58 Hours

Tudo bem!

This last week was really crazy. I served my last couple days in Florida last week, and I am glad I served with the people I did, and met the people I met. Had a couple cool miracles and lessons as well. I'm grateful I was able to serve in Florida for a bit!

Here's where the week got a little crazy. On my way to Portugal, our group had a layover in New York for a few hours. Our plane got delayed by a little bit, but we didn't think too much of it. Then it kept on getting delayed, little by little and we started to worry a bit. We eventually boarded the plane, but then we were asked to get off, because something was malfunctioning in the plane. After waiting a bit more, we were boarded on the plane again. Then something else happened to the plane and we had to get off again. At this point, it was about 3 in the morning, so the flight crew had to cancel the flight. We had to figure out how to get new tickets, and we spent a couple hours doing that. We were able to get tickets to Paris and then to LIsbon at 9:10pm later that day. Because of that, there was a lot of sitting around in the airport. The NYC mission president eventually heard of our situation, and he was able to get a hotel for us to stay at during the day before our flight. We were all able to shower, and to sleep after about 27 hours of no sleep. I dont think I have ever fallen asleep as fast as I did in that hotel. 

Afterwards, we headed back to the airport to catch our flight to Paris. It was delayed, no suprise to us, but we did eventually get on. We must have had the worst luck in the world, because the GPS system in that plane wasn't working, so we had to get off, and wait another 3 hours before getting onto a plane, which finally was functional. We were finally able to fly to Paris, which was awesome to experience. I didn't understand a single word anyone said, and a couple times people would come up and ask us questions because we looked liked we worked there. Those were some awkward interactions, haha. We had about 4 hours there to explore what was there. I got some croissants, and some macarons and they were super, super good. We also met a Brazilian member at the airport, and he talked a lot with us. Super cool guy. 

We were finally able to get to Portugal just fine, with no problems. Except for our luggage. Switching planes about 4-5 times almost guarantees lost luggage. So we filled out a lost luggage report, and met with President and Sister Barcellos! they are some of the coolest and nicest people I've met. We all got a snack together at the airport, took pictures, and then headed to a hotel that we would stay at for the night. 

The next day, we ate breakfast at the hotel. Let me just say, hotel breakfasts in Portugal are so much better than ones in America. They had all the types of bread, juice, fruit, and breakfast foods you could think of. After breakfast, we went to church in Lisbon, right next to the temple. I didn't understand half of what was going on during the meeting, but it was a cool experience. And the temple was awesome too! 

Later that afternoon, we all met at the mission home for lunch and orientation. it had a cool view of the river that runs though Lisbon, the bridge, and the little Christ statue like the one in Brazil. Lunch was super good, and we had an endless supply of Guaraná, the best drink in the world. We went through orientaion, and met our trainers afterward. I was paired up with Elder Fernandes, and he is awesome! My first area here covers Caldas da Rainha, and stretches up to Nazaré. Its a really cool little town. 

For p-day, we decided to go tour Nazaré. Probably the coolest place that I've ever been to. We went to the lighthouse that overlooks the coastline, and saw the huge waves way down below us. Apparently they were really small though, so I'll have to come back when they're huge. We got to walk around the local catholic cathedral, and a chapel that overlooks one of the cliffs.

There is a lot more I wish I could talk about, but I am running out of time, and this email is getting pretty long. I've got a lot of pictures though.

Tchau!

Elder Howard

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