Life in Odivelas

Odivelas

My dear family,

How is everybody doing? Life here is pretty good.

Before I get to the good stuff, I'll just talk about Mother's Day real quick. I don't know a land line--I asked this morning and my comp doesn't know, so sorry Poppy, but I'll give you my cell phone and if you really want, I'll try to find out the land line in the chapel so that you can call that. It would be great if you could call at about 8:00 my time (I think that is 3:00 your time. I don't know what time you guys have church, but I'll just wait for your call at 8:00. And I only have an hour, so plan well :) It's not a big deal anyways because I am coming home soon.

Well, as far as the area goes, it is good. Odivelas is a metro stop in Lisbon and it is a huge area. It is also super confusing. We spend most of our time getting lost. But it is okay; I am learning patience. My comp has only been here for 6 weeks and she hasn't even been to half of the area yet. So, it looks like we are going to be exploring together. There weren't hardly any investigators when I got here, so we found about 25 new investigators and have been having a fun time trying to find all of their houses and teach them. We marked 2 people for baptism: a young girl, 16 years old. Her mom and sister are already baptized, but she was kind of a rebel because she didn't want to keep the law of chastity with her boyfriend. The assistentes started teaching her boyfriend and we marked both of them to be baptized yesterday. We had everything planned out and at about 11:00 on Saturday night we got a text saying that they had both given up and didn't want to be baptized anymore. Chato...(annoying...) But, I am happy to know that we did literally everything in our power to try to help them this week. But, God is merciful and gave us another elect: David. I contacted him on the road and we started teaching him. He is super elect. He has a lot of faith in God and has been looking for the truth. He came to church yesterday and really liked it. So, he is marked to be baptized here soon...

But don't worry, we bought a really nice cake for the baptism and Irma Joslin and I consoled ourselves by eating the cake (double chocolate) last night. We definitely had fun :)

But other than that, our ward seems nice, although a little rowdy during sacrament meeting. I would like to think that in America it is different, but it is probably the same. We had a good ward council on Sunday and this ward loves to feed us! We get fed almost everyday! I have definitely gained weight on the mission and will keep gaining it looks like.

That is about all. I hope you all have a great week and it will be good to hear from you all on Sunday.

I love you,

Irma Perez

p.s.--I am working on the fingerprints. I have not received the [Easter] package yet, but I haven't received any mail from the office since two transfers ago. So, I should be getting it this week.