Thanksgiving in Portugal

My dearest family,

Life is getting dimmer and colder as Lisbon starts into winter, but we are excited for the wonderful baptisms we had this weekend. Ruben and Luana were baptized on Saturday and confirmed yesterday. It was a really special baptism. Their mother, Luci, came to the baptism and even made it to church. It was very cool. They are on fire with the gospel and we are excited to work more with them.
Beyond that, it is just back to the grindstone to find the elect here in Portugal. I am grateful to be here with Irmã De Almeida. We had interviews with President Torgan this past week, which were great. We received more training and more "umph" to keep going strong. The spirit was very strong and we felt blessed to be there with all of the other missionaries in our zone.
We did end up having Thanksgiving dinner...with Elder and Sister Gale. They had 8 missionaries over and two members. They made chicken (you can't buy turkey here--only sliced or a leg or something like that), mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, sweet potatoes, jell-o, cake and ice cream. It was AMAZING! Probably the best meal I have had in Portugal and probably ever will have. My companion has never had a Thanksgiving meal, so it was her first time. She loved it. She especially loved the stuffing and wants to make it for us. So cute. We all went around the table and said something that we were thankful for. It was just like being at home. Irmã De Almeida was not used to the tradition and didn't understand at first. After I explained to her, she just said, "You guys do this every year? Oh, how beautiful!" She wants to institute her own Thanksgiving in her future family. It was a lot of fun to be around the big table with lots of missionaries and it felt like I was at home.
Anyway, that's all for this week. Keep me posted on all of the fun happenings of the Christmas season.

Love,

Irmã Pérez

p.s.--Thanks mom for the amazing email--it was exactly what I needed :)
p.p.s.--Just as a warning for everyone--transfers are before Christmas (December 22 I think), so I don't know if I will be transferred before the phone call, so just to forewarn everyone I don't quite know how that one is going to work out.