Monday, April 11, 2011

Hey family!

Tudo Bem?

We are in Portugal and the computer and mouse is very interesting. The keyboard is different too, which is really fun too. I like Portugal and the Portugese people. They talk too fast for me but it's good. I can understand some people who can speak slowly. My family favorite is the Silva family in our ward. They are friendly and they like the missionaries.

Ok, so I am in an area called Viseu and have a companion named Elder Brown. He is from Idaho and is a really cool trainer. He teaches me a lot.

This is the language they taught me at the MTC, but people slur their words and makes it really hard to learn the language here. Élder Brown says that it is natural and I will learn the lanugage over time. One word at a time. His old companion was Elder Packard, Merideth Packard´s son.

So we got to Portugal a quarta-feira e nosso presidente de missão picked us up from the airport. I absolutely love Presidente Walton and his Wife. On thursday we traveled to our area and began working. We began by contacting people. We only have 1 progressing investigator named Teresa and I met her until she went out of town this week. People here just don't want anything to do with the missionaries, except the first person that I contacted. She is really interested in our message, but she is in the sister´s area. Every single one of our lessons has fallen through, but we are trying to think of creative ways to contact people. For example, we can set up a quit smoking workshop.

Things about Portugal that are fun

The bread is the best thing here by a lot. It is so good, I about died when I had some.

Everyone is paranoid about robbers

They don´t have any law enforcement of the traffic here, but everyone follows the rules. If you get in an accident you have to wait for the cops to show up, which can take hours of waiting, so no one gets in an accident

People walk in front of the cars in the street because they have the right of way

People like us because we speak English. They are really fun to get along with, so we speak in português and they correct us and they speak in English and we help them. they just don´t want anything to do with the church. They are cathloc, don´t know what they believe, but they are cathloc.

The food is really good here, they have all sorts of fruits. The beef is nasty, but they have good chicken and pork (and bread)

All lot of the music is in English.

We need to find people to teach

there are 6 people in my district, 4 elders and 2 sisters.
What else do you want to know? My P day is monday

please send me jessica's email address, I am now allowed to Email her

most members call me elder esperança and they think i have an itallian accent not an american accent, which is strange

they don't believe in air conditioning

they love soccer

no drinking fountains

first rule: DON'T DRINK THE WATER!!

my english is getting messed up but elders say that is good, and then in the future we will figure get the two languages really straightened out, and this keyboard is different

euros are mostly coins, which is strange, everyone carries coins, and it weighs down your pockets

They answer the phone by saying estou, which means I am

right now my favorite people are people from cape verde, angola, and mozambique because it is easier to understand them. the people from Portugal and brasil are crazy. (Dad, the only ti that I use that is the brasileiro way of saying it (chi) is curitiba all the others are ti (the way they are written))

Email is the best way to reach me, and my mission president said that the blog has our pictures on it, if not now, they will have it soon.

tax on some food is 23% , but i haven't run into that yet.
any language suggestions? I just have a hard time understanding them.

Love,
Elder Hope