A terra prometida!

 Hi!

First week in Aveiro 

Tuesday: 

- Transfers!! Oh my gosh. Nothing was more stressful than packing and traveling with all of my stuff. Somehow I've accumulated wayyy more stuff here. The extenders were open on all 3 of my suitcases, I had two backpacks, and a big tote bag full of American food and candy and there's no way I'm leaving that behind let's be real. 

- I took the train with some other missionaries to Coimbra, met up with Sister Adib there, and then took another train to Aveiro! I got off the train just  Aveiro is SO CUTE!!!! Such a cute little Portuguese town!!!

-Our apartment is literally right above a Pastelaria. Me daqui em breve 

- Sister Adib is so awesome!!! She's from Florida and is about to hit 10 months on the mission. We literally already get along so well and I know we're going to be really close by the end of the transfer. 

- WE ARE TEACHING SO MANY PEOPLE. I'm literally still in awe and am so stressed. What a great problem to have. So many green dots who are actual real green dots and even so many yellow dots guys. Almost every single friend is a reference from a member. Are we kidding?? We have an actual real calendar full of members and their availability to come to our lessons. Amazing. 

- I miss Sister Cornell 

Wednesday:

- It rained so hard all day!! And walking around this cute little town it reminded me of the pictures of dad on his mission 

- Our english class was INSANE. We had 3 members there and 4 non-members can you believe. 

- Sister Adib has this amazing ability to do any type of accent in both english and portuguese and it's so impressive and SO FUNNY. Her southern accent in Portuguese killed. 

Thursday:

- I can not get over how many people are actually showing up and sticking to the lessons we have planned. Even Sister Adib said this week has been a miracle week!! 

- The area book here tbh is a mess. You already know I'm hard at work. 

- THIS LESSON WE HAD WAS SO GOOD. Marcelo 2.0 na rua is what we call him. They found him just last Saturday. Not two days ago but a week ago. And since then he's come to church twice, our english class, our ward activity and has met with us a few times!!! In this lesson we taught about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon and the Spirit was so strong. It's been a long time since I've felt the Spirit that strong in a lesson. After we recited the first vision he said, "woah, that's powerful." My heart. We have a lesson with him tonight and I'm so excited!!!

- Called a reference from online and he said "God had you guys call me today for a reason." 

- Thursday was some holiday, and we were working at the chapel, and all afternoon we had seen people walking down to this big park. And all of a sudden for real, David Archuleta and Motab started blasting outside like so loud. I'm not kidding it was actually them singing "Angels from the Realm of Glory." So we ran outside and there was a Christmas festival going on with soooo many people and they had lit this big tree and there was a firework show!! It was so happy and magical!!! 

Friday:

- We are so busy here I swear I've never slept so hard in my life. 

- We had a lesson with this member family and their two friends and during this lesson this mom was breast feeding her not so little child and we were just  and then halfway through 3 Nephi 11, the "baby" all by himself switched sides. 

- I got up the courage to talk to this old man on the train and it turned out he was an evil old man and it was so awkward because the train was magically so quiet and everyone could here him being so rude to me and I was just 

- We had a ward activity!! A real life ward activity!! The Brazilians in the ward planned it and we watched the Brazil game it was so fun. 3 friends came and a recent convert!

Saturday:

- Saturday and Sunday were probably the closest thing I'll have to "a day off" on the mission lol. One of the couples in the mission put together this huge activity called A Night in Bethlehem and they've been working on it for months. I was planned to be in one of the musical numbers but then this week I got kicked out of lisbon but they still agreed to bring me back!! So Saturday afternoon, Sister Woolley (my mtc comp!!!!) Drove 3 hours to pick me up in Aveiro, and then we drove 2 hours to Lisbon and it was so fun. Kind of fun to sit numb in the car for 2 hours and have it be allowed hahaha. The activity was awesome, there was an hour and a half of musical numbers while people went on tours and learned about the birth of Jesus Christ. I got to hang out with Sister Cordner and Sister Cornell  Of course finally when I move out of Lisbon Sister Cordner moves in lol. 

-Oh my gosh I saw São!!! Sister Cornell said that this week they had a lesson with her and that São cried when she saw I wasn't there. And she was sooo happy to see me on Saturday it was the cutest thing in the whole world. She sang in a choir in one of the musical numbers and I was like a proud mom I could not stop smiling while watching her up there. I did in fact sneak a picture and I will include it down below. When we said bye de novo she was soooobbing.  but!! Sister Cornell said that I can probably totally get permission to come to her endowment in a year!!! It would be next November right before I go home. How lucky would that be? 

- We stayed the night in hotel Tejo with Sister Cornell!!! Saudades. 

Sunday:

- Sister Woolley and I went to the ward earlier in the morning and then hit the road back to our areas. Going to church was so weird because we didn't have to worry about our friends or be stressed about who's there and not there.

- Tbh kinda sad to go back to Lisbon for like 3 minutes just as I was getting adjusted to leaving. But also it was good because by the end I was just so ready to come back to my area and get to work!!!! 

- I wasn't able to go to our ward in Aveiro which is stinky because I couldn't meet our members and friends, but we had 9 FRIENDS AT CHURCH! Amazing!! Idek who!! 

I'm so excited for this transfer! And I'm so excited to spend Christmas here! I love this quote my mom shared with me by President Monson, "Let us make Christmas real. It isn't just tinsel and ribbon, unless we have made it so in our lives. Christmas is the Spirit of giving without a thought of getting. It is happiness because we see joy in people. It is forgetting self and finding time for others. It is discarding the meaningless and stressing the true values. It is peace because we have found peace in the Savior's teachings. It is the time we we realize most deeply that the more love is expended, the more there is of it for others." It's impossible not to miss home during this time of year, but I truly am so excited to be living in this cute Portuguese town, sharing the happiest message on the whole earth. What better way to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ than to do what He would be doing if He were here? I know this Christmas will be a Christmas I remember forever 

Send me emails!!! Or Facebook messenger!!! It'll make my week 

Sister Menden!!