- Ridiculouslygoodlooking
Sidenote: There IS a picture at the bottom... and I must say, the more selfish side of me is pretty stoked to have her home soon! Haha.... Enjoy!
"January 25, 2010
Sidenote: There IS a picture at the bottom... and I must say, the more selfish side of me is pretty stoked to have her home soon! Haha.... Enjoy!
"January 25, 2010
Well this weeks adventure has been trying to do missionary work without a cell phone. I had never realized how dependent we really are on modern technology until I came here. Okay, so I knew i was bad, but the mission has definitely made me appreciate running water and electricity (the bills the office didn´t pay so that it was cut in our apartment), central heating and air conditioning ( which doesn´t exist), and most recently the cell phone. We don´t actually know what happened, but our phone has taken to going on an every other day strike. It is kinda funny, we have used it to make better friends with our neighbors. Probably because we have to knock their doors and ask to use their phone to let President know. Luckily, we are getting a new phone tomorrow....or at least we hope.
We have actually finally been able to find a service project here in Funchal. As of this week we are officially part of the Red Cross of Portugal and we get to help do the clothes donations every week. The people there are really great, and even after just one week we have found a couple opportunities to share the gospel with people. No one seems to believe that we would give up our whole lives to come to a place we had never heard of and try and help people for 18 months. When you put it that way, I find it hard to believe too- but being here I know it is totally worth it!
We have also managed to strengthen our testimony of prayer this week. We took our ward mission leader and his daughter to an appointment this week. It went great until we got in the elevator to leave. Then Carlos decided that it would be really fun to start jumping up and down. He changed his mind about 3 seconds later when the elevator stopped some where between the 2nd and 3rd floor. Ooops. Needless to say they starting screaming and pushing buttons while Irmã Call and I did what we had decided would be most effective...we prayed. Shortly thereafter the elevator started again. We have decided that next time we teach with Carlos, we are taking the stairs...his daughter is coming with us. I think that about sums it up for the life is Madeira. We are having a blast and are very thankful that we are not freezing. Sorry to all of you who are. I will send sunshine your way. Have a great week and thanks for everything
Irmã Ray
February 2, 2010
First off I want to send a huge thank you to all of those who participated in overwhelming our post man. Okay, maybe not, but I was overwhelmed at the amount of birthday love. I don´t know if Dad announced over the pulpit that it was my birthday or that a new commandment was revealed that involved sending sister Ray birthday cards, but I am very grateful. Unfortunately I can not send individual thank yous, so here goes the list of those people who I would love to thank individually:
Brother and Sister Lee
Mark and Leah Geis
The Winters Family
Paige and Mike (who I am also excited to meet)
Paul
The PTC Relief Society Presidency
Brother and Sister Baltich
Bev Jones
Kathy Higginson
Brother and Sister Dean (the drawing was my favorite, how did you know my birthday wishes)
Grandma and Grandpa Crawley
Grandma and Grandpa Ray
Kevin and Janice
The Crosland clan
The Badham clan (won the funniest card award....)
The Gill-Peterson family
and especially you mom and dad!
THANK YOU to everyone. I felt quite celebrated during the entire week.
However, beside all of the love from home I think I received the best present ever in that Eva was baptized, and that our branch had two other baptisms on that day too! It was fantastic. Eva´s Mom also told us that she wanted to be baptized too. I just about died. People asking us to be baptized instead of the other way around.....something is too good to be true here. In fact, it actually was in that Diana still has to get married first, and she doesn´t want to do that. However, she will be baptized one day. Eva is adorable, we went over to see them the day before and she was just running around the house yelling about how she was going to be baptized tomorrow and then receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. IT was Hilarious! Of course then we get to the actual baptism and she was scared to go in the water because there were so many people there. So we ended up having to give her a cough drop to make her happy (thy think they are candy here...weird) and then we shut the doors of the font until she was there, and opened them at the last minute, after she had shut her eyes. Of course the second it was over she said "I want to do it again, I feel so good!" Super cute.
Well, that about sums up the week, we did a lot of teaching and a lot of laughing. I can hardly believe how much I have come to love this little island. It is fantastic and the people here are amazing. Love you all and have a great week!
Irmã Ray
Brother and Sister Lee
Mark and Leah Geis
The Winters Family
Paige and Mike (who I am also excited to meet)
Paul
The PTC Relief Society Presidency
Brother and Sister Baltich
Bev Jones
Kathy Higginson
Brother and Sister Dean (the drawing was my favorite, how did you know my birthday wishes)
Grandma and Grandpa Crawley
Grandma and Grandpa Ray
Kevin and Janice
The Crosland clan
The Badham clan (won the funniest card award....)
The Gill-Peterson family
and especially you mom and dad!
THANK YOU to everyone. I felt quite celebrated during the entire week.
However, beside all of the love from home I think I received the best present ever in that Eva was baptized, and that our branch had two other baptisms on that day too! It was fantastic. Eva´s Mom also told us that she wanted to be baptized too. I just about died. People asking us to be baptized instead of the other way around.....something is too good to be true here. In fact, it actually was in that Diana still has to get married first, and she doesn´t want to do that. However, she will be baptized one day. Eva is adorable, we went over to see them the day before and she was just running around the house yelling about how she was going to be baptized tomorrow and then receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. IT was Hilarious! Of course then we get to the actual baptism and she was scared to go in the water because there were so many people there. So we ended up having to give her a cough drop to make her happy (thy think they are candy here...weird) and then we shut the doors of the font until she was there, and opened them at the last minute, after she had shut her eyes. Of course the second it was over she said "I want to do it again, I feel so good!" Super cute.
Well, that about sums up the week, we did a lot of teaching and a lot of laughing. I can hardly believe how much I have come to love this little island. It is fantastic and the people here are amazing. Love you all and have a great week!
Irmã Ray
February 8, 2010
Hey hey....
Well, Irmã Call´s time on the island here is up, and I am getting a new companion on Thursday.It will definitely be interesting and very different experience. My new companions name is irmã Ebeling and I think she is from Virginia. Not entirely sure....I will have to tell more next week. However, irmã Walton told me it was my job to lighten her up, so we will see how that goes.
This week was fun because President and Sister Walton were here again. We had district conference and all of the leadership was reorganized. It will be a very good thing for the island. Plus, it was a very good thing for us! Why you might ask....well Irmã Walton spent a whole day working with us (poor thing, she got some stellar lessons...seemed like all the crazies were out in force). Well, as we were dropping her off with President she said, oh don´t worry Irmãs, we will take you out to dinner. So we went out to dinner with President, irmã Walton and the 1st counselor in the mission presidency (someone from my Braga ward, so I know him pretty well). It was a lot of fun, and probably the best meal I have had. They also took us on a P-day adventure to one of the gardens we are too cheep to pay for.
We also decided that we needed to end Irmã Calls time in Madeira with a bang...which called for another themed district meeting. The theme of the week.....Madeira, obviously! See pictures. We even made the Elders so jealous that in the end they dressed up with us too! Andrew, these are you Portagaly dresses......
other than that, this week really hasn´t been to exciting. We have been teaching, finding, packing, teaching, laughing, finding, laughing, teaching....yeah, that about sums it up. Love you all!
Irmã Ray"
The Best way to write Sarah is:
The Best way to write Sarah is:
A) Since Sarah is on the Island, the best way to send anything (i.e. letters, packages, etc) through regular US mail is below. This method requires US $.98 postage for letters. (Better check this out, it should be the same as before)
Sister Sarah Ray
Rua de Ponte Nova
nº 12 5P
9000 Funchal
Madeira
Portugal
B) The alternate way is of course Dearelder that may eventually get to her.
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 $.98 Postage. You can set up an account and it will deduct the postage each time you write.
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