November 8, 2010

I know this is back tracking a little bit.  But, several of you have asked me (via e-mail) if they celebrate Halloween here.  Well, they do – sort of.  It’s called “Dia dos Mortes” which translates to “Day of the Dead”.  I might be pretty clueless when it comes to Halloween.  I don’t know exactly what we are “celebrating” on Halloween.  All I know is that, as a kid, I couldn’t wait to fill up the pillowcase.  And now that I’m a mom I dread my kids filling up the pillowcase (unless they get the good stuff and they don’t notice it disappearing).  Well, for the Portuguese, it is a day that they honor their dead.  We saw lots of people at cemeteries putting flowers on their loved ones graves.  The children do go trick or treating.  In fact, they trick or treat 2 nights, October 31^st and November 1^st.  Kaylie said American kids get ripped off.  The kids dress up and knock doors.  The people hand out candy, or little cakes, or roasted chestnuts.  (Fatocha showed me how to roast chestnuts and they’ve become one of my favorite snacks).  The problem with this Halloween was the weather.  It rained pretty good both evenings – we didn’t see one trick or treater either night.  Kaylie was pretty bummed about that.  She wanted to see what the kids dress up like here.  I heard you all in Utah had a similar Halloween.  Hail storm, cold, etc.  Bummer!!

So, I’m trying to get caught up to the current day.  I know I already told you about our moving experience on Friday.  Saturday we hung around our new home (trying to get the kids comfortable with their surroundings).  Most of my day was spent vacuuming and mopping.  Because this home has sat vacant for a while it was filled with cobwebs, spiders, and dead bugs.  I guess since the owner was giving us a good deal on the house, he didn’t feel the need to have it cleaned.  Oh well, at least cleaning it made me feel like it was my home.  Devan and Tanner spent most of the day down at the lake, Kaylie hung out and organized her room.  Rick was given a “get acquainted with the property” tour by the lands keeper, along with walking through with a repair guy getting a few things added to the home – like shower head holders.  Europeans often just hold the shower head – strange.  He also brought plug in heaters, since it’s winter and not all of the rooms have heaters in them.  His wife, 2 daughters, and their dog came with him.  Very nice people.  We didn’t know they were here, though, because they walked straight down to the dock and started laying out.  I think that caught Devan by surprise because he came up a little while later and said some lady was there with her 2 girls and they were laying out in bikinis.  And we were told the dock was our own private dock.  It took us a while to put it all together, and we had a good laugh about it.  That night Rick and I and Kaylie took off and went grocery shopping.  Devan and Tanner wanted to keep crawdad hunting – by the way, we now have a small pool area filled with crawdads awaiting their death.  And this time Devan and Tanner had a good flashlight.

Sunday we headed to church.  It’s very interesting walking into a building that’s pretty much empty and knowing that it’s going to be pretty much empty the whole 3 hours.  We talked with the Elders for a few minutes and they told us their plan for us.  Tanner went with Elder Tanner for Primary (another little girl showed up about half an hour later), and the rest of us went to Gospel Principles together.  During class I couldn’t take it because the teacher was having everyone answer a question (the same question), he gets to me, I have no idea what is going on, I get all flustered – what a joke.  Then, I’m trying to read my book in English, while they are reading aloud in Portuguese and I couldn’t even focus enough to comprehend the paragraph.  Basically, my brain was confused.  So, I ended up leaving and sitting in on the Primary lesson with Tanner, which was good.  Since it was fast Sunday Elder Tanner was teaching Tanner and Isabella about testimonies.  Then he asked Tanner if he wanted him to teach him how to bare his testimony in Portuguese.  So, we got a language lesson.  Tanner ended up writing out his testimony in Portuguese – and shared it during sacrament.  WOW!!  What an awesome kid I have – very brave.  He didn’t even care if he pronounced it right or not.  I wish I was 10 again.  PS – Rick bore his testimony and introduced our family and then I grabbed him and made him translate my testimony to – it’s hard to keep track of your sentences when you have someone translating your previous sentence – FYI - This Sunday was a little more full.  There were 20 of us total.  Well, after church we visited with the Elders for quite a while and made plans for them to come over.  Elder Sagebin wanted to cook us his famous white chili dinner.  After their last appointment Rick went and picked them up and he cooked us dinner, which was extremely yummy!!  .  They hung out with us till about 11pm – oops – and then Rick took them home. Since it was their P-Day the next day, we made plans with them to go see the Castelo do Ourem.  It is a castle that Elder Tanner had been wanting to see and there was a possibility that he may get transferred Tuesday.  We met them in Ourem on Tuesday, which is today, and the first thing they tell us is that they got “whitewashed”, which means both of them are getting transferred.  What a bummer!!  They said it was very unexpected and that the mission president very rarely “whitewashes” an area where a missionary is the “branch president”.  It was funny to hear them calling all the other missionaries and talking about the transfers.  I told them they sounded like a bunch of girls.  Visiting the Castle was pretty cool.  I’ve decided, though, that exploring castles when we were younger was a lot more fun.  Now, I just worry about my kids falling to their death the whole time.  Exploring a castle usually consists of old ancient, crumbling rock with hundred foot drops that don’t have any guardrails.  And with my boys – it’s completely nerve wracking.  Kaylie is the only cautious, sensible one.  And, to top it off – it was raining and very windy when we were exploring.  So, all the rock was mossy and slippery. It is one of the coolest castles/ruins, though.   Oh, and we had to park down the hill because the road up is cobblestone and our tires couldn’t grip it. That was scary too.  Devan and one of the missionaries were trying to push it up the hill as Rick gunned it – didn’t work.  Well, the day was good – although we were wet and cold.  Went to lunch with the missionaries afterward, then took them home (30 minute drive with Tanner sitting on Devan’s lap and Kaylie sharing my seat with me – that was fun).  They move to their new areas tomorrow – I think Rick and I are going to drive them there – they both will be in different cities near Lisbon (Portugal’s Capitol).  I guess we’ll see who our new Branch President is next week.  Good times.

Love you and miss you (and my Armada)

Denise