Hey Mãe! 

So this was an interesting week. It was definitely a week of giggles and craziness, miracles and fallen appointments. 

I'll start with the funny stuff first:

1. "Irmazinha has a strong pimp hand"- Abraão

Yes, straight from the mouth of Abraão. Just what I needed to hear. I think my jaw dropped. Sister Sandholtz and I laughed forever after that. I don't remember exactly why he said it, but for some reason I pretended to slap the air and that's what it was to him. His description of pimp hand is that it means to slap the girl when she decides to like someone else and then drop her and get another. We almost died.
2. "I'm using wine just like Jesus would do" -investigator from Italy
Yup, I bet I'll never hear that again in my mission. We were teaching this guy, just for one lesson, but it was the craziest thing ever. He is definitely a free spirit. He wouldn't let us say "God" because he said that it was disrespectful to give "it" a name and would flinch whenever we did. Then he kept saying that if we ever really wanted to get to know God, we have his phone number. He also said that the Book of Mormon was evil. Then, Sister Sandholtz felt prompted to tell him that he should stop drinking whine, and he was like I think that drinking is one of the most sacred things we can do, I'm using wine just like Jesus would do." Then we let him pray in his own way, just so that we could get out of there. Talk about five minutes of us just sitting there with our eyes closed doing nothing until Abraão, who obviously didn't realize we were meditating, said Senhor, you can pray outloud. That was the end for us. We got out of there so fast and it was hilarious.
3. "The transmission was good."-Random lady named Sara we met in from of a bar... where we saw one of our members... awkward...
We stopped in front of a café because one of our members was outside of it and I asked him if he was going to come to the sunday night film and then invited him to come and help us teach and then this people came out of the bar and were standing there looking at us and so I starting getting nervous so I talked to them too and told them what was going on (last thing I wanted was to have a bunch of drunkards gang up on me...) and then one of them spoke english and so we talked to her and invited her to the film and gave a little of our message. Then when we were walking away she was like "The transmission was good, I really felt something there. " I'm glad we have good transmission when it comes to the spirit. 
4. We called a lady 38 times.
We had a lesson scheduled with a lady who lived really far away and so we called her first, only to learn she wasn't there and so we decided not to go, especially since the casal missionary was coming and we and the elders needed to prepare their apartment. Well, when we got done with that we got home and checked the phone and we'd called her 38 times! Poor thing. She even sent us a text and she was like, "we don't want to meet with you today, tomorrow, next week, or EVER." Oops. 
5. "Do you have a compromisso with Maria?" -José
I love José. If I never baptized anyone else in the whole mission, I'm glad it was him that was baptized. He is absolutely amazing. He's headed to Canada this coming week, which I'm really sad about. He has such a strong testimony and he helps us so much all of the time. He is also a really big jokester. Background: so there are these cookies, more like crackers, that are really big here in Portugal, not because they're good, but just because they're cheap and made here, they're called Bolachas Marias. They're also really fattening. We were with José and he asked us if we had a compromisso with Maria, and S. Sandholtz and I were both like, we're not teaching anyone named Maria, and then he said, you know, the one that comes in the packaging and makes you fat? I think it took us like a minute to get it. Awe, I'm gonna miss him so much, but he'll do great in Canada. Did I tell you that he lives across from the temple in Canada? Well he does, and so he is getting his temple recommend today and then going to the temple the day after he gets home! Wow, I wish I could just explain how amazing he truly is! You would love him:). could you tell Sister Davis (um, I mean Kelsey) that José like loves her, he said this week that she made a huge change in his life and he'll always remember her (I'm sure he'll remember me too, but he calls me Sister Walker, so you know, that's a little different;)). It was cool to hear from him.
6. Elder Brooksby predicted it.
Elder Brooksby is my twin in the mission. He says so. I'm not so sure haha. He says he will feel lost when I'm transfered. I think he was just trying to make me feel good haha. But today we went with the elders for a district activity. It was really fun. We went and climbed some big rock right off the coast that we could only climb in the morning while the tide was out, and then we had lunch. Sister Sandholtz and Elder Wilson when out and climbed this big rock and Elder Brooksby and I stayed behind. He called that one, I guess he told Elder Wilson he knew how this was gonna go, that he and I would not go and the other two would. He and I had a good gospel discussion though as we waited. He says E. Wilson and S. Sandholtz are like the sons of Mosiah, it's like their parents were told that they can climb rocks and they'll be fine and ours were told to not even think about it. E. was like " What have we got to lose if we go? Um Everything.". He makes funny expressions, it's not that funny written down, but you have to know him. So he and I awkwardly stayed back while E. Wilson and S. Sandholtz risked their lives. I heard it was beautiful though.

That's it for the funny this week, I don't doubt that there were more. Probably lots more. It was a great week for it.

Milagres:
1. The casal finally made it! 
They're great. Casal Phippen. They're very sweet and very old. This is their 4th mission. The first was in Brazil. They were the first couple missionary there in 8 years and the president had no idea what to do with them and so they were given an area and they proselyted door to door just like any regular missionaries! Then they served in the Marshall Islands, and then they were institute directors in N. Carolina. Their accents are a hoot. Cute little Sister Phippen bore her testimony in church and it was just so cute. It was like half Brazilian half American. When I first went for the mission, I hated the Portuguese accent and loved the Brazilian, I've done a one-eighty. But she was like "Eu... sou... grato... por... você..." as she was speaking to the congregation. It was cute to see the cute little mistakes:). I think Elder Phippen must have tried to coach her beforehand:).
2. Elsa
It was 9:30 pm and we were exahausted. It was time to be inside, but we felt like we just had to walk to the corner of our apartment and look around the corner. So we did, and there was a woman who was trying to put a big box in the garbage, and so we just knew we were supposed to talk to her. She is awesome. She's from Porto and I understood everything she said because she doesn't have the goofy Açoriano accent. She wanted to know everything about us and about the mission and the church and our lives before. She said we come from beautiful families. We haven't talked to her again, but we're gonna call her this week.
3. Antonio
I met Antonio with Sister Davis. He was riding past on his electric scooter and he just dropped it in the road to talk with us. He doesn't read a lick of anything. He's great though, and this week we had a compromisso with him because he chased us down the road because he wanted to talk to us so bad. We also marked him for baptism this week with the help of José. José did amazing. He answered all of the doubts that Antonio had and wow, I can't even believe it. Can I just rave about José some more?
4. Lurdes and Hermano
Our eternal investigator, Lurdes, is finally getting baptized! They're finally gonna get married! They came and told me the other day! And they said it was because of something that I said! I guess that when I told them that they should just sign the wedding papers and have the party later when they go to the temple because that's the real time to party, I really struck something. That was the gist of what I said, but I don't have time to say more!
I love you all! I have one minute left! Talk to you next week!
Love always, 
Sister Wach