Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Sarah's Most Recent Account of the Mish!

Hey Y'all!
Here is another update of your favorite sister missionary, all the way from Portugal! Actually, I am in Draper... So, all the way from Portugal via Draper? Haha! The next entry is all the pictures she just sent - there are a BUNCH and they're way fun!!! Enjoy!
- Ridiculouslygoodlooking

P.S. WRITE HER!........... NOW.

September 21, 2009

"Hey Hey

Well, first of all for those of you who are worried sick about the Coimbra Irmãs the good news is that we have water again!!! It is kinda orange at the moment because of the calcium in the piping, but after a couple of hours of Irmã Ray trying to deal with bureaucracy in Portuguese, we managed to get a plumber over! It took threatening to move out of the apartment before the Dona did anything, but we are sitting at a final score of Irmãs - 1 Portugal - 0. Woo hoo!! We are pretty excited and very much more firm in the reasons that we do not drink the water after seing the inside of our plumbing.
So now that we aren´t camping inside our apartment we decided to search out opportunities in the community. SO we went to one of our areas that is a bit outside of the city and hasn´t been visited in about 4 months. However, since neither of us knew how to get back we ended up hiking through a construction site, the remains of a forest fire and the woods to finally find our way out in the hospital parking lot. We definitely got a couple of strange looks coming out of the woods in skirts and nylons (WHICH may I add we managed the whole trek without running the nylons...miracles do happen in our times!). I think next time we will try and find a bus, or at least a road.
We also managed to find a couple of people who are at least somewhat interested in what we are talking about. Actually, it is better said that they found us. Irmã Draper and I are working on the challange of knowing when we should stop and respond to the people who like to yell things at us, and this time we did. That prompted a large conversation on how God could call a new prophet because Fatima appeared to the three pastorinhos and they aren´t prophets. So, we had a bit of straightning out to do, but in the end they want to come to conference! Point team Irmãs. He is conviced about apostles though because he has the name of an apostle (João Paulo)
Laura has come back to Coimbra too, so we are once again trying our hand at teaching in English, which is surprisingly hard! She is awesome though, and we are convinced that she is here in Portugal to find the church.

It is amazing how the Lord really does have everything organized. It is amazing how he plans every little thing to work out in the way that is best for us, and we don´t even know until it happens. Nothing is ever by chance. It is really cool to be able to see the Lord working in the lives of the missionaries and the people of Portugual. It is also incredible that they can be the rudest people in the world, but I have this overwhelming feeling of love for even the buildings here, because I know there are people inside of them that need what I have. As our Gospel Principles teacher said this week "Missionaries give up their lives so that they can enter into the lives of those who they are teaching. " Pretty much sums it up.
Thank you all for your support and love!
~
Irmã Ray

September 28, 2009

Well, one more week on the Chronicles of Coimbra. THis week has pretty much been hillarious. I have learned that House arrest is used in Portugal...it is why one of the less actives isn´t coming to church. We also were talking to his mother about prayer. The conversation went something like this:
Cândida: "well, I don´t usually do prayers at night, do you know why?"
Irmãs : "no, why?"
Cândida "Because I am crazy."
Then she sat there, as if that was a perfectly normal and acceptable answer and excuse. Meanwhile we were trying very hard not to laugh at her. We did end up having a pretty good lesson, figuring out the real reasons and coming up with answers to help her family. It turned out to be very cool because her neighbor came over and we invited her to listen as well. At the end we were able to mark an appointment with her and she was really excited to get the Book of Mormon.
On other good news, our Canadian investigator is really doing well. Granted I am not any better at teaching in English, but the Spirit is, and we had a really good lesson with her this week. We have a baptism goal of the end of OCtober with her!
Well, I think that about sums everything up for our week. It is just more of teaching, finding, and loving life. I have decided that I am pretty much the luckiest person ever to be serving in Portugal...sorry for all of you who think your missions were the best...they may have been, but right now the best place is definitely here!

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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