Dia de Mae!! Foi tão boa!!

Oat mill face masks

Sister Lacey and Sister Elliott

View from apartment in Vila Franca de Xira

Sister Elliott did a sneak picture while Sister Lacey was writing
in her journal

This is when Sister Lacey realized Sister Elliott was taking the
picture :-)

Steep cobblestone walkway up to apartment

Looking out the window talked about in the email
below

Study area in Vila Franca de Xira

Ola minha querida Família!!

Hey Guys!! Okay that was so awesome talking to you all! I hope it was as awesome for you guys as it was for me. Haha I was pretty emotional. I seriously love you all so much!!

This week was awesome! I have realized after talking to you all that I need to love the experience of living in Portugal! It is seriously so much fun! So in my emails from now on I want to write cool little things that I love about Portugal each week. One thing that I love about Portugal is that everyone just looks out their window. There are no screens here so people just kind of hang out the window and talk to everyone. At first it was kind of weird to me because you would be walking around looking for someone's house and then you hear someone yell, ´´Minhas estão buscar por quem?´´ (Girls who are you looking for) Haha I love it so much! Well, anyways, last night I was just hanging out our kitchen window and I saw our neighbor who happens to be in our Branch and I said, ´´oi Irma´´ (Hello Sister) She looked up and then we had a nice little conversation about you guys and how it was talking to you guys. I felt so Portuguese just talking through my window to my neighbors. Seriously love it here!

On Wednesday night we had a branch activity and it was seriously so fun. It was basically a family home evening because the members here are so new, so we are teaching them how you have family nights. Well, for our game, we played Gostas de teu vizinho? (Do you love your neighbor?). Well you guys know how I can get pretty competitive sometimes... Well, lets just say I booty bumped a member out of a chair and when I looked at who it was I almost died. Haha She is an elderly woman in our branch we are all crying we were laughing so hard! Just imagine me almost tackling this sweet little lady in our branch. Haha So funny!

So I read a talk in the last Liahona and it was seriously so good! It talked about the difference between weakness and sin and I learned a lot. I realized that I have been asking forgiveness for things that are weakness of mine and not sin. Sin is willful rebellion against God and weakness is a natural human flaw. And do you know who also had weakness? Christ. He was without sin but he experienced human pain, emotions, weakness. That is why I find it so interesting that it is through his grace that we can overcome our weaknesses. I love in The Book of Mormon in Ether 12:27 it says, ´´And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.´´ I love this scripture! Notice that it doesn't say that we have to repent of our weakness but we need to come to the Lord with humility and his grace will strengthen us.

I love this gospel so much! I am so thankful for you all! Have a great week!! Eu amo vocês tanto!

Com, amor, Sister Lacey