SOUP

So i thought i would only have a little time to write, normally we have an hour but we only used 30 minutes but now we have 30 more!! YAY!!
So that last email was a tiny bit about the culture, and next week i will hopefully send pictures...
I wrote about how everyone has soup at lunch, and i want to tell a little more about it: so they make soup here different, they boil vegetables and potatoes and onion and garlic and then they blend it with a `magic wand´ to where it is liquidy, then they boil spinich, or other green leaves, and there is portuguese soup for you! It is really good! And it is interesting because everyone has their own variation of it. We have lunch with members three times a week, and we always have soup wiht a roll, then usually some type of meat, chicken or turkey, and salad. One thing here that Portugal is famous for is bacalhau (cod fish) and they use it in all sorts of dishes, usually like some sort of casserole type dish. I´m sure you can find tons of recipes online.
Another thing about fish is there is this market right next to our apartment that we walked through the other day and it is tons of venders with a bazilion different types of fish and seafoods. It is kind of fun to walk through because i´ve never seen anything like it before!
As far as the work here, we are still teaching a lot of the same investigators, Brazia is really close to baptism, we have taught here everything and she wants to be baptized, she just has little fears she needs to oversome, and she needs permission from her mom. We asked her to pray about this saturday the 12th for baptism and she said she will have an answer tonight for us. This past friday night we had a family night in the house of Alexandra and Francisco (the ones who got married, and he got baptized recently) and Brazia was there and also Rita (Victoria´s friend) and Lucinda (Rita´s mom). We did a plan with the family of Alexandra and planned this family night , where they would bring friends who arent members. It was so great!! We did an activity where they each had to build their own city with index cards... they then had to write things on the cards that strengthen their testimonies (activity taken from Alma 50 where Moroni fortified the cities against the lamanites) it was really great!! They all enjoyed it and we set up another family night at Lucinda and Ritas house for Monday night! Then there was a baptism Saturday night (the other Irmãs found Ney knocking doors and he was golden!!) and Lucinda and Rita came! Brazia was going to come but something came up. Rita said to me and to Irmã Greco that she wants to get baptized!! So, we will start teaching her and her mom tonight! It is really neat to see how the Lord works!
Roberto, the man who was baptized 2 weeks ago, actually is in the boundaries of the elders ward... it´s complicated but he told us he had a house in Almada, but he actually lives in another area, anyway, so he will be going to the other ward starting next week. But he bore his testimony in church and that was way cool!
Our ward is getting better. Irmãs Graf and Greco said that when they arrived the transfer before we came, there were about 15 people in church but this past week there were 70!!! YAY!! Our ward technically has over 400 people but most of them are inactive so we have been trying to find menos activos.
A note about the language... i feel comfortable talking to people although i dont understand everything they say, and i have started talkin gon the phone which is harder, but it is getting better. My english in writing is getting all messed up.. :) i love being a missionary and doing this work fo rthe Lord!
Remember who you are!
love, Irma Michael