Elder Lindquist 12/3

Hello all! How is life back in the USA? I have been in Portugal for a week and one day now and it is crazy here. Everything here is the exact opposite of America. I've started to appreciate things a lot more that I took for granted back home. My first area is a place called Beja. It's a town of about 40,000 people and its right in the heart of the mission. So we're kind of out in the middle of nowhere. It was a three hour bus ride to get here and the first week has been awesome! Beja has lots of crazy people; there are lots of drunks and gypsies. But there are also so many nice people who will give you anything they have. I feel bad because they don't have much but they are willing to help the elders any way they can. It is freezing cold here, the buildings don't have heating or air conditioning because the people think that airflow like that makes you sick. So needless to say we have the space heaters on constantly. The first week wasn't too bad at all, I had some jet lag but I think it’s wearing off.

My trainer is awesome, his name is Elder Rissi and he's a native from the Porto area, which is the northern part of Portugal. He's a really nice guy that speaks perfect English. We do a lot of visiting with members and trying to get them to come to church. We have a couple of potential baptisms but we'll see. So many things happen every day I can't even think of a story to tell.

The city here is really cool, there's a big castle right by our apartment. All the roads and sidewalks are cobblestone, most of the city is really old and the buildings look really cool. We live in kind of a ghetto area but our apartment on the inside is nice. We live by a lot of gypsies. One of which is a member, Pala Cristina. She's the nicest lady! She has a son named Pedro that's about 12 and we're trying to get him to the point so he can receive the lessons but he's got a ways to go.
Most of the members are old crazy people, church is very interesting. It is the exact opposite of the way church is in America, people will just get up in sacrament meeting and go in the kitchen to eat the left over food from the activity we had on Saturday night. It is going to take some getting used to. President Gil, our Branch President asked me to get up and introduce myself and bear my testimony. There are about a hundred members in our branch but only about thirty go to church and only like four hold the priesthood. We walk everywhere here, and it stunk because it rained a lot this last week. So yeah that's pretty much how my first week went. I'll try and remember a story for next week.
Eu espero tudo bem!ama Jordão