Feliz Natal!

Ola pessoas!! Eu sou em Portugal! Estou muitas animadas a ser aqui!

Feliz Natal!

Okay, so i am here in Almada in my first area! My companion is Irma Greco from Flagstaff, AZ and we live with Irma Thayer who i sbeing trained by Irma Graf from Las Vegas. When we arrived they split the area of Almada where Irma Graf and Greco were working so we have lots of reorganizing the area book and stuff to do so that we can get to work and find people to teach!

So we arrived Wednesday the 22nd, after flying through Paris and we lost our luggage, still not here but oh well :).

The weather is lot's colder than I imagined... but it is beautiful and green! The first day when we arrived we were in the airport for a few hours with complications with luggage then we finally met our misison President Torgan and his wife and the assistants and other missionaries. It was so great to finally meet them and jump right in! I dont remember much because the first day was jet jag but we stayed up the whole day so I got over it really quick. That first night we had dinner with the misison president and his wife (our district) stayed the night there -Russell it was so cool that I have been to the mission home in Germany because this was similar-ish, I was reminded of being there. Pause here- so when we arrived, we were\ still are in Europe! and although some things are different like the language :)I just immediately felt at home! I am so grateful that I have been to Europe before because many things were already familiar to me and I just feel at home. I know that Portugal is exactly where I am supposed to be! So many miracles have already occured and I know they will continue to happen every day! We met our trainers on Thursday morning and had a meeting with the president and it was so exciting!!! After that we went to work! I already don't remember everything; oh yeah I talked to a lady on the metro that first day! She is from Brazil but has lived in Portugal for some years she had contact with elders in the past. Okay on the topic of talking to people, I have this grand desire to talk to every one so the first day I talked to a few people but didnt receive info or give out cards but just talked about how i am new here and deed to practice portuguese or adked about natal.

Friday we had a lesson with Monica. She has 2 daughters who were baptized a couple weeks ago, and we talked to her about how she needs to be baptized. It was so amazing th watch the gift of tongues at work. there were 4 of us misisonaries there so we didnt all speak, mostly just one but it was so neat on my end to listen and understand a lot of what was said. That has happened a lot!

Christmas eve night, we went to an investigators house Ronaldo and Marly and ate tons of Brazilian food and i have never seen so many deserts for soe few people! seriously! it was like the meal was the side dish :) it was good food though and some was traditional that is only at Christmas time.

Christmas day morning Irma Greco opened the rest of her presents from her famiyl and I opened the package from Grandma Marilyn and the cards from family! Thank you so much!! :)we then took the barge across the river to Lisbon (hour trip total) in the morning with rain to go to the Elder and Sister Gale´s apt for breakfast. Lot's of other missionaries came too it was great kinda traditional american style breakfast. RIght after we had to leave to make it to go call our families. It was so great to talk to our families!!! It was great to hear your voices! Jacob is going to be an amazing missionary! I´m glad your farewell went well! If you have pictures of Jacob in his skirt, send it to me if you have time ;) also pictures from christmas if you can.

After that we went to a family´s house, we were just going to stop by for a minute but while we were there our dinner appointment fell through so we ate at this family´s house. They are from Cape Verde originally and it was good capoverdian food, not sure exactly what, but good :) We sang some christmas songs with the family it was so great we also read Luke 2 in portuguese of course it was so great! After we went back home, and I dont remember exactly what we did but it was great, oh we read a couple christmas stories then went to bed!

Sunday was church!! I really feel like a missionary now! Because church is at 9:30 (starting next week at 10) and we went to pick up invesigators\new members. We called tons of people but not many answered, we stopped by and picked up Simone, Flavio, but Julio didnt want to come. they just got baptixed recently (16yrs, 13, and 12) we were late to church but they hadnt started yet- ithink they are really mormon standard time here :) it was so great to go into the chapel and greet the people. I have a hard time remembering names but im getting better, kinda :) Sacrament meeting was so great! It is so awesome that you can go anywhere in the world and the chrurch is the same! that is the truth! and this is the true church!!

So i dont understand every word but i understand the main idea and more than that if that makes sense.

Next was Sunday school and 2 of our investgators were there, actually 3. there are a lot of recent converts it is so great!

In RS, its small but great and i was sitting there listening to the lesson, but then i got lost and didn´t understand and my tiredness started catching up and the lady teaching made some comment how i was falling asleep during her lesson they all laughed i woke right up :) oops! oh well, it was funny.

After church we had a meeting with the bishop about the progress of investigators and so forth, this ward needs a lot of help because there are many members but not many active so we have a lot of work to do but i am excited to get organized and get to work!

Oh and yesterday night we knocked doors at one building and talked to a couple people. not much interest but i was surprosed that the people were so nice. on that note, as you walk down the streets people are so nice and smil and say bom dia or nice greetings.

i know this is exactly whre i am supposed to be and I am grateful for this opportunity!

I know that the Lord has prepared me to be here right now. I am so grateful that i have already lived in europe before that has really helped me not be extra nervous if that makes sense. i feel like I am better able to focus on the work because i have lived in a place similar before. But here i feel at home and i know this what I am supposed to be doing.

I am grateful for the restored gospel and I knpw that the Book of Mormon contains the fulness of the gospel. I am grateful for all of you who have shared your testimonies with me to strengthen me to be here to strengthen others.

Go forth with faith and make this next year the best of you life!!

I love you all!!

-Irma Michael

PS congrats to those who finished school and are on to new things! (marriage and jobs!)

Samantha and Sumner I am thinking of you I love you lots!!

Happy New YEAR!!!!