Monday, April 21
Famlee!
Então família querida,
como vocês estão?! I thought about writing the entire letter in Portuguese just
as a joke, but I figured that could be a little bit annoying. Serving with a
native speaker though, I sometimes forget that English exists...
How was Easter? Mine
was great. I did miss the good food though. I ate rice and beans for dinner,
but I did get to eat a piece of goat meat for lunch, so that was good. It was
really good, actually. Easter morning started out really difficult. I won't go
into a lot of detail, but the family of our Group Leader had some serious
difficulties that morning. Luckily with a lot of help from the Spirit
everything turned out for the better. It turned out to be an incredible
experience.
At church Ricardo
passed the sacrament for the first time. I gave him one of my white shirts and
one of my favorite ties, and he looked great, and did a great job. Next
week he will bless the sacrament. He is doing great. Éder
and Zé, our Cabo Verdeano recent-converts should get back today, so they
will receive the priesthood here shortly too.
Rosa Maria is on
fire. She will be baptized this Saturday, which means a trip to
Vila Real to the baptismal font. It is really hard for a person here to
get used to the church. The people here are born in a lot of false doctrines of
the catholic church, and they can be really hard to shake, because their religious
mind just thinks that way. However, she is doing well.
Speaking of false doctrines
of the catholic church (I don't mean to pick on them, but you may find this
interesting,) for Easter they have a lot of interesting traditions. They
do quiet parades throughout the town led by someone carrying a silver or gold
cross, a crown that is supposed to be the Holy Ghost, and some other weird
things. On Easter morning the Padre, or 'Father' walks down the streets
from door to door ringing a bell, kind of like the charity Santas on Christmas.
He goes to each door to let the people in the house kiss his cross, and then
asks for money. He must make thousands, and Portugal is in a crises. Sheesh.
This week Ricardo also
turned 18, so we set up a party for him. I knew his family wouldn't do
anything, his dad is an alcoholic and doesn't have anything to do with Ricardo,
and the only other person in his house is his grandma who has something like 90
years. So we set up a party at Maria and Zé´s house. It was an awesome night;
we had a lot of fun. Zé and Maria are the best. They made a dinner, and various
deserts. I bought him some Ferrero Rocher chocolates, which I think they have
in the states. They are really pricy here, but I knew he liked them a lot.
Anyways, the night was great. I will try to upload pics to dropbox.
Well, that is all I
have time for. I love you all, and hope you had a great Easter. Shout out to
Josh: ''Happy birthday beast! You are the best!''
Have a great week!
Elder Lee
Josh,
Josh, I had a dream
about you last night, it was cool. We were fishing together, but we were
fishing in a pond that was in our yard by the garage... it was weird...
I love you a bunch,
and miss you a ton. I can't believe how old you are getting, it is
unbelievable. I hope you have a great birthday, because you sure deserve one.
You are a great brother, and an example to me. Keep being a star man, and be
careful with those ladies! ;)
Stay cool!
Elder Lee
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