FELIZ NATAL!!!!!

So, here in porto i live in a house with another dupla of sisters, and they both happen to be brasilian. one of them speaks english and the other doesnt. But shoot, living with brasilians is something else haha. weve lost a lot of sleep these past couple weeks from staying up talking. Ive learned how to make rice and have eaten a LOT of rice and beans and other things that i never would have put together in a meal. they taught me how to samba, and not just like so you think you can dance, but like the real samba that they go do on the weekends. we changed the lyrics to a song i can play on the guitar to make it about serving in porto, and i helped write those lyrics IN PORTUGUESE and then we recorded it. Basically, its a whole lot of good fun.

SHOUT OUT TO MY BEST FRIEND EVER AMANDA MONN WHO GOT ENGAGED TO A BRASILIAN!!!!!! so happy for you babe. 

Someone asked about the language last time... am i fluent? do i understand everything everyone says? no no no. am i pretty comfortable where i am and feel capable of doing my job and feel like i can be more fluent at some time in my future? yes. are some of my favorite people on the mission natives? yes. ill show off a little bit to you guys when we talk. 

so yesterday after church we got a call from president and sister fluckiger that said they had packages for my comp and some other people in our zone, but they were going to a branch about an hour away and didnt have time to pass porto. so, this morning, we got to go to villa real to pick up those packages. it was a little bit of a waste of pday time, but not really because villa real is this little city up in the mountains so the hour and a half bus ride there was absolutely gorgeous. made it worth it. its times like that, where im just watching the country go by, that im like, shoot, im in portugual, i speak a little bit of portuguese, and God is good. 

A scripture that helped me this week that my comp found for me. its in john 15, and it says that if ye are hated of the world, remeber that the world hated Him first. It just made me remember, Im on His side, we are fighting this together, and there has already been someone, the Savior himself, who suffered through this and was rejected. i dont have the scripture in front of me, so i cant tell you in detail my thoughts, but for anyone who is struggling for what they believe in, or on  a mission or whatever, you should read this. 

Hey!!! IT WAS SO GOOD TO TALK TO YOU GUYS THIS WEEK!!!!!!

side notes... thanks for the letters for christmas... but i got so few letters from the list of people that i made for you. could you guys get on those peoples cases and make them write me? please? thank you. love you. also mom i got the package and I LOVE IT THANK YOU SO MUCH. 

Well, this week was very uneventful. There was not a lot of work to do because of Christmas, so I dont really have any good stories or anything. I know dad wanted me to tell you guys more of what every day missionary life is like for me, but its really not that exciting. Our alarm goes off at 7 am, i roll over and pray and try not to fall asleep. when it was warmer we would do excercises but now that its freezing we just huddle by the heater and complain about how cold it is. Then we take showers and eat and get ready, and at eight thirty we are in our little study room, and im doing a prayer again. we have an hour of personal studies, where i have been reading the book of mormon in portuguese (AND FINISHED IT BEFORE THE END OF THE YEAR!!!!! forgot to tell you guys haha) and preach my gospel and whatever other topic i feel i need to study. then we go into the sisters study room sing a hymn with them, pray, recite our purpose and some other scriptures that pres has us memorize, then we go back and we do our comp study. first we share what we learned in personal study, and sometimes we do that in portuguese, and sometimes we do that in english. depends. and since we dont have a lot of people to teach or lessons to prepare for, that usually takes the majority of that time. we get into really deep religious discussions sometimes haha. And then we do a half our of language study, where i just try to expand my vocabulary, and we head out. in this area, we have to catch a bus to get to our area, so that takes about a half hour. its fun. so, thats a regular morning for you... idk if thats what you wanna hear. next week when i have more stories, ill tell you more about what we do during the day,and how it goes. 

So Christmas was good. Christmas eve we had a big dinner at a brasilians house where we ate bachalhau which is so good, and  talked about brasil all night, and i just laughed. it was awesome. That night, me and the other sisters stayed up, read luke 2 in portuguese and sang some hymns. Sister Brooks wrapped a bunch of things so we had a stuff to open the next day, but we also did secret santa with each other. christmas morning we woke up, opened our presents, got ready, and had a big lunch with the other missionaries of the other ward in porto. we visited a few members who wanted us to pass by, and then we came back to the chapel and i talked to you guys! it was a good christmas. 

I wish i could have talked to you guys longer! all of us said after it was over that we just felt, incomplete. it wasnt quite enough, but i think thats the point of those, so we dont get too trunky. i wish i had more time to tell you guys more stories and laugh more and tell you more of what i thought and felt, more specifics, but thats okay. 

Today we had a double district pday and hit up all the sites in porto. well, a lot of them haha. porto is huge. but we went to a convent and a castle thingy and a big church. look up vadoma in portugal. thats where we went. it was awesome. ill finish with pictures. love you guys so much!!!!! 

love you family!

paz, amor, casamento do templo, 

sister kelly briggs