Ola Família!

I'm glad to hear things are going well. That's weird to think that Rye has a girlfriend! I want to see a picture!!! That's cool about Michelle, I was thinking she must be close, tell her I said congrats and that Emery is a cute name! Ashley should be having her baby soon too, right? Tell Kenz congrats also! I still didn't get my invitation, actually we haven't gotten any mail because we only get it once a transfer, we'll probably get it on the 12th of June? Send pictures! Tell Tressa that I love her! Tell her and Bergen that they'll do great! Yeah, poor Tressa, that's a long time in the MTC:P ick, but she has to learn a new alphabet and the language! Yikes! Tell Austin I said congrats also on graduating and everything else! That's crazy that all my friends are leaving!

So, I'm doing good:) We've had lots of rain, but it's not like heavy rain, it's like misty rain with lots of wind, and so we don't need umbrellas, I'm just really grateful for my raincoat! We were told that there won't be a summer at all here and that it won't get hot. Which on one hand is nice not to walk when it's hot, especially when there are so many hills, but on the other, remind me that I never want to live in Oregon or Washington or anywhere that it's cloudy all the time, it's just a tad depressing;). The stuff Sister Davis makes me eat is mostly just like sausage/rice stuff that I can't remember the name for, but it's good! We haven't gone shopping or anything like that, there isn't time, and my shoes... I hate them all:). My feet hurt! Oh well, the work must be done, achey feet or not! Plus there are lots of hills, all of me hurts:) I was gonna see if I could get some sandals, but my personal debit card doesn't work at ANY of the banks here! I haven't had any money for like 2 weeks! Chato! Could you see about changing all my money to the Bank of America? That's what the mission uses and I haven't had any problems with it. It's kind of stinky. But about my feet, Sister Davis was nice enough to give me these things that go in the heel area to protect them, so it's a little better:) We got our washer fixed today, which is nice since we've been washing our underwear by hand. I have no idea how people did that! But after we email I'm going right into the apartment to wash everything else again! Sister Davis and I both got bedding the day we got to the island, we had to run at 9 to the store and then run back! I was told to leave mine also because a sister told me there would be some in the apartment and I wouldn't need it because I needed to keep the weight down in my suitcase (she also told me I wouldn't need my tights either... never listening to her again, that's for sure!), but we're good now. The cows thankfully don't smell, and I like them haha everytime we pass them I love to point them out to poor Sister Davis like I'm a child and say "vaças!!" We have 6 elders on the island, there not too far from us, the closest ones, Elder Fuller and Elder Semedo, live in the same area as us because Ponta Delgada was split into two areas when Sister Davis and I got here. They're great. We think we have a meeting with the presidente (hopefully we'll get our mail!) on the 12th, but we'll see. Portuguese is not coming along at all. Hate the stuff haha. Okay, I love it, but it's not coming along at all. I can read it, but I can't speak it, and I can't understand anyone with a weird accent like the Cape Verdians or the Açorians:P. Super frustrating.

This week was good. Almost all of our appointments fell through for the whole week. That was kind of depressing. We had divisions for one day, and sisters flew down from the continent to divide with us. I got to be with Sister Walton, who was really nice and had about 8 months in the mission. I learned that Sister Davis is an amazing missionary! I knew that already, but now I really know it! She can get pretty much anyone to listen to us, or at least take our card. Working with Sister Walton was cool though. But they ate all my yogurt;). We haven't been up to much. We're trying to meet with all the less actives, which is really really hard as the list of less actives is about 5 times larger than the list of actives. Most of Portugal is like that. We're still working with Rui. He came to church this week, but didn't stay through the whole thing. He says he likes it more or less. I don't know how not smoking is going because he always says he's doing it less, but I'm not so sure:). Who knows though. Pedro didn't bother us much this week, though he did call two nights ago at 2:30 am! Thankfully the volume was off on the phone. We're teaching a woman named Catia and her boyfriend Marco. Sister Davis found them on her division with Sister Suzarte. We went to pick her up for church and she said she was sick, so that was kinda stinky. Then we're working still with Suzana, but we haven't seen her in a few days. Our two marcadas for this week, Lordes and Celia are not answering any of our calls or going to church, and both still are not married, so we don't know what's going on. We'll see. We had three people come to church though, which is an improvement. We had Rui, Antonio (the man he never stops talking long enough for us to teach a lesson:)), and a man named Carlos who has trouble walking, but that we met the night before. We invited him to come and he said he would, and he was halfway to the church when we went to get him, so that was cool, he was even clean shaven, though a little drunk;). He seems like a nice guy and he said he would come next week also. Oh, I had kind of cool experience this week, Sister Walton and I were looking for a woman named Margarida Andrade who is a less active, but was the primary president once upon a time, and all we had was a kind of address, and her name (and the address was wrong), and a telephone number no one would answer, so we went to her apartment, and we knocked on all the doors and got frustrated and so we decided to call the number again only to realize that we could hear the phone ring through the window! We found it, though she wasn't there, Sister Davis and I went back later and she was. She seems very nice. Oh, and we had to walk like an hour, we went to visit a member and we thought that there was another bus, but there wasn't and so we had to walk back! Thank goodness it was downhill and it was a miracle we found our way! Oh, and we've dubbed this island the "Ilha of the Deportees!" Because half the people we talk to are Portuguese men who were deported from Boston for being naughty:) Lots of fun, they're very nice, and they don't speak Portuguese! Sadly there isn't anything we have in English to teach (like LDM or pamphlets) on the whole island! But we teach them anyway.

Well I must go! Love you all!

Love always,

Sister Wach