Life is crazy everywhere!

My dearest family,

Thank you for all of the awesome pictures! I loved seeing the news updates and hearing about them. Congrats to Steph Skidmore! That is awesome! I hope she finds the greatest happiness--she completely deserves it. I always thought she was such a cute girl. Oh, and I never said congrats to David and Desta. That is wonderful for them. Desta looks like a princess in the photo.

It's great to hear from you all and know you are in good health and happiness. Life here in Lisbon is great--but a little on the cold side. It was warmer last week but this weekend turned completely cold and windy. But, we are having fun coming up with ways to keep ourselves warm. We have some good laughs with our creative ideas...:)

This week was good, but kind of crazy, as always. I wonder sometimes if life is this crazy after the mission. It must be. People are always talking about how crazy their lives are. But something that I realized is that we all have the same amount of time. People always say they have no time, but in reality, we all have the same amount of time--24 hours in one day, 7 days in one week. It is all about our priorities. We have been doing a lot of contacting on the streets because since this is the most populated area in the mission, we have to take advantage of the people in the streets. Funny part is that most people pass their lives in Lisbon--they work in Lisbon, they shop in Lisbon, they stay with family in Lisbon, they do everything in Lisbon, except for live there. So, we are getting the opportunity to find a lot of awesome people that live in other areas. It is giving us some humility. But, hopefully something comes of the references that we send to missionaries in other areas.

We have been teaching a woman named Gildete from Brazil. She is a grandmother--lives with her son and his companion, and her two grandchildren. She mostly takes care of her grandchildren because their parents work a lot. She is so humble and sweet. She went to church last week and adored it--especially our lesson on baptism :) She has been working with a senior missionary couple in our mission to find a job and she adores them. (The Gales are unemployment specialists for the area of Lisbon--they are amazing! Just a shout out to all of the senior couples--WE NEED YOU! Senior couples are the BEST in the mission field. They are so helpful, loving, and their experience and work are invaluable (is that a word? I don't remember...) Needless to say I am so grateful to be able to work near lots of senior couples during my mission.) We have been teaching her. We marked her for baptism and she brought her son and two grandsons to church yesterday. They really liked it! It was awesome! So we are excited to see her progress and already sharing the gospel with her family.

Yesterday was the baptism of Fátima, a Cabo Verdiana that we have been teaching. As always, life got a little crazy before her baptism, but I am grateful for inspired leaders and missionaries who always help us. Everything worked out and she was very happy. I love helping people in this way to feel the love of God and to help them in the thing that matters most--salvation.

Hope you all have a fantastic and happy week. Stay warm!

Love, love, and love again,

Irmã Pérez