ai ai ai

You guys, I’m really bad at taking pictures.  I’m sorry, I don’t have anything fun to send you yet.
Next week. As to the title of this email, I’m beginning to pick up a really bad habit of saying, "ai ai ai",  just like the Portuguese people. I’m going to go home and people will think I’m even more of a kook. I don’t need that stress. Sometimes I get to P. Day and then I think wait, already? Because we do pretty much the same stuff all the time just with different people so unless I have some really epic cool story to tell you guys I feel like I’m going to bore you to death.

However! Two really cool things did happen this week. First! an American family moved into our ward! FROM UTAH!. They are Nichols family, from Alpine. They are awesome. Seriously. The mom is Mozambique and she grew up in Portugal but moved to Utah 20 years ago for school, fell in love with a whitey (he’s super cool though) and stayed in Utah. They have five kids and their only daughter is hilarious and loves us. She’s 11. So we get to church last week and we see brother Nichols walk in and we knew instantly that he wasn’t from here but that he was a member. They sit the kids down, he walks right over to us and says "I’m brother Nichols, we just moved in. When can we start working?"

Holy lantah!  Thank you, Heavenly Father. I felt more excited than the people in the desert with Moses who finally got to the milk and honey. Yes, I did just botch that bible story. I’m a good missionary. So anyway, his wife is the only one who speaks Portuguese.  But, her husband got up in testimony meeting and bore the most broken but beautiful Portuguese testimony I’ve ever heard. Their family is so awesome! They had us over for lunch this week and had to come pick us up because they live waaaaaay out in Sintra by the ocean.  They're literally the only LDS family.  So we're going to be doing a lot of work with them! I didn’t realize just how different an American family is until we had lunch with them. It’s a totally different family vibe and I forgot what it felt like! I wanted to cry when we left because we had such a good time!

Another cool thing that happened this week was zone conference! They did it a little different this time though because they had it in the area of our zone leaders and not in Lisbon.  It was only our zone instead of two zones. BECAUSE... we had interviews with President!

I don’t remember if I’ve already talked about our new mission president and his wife yet but I can just tell you I freaking love them. They speak Portuguese with a Texas accent and are hilarious people but such amazing spiritual people. They are so nice I can’t even handle it. When we divided for lunch, Sister Fluckiger walked right up to me and said, without even looking at my tag, "Sister Dean, How's that back doing?"
"I’ve been worried about you".
Yeah, I’ve spoken to her once. I love her. Then she may have come up three times throughout the rest of the day while we were eating and during practices and smelled me and told the people around me that I smelled fantastic. She’s a kook. And precious as anything. The APs were like, "Okay, as soon as you pick up your requests from the office, if you’ve already been interviewed you need to leave immediately for you area."  She goes "Oh, but I have pictures of my new grandson!"

Ha ha ha.  It is a HUGE difference from the strictness of President Torgan. It’s so amazing how Presidents can be so different and their wives as well.  I still feel so much love from them no matter their style. Like when President Torgan told us he was our father on the mission and if we have a bad dream or have a problem we need to call him directly and not our leaders. My interview with President was great and he was really encouraging and so happy. I was expecting it to feel like a bishop interview or something but it was so fun and he joked around and forgot to start it with a prayer and goes, "Oh well, we can just close, you’re doing great Sister Dean." Ha ha ha I love it.

Anyway, yeah. two weeks down, four more in this transfer and then I’ve officially hit six months/one third of the mission over. CRAZY. I’m not sure how I feel about it honestly, but I’m really glad that the first third at least, has been with two companions that I’ve adored.  I also had an amazing MTC district and an amazing ward here in Mem Martins.

Love you all, the church is true!
A Jehovah’s Witness tried to outsmart me yesterday but knowing scripture references doesn’t trump personal revelation and receiving answers directly from God when you have a question!

Love you, ficam bem!