister Sarah Ray in the address line, add your email in the email box below the envelope.
4) Write your letter in the text box and then hit the "send letter" box under the text box to send it on.

This site does require US $.94 Postage. You can set up an account and it will deduct the postage each time you write.

2) The alternate way for sending anything (i.e. letters, packages, etc) through regular US mail is below. This method requires US $.94 postage for letters.

Sister Sarah Ray
Portugal Porto Mission

Rua de Amalia Luazes

No.23 Sala 1

4200-052 Porto

PORTUGAL

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