Mar 22-25

Claudia and I took Emily and Amanda to see Cascais.  It is only a 45 min train ride.  The weather was beautiful!  In the shade it was a little chilly but mostly warm and sunny.  We had lunch at an Italian restaurant and then Claudia  and I  came home. The girls continued to explore for the afternoon.
On Memorial day Amanda and I went in the ministry  with Kate and Becca.  They are visiting from England.  I met 2 Nepali in the territory.  One was a young woman working in a shop. Her name is Luki. I was àble to show the video on the memorial and I am anxious to return.
At Memorial we had 154 total attendance....121 English-speaking, 26 Nepali with 7 Skype in from farms in the south. We had, I think 37 nationalities in attendance.  Truly a worldwide brotherhood.
We went to our 1st Nepali class here at Cassio's house.  There were about  15 there.  It was a bit chaotic but I learned something new about verbs, but afterwards Sonja (who is very good) tells me "yes, but, we never use them!". So maybe I will forget those. I am to make flash cards for our next class about "jobs"....can you think of 20 jobs a Nepali  might work at?
Last night we had dinner at a Nepali restaurant that I love.  Momo chicken! Amanda made some delicious soup this week, too!
All in all another beautiful day in Portugal.

Mar

Hi

March 22-25

Claudia and I took Emily and Amanda to see Cascais.  It is only a 45 min train ride.  The weather was beautiful!  In the shade it was a little chilly but mostly warm and sunny.  We had lunch at an Italian restaurant and then Claudia  and I  came home. The girls continued to explore for the afternoon.
On Memorial day Amanda and I went in the ministry  with Kate and Becca.  They are visiting from England.  I met 2 Nepali in the territory.  One was a young woman working in a shop. Her name is Luki. I was àble to show the video on the memorial and I am anxious to return.
At Memorial we had 154 total attendance....121 English-speaking, 26 Nepali with 7 Skype in from farms in the south. We had, I think 37 nationalities in attendance.  Truly a worldwide brotherhood.
We went to our 1st Nepali class here at Cassio's house.  There were about  15 there.  It was a bit chaotic but I learned something new about verbs, but afterwards Sonja (who is very good) tells me "yes, but, we never use them!". So maybe I will forget those. I am to make flash cards for our next class about "jobs"....can you think of 20 jobs a Nepali  might work at?
Last night we had dinner at a Nepali restaurant that I love.  Momo chicken! Amanda made some delicious soup this week, too!
All in all another beautiful day in Portugal.

Nepali Meeting

So today I went in the ministry with Claudia and Daniel.  When we spoke to Bengali, Claudia offered the invite...Nepali, I spoke....English, Daniel had it coverèd!  I spoke to a really nice Nepali couple in the metro and invited them to memorial but I got no contact info on them.  Her sister is a JW in Tele Viv.  I hope they come so I can make contact.
Last night Amanda and I fixed dinner for Claudia, Emily, Manu and we added Cassio in because he had invited us for tea at 3 o'clock.  He said never in his life had someone invited him to dinner at 5!  We had a nice visit with all.  I made pasta and Amanda did salad and bread.  We picked up a chicken at the local barbecue place.
Tonight we have the mtg ànd have been assigned an answer for the Nepali bible study.
I hope I do not shame my teacher Tony!  I will let you know .
Àmanda is working with Sonja this afternoon in the Nepali field and I think they will work until mtg.  It is really raining so I hope they don't get too wet!
For some reason I can not add pictures so I will have to get that figured out...so I will share those on instagram.
All in all another beautiful day in Portugal!

Weary Travelers

So, we left Portland about 4 on Monday and arrived Lisbon about 4 on Tuesday!  Leaving Portland we were on this little prop plane with propellers whirling!  It was a bumpy ride with alot of turbulance, but we made it!  The flight fom Vancouver to London was 9 hrs. so I was stir crazy by the time we landed!  I tried doing some stretches on the plane but not much room foe that! Amanda managed to sleep pretty well on the plane and I didn't sleep at all. That was bad for me at the time, but Tuesday night I slept very well and Amanda has her sleep schedule kind of confused.  Hopefully tonight she will be back in sync.   Everything went well until we arrived in Lisbon and discovered one of Amanda's suitcases did not.  No problem, they would deliver it the next day....the downstairs bell rang so I unlocked the front door and went to the hallway to direct him up.  We did not think and both ended up in the hallway and as the door slammed we panicked. ..no key, no contact info with us on that side of the door!  We were thankful that the landlord had mentioned that his mother had a medical clinic in the building.  So, we found that and thankfully they had a key!  Not even 24 hours in Portugal!
Today, Claudia and her visitor, Emily, and Amanda and I went to Alfalma.  We walked for about 4 miles, wandering  the little narrow streets...much of it uphill of course!  We had lunch on the street..salmon steaks. Delicious!  We should sleep well tonight.  I will add some pictures so you can see our wanderings..
Tomorrow we plan on our 1st day of service so will tell about that later...all in all another beautiful day in Portugal.

Sept 14-Oct 4

We are starting to mourn our leaving at the end of this week!  Everything I do I think "this is the last time I will do..." the brothers are so special and have embraced us as mothers and grandmothers.  Many are working with the English far away from home.  I was with a brother last week and after our afternoon together he said "I am going to call my grandmother tonight and visit my parents next weekend". I think we have helped to fill a void for the younger ones which is most of the congregation.
We had dinner last week with 2 couples.  One night we went to Gabriel and Beatriz 's home. She roasted chorizo sausage at the table with a tiny barbeque dish. Delicious! Claudia and I had to buy one to bring home.  How am I going to pack this stuff?!  She also made a traditional Portuguese dish,  bacalhau, a dried salted cod mixed with corn bread and onions, ect.  Kind of like a fish stuffing baked in the oven.  We had such a good time.
We also went upstairs to our neighbors,  Alvro and Connie.  He is Portuguese and she is from New Zealand.  They met when she came here to do need great work.  They have just been married about 3 months.  We had lasagna and salad with them.  She is a wonderful cook and he was a perfect host.  His sister, Carla joined us along with an American sister, Susan.  We played Tumbling Towers...otherwise known as jenga. Must be the Portuguese version.
Such sweet, caring people.
This week we went to Coimbra...about 2 hrs north by train.  Another "Claudia and Gloria get lost in Portugal" story.
The website said our hotel was just around the corner from the train station.  The problem was the train station is in the middle of an industrial area, with nothing like hotels around.  You know how I said everyone speaks english in Portugal?  Not true!  Apparently everyone speaks english in Lisbon,  not Portugal as a whole. Trying to find out where we were took some time and much pantomine.  So, there are 2 train stations in Coimbra and we arrived at the wrong one.  We deduced that if we followed the tracks eventually we would arrive at the proper station.  About 1 mile down the road we found it and sure enough the hotel was around the corner.  The hotel was very nice and right in the middle of town.  The streets were narrow and winding and often ending up in a church square.  There are so many churches in Portugal, one around every corner.  We visited the Coimbra University which is one of the oldest in the world.  The books can date back 12th century, and the library where they are stored dates back to that time also.  It is beautiful.
We took a bus to Combringa which has Roman ruins that date back to before the time of Christ. It has a part of the old roman road that was traveled on in the 1st century.  It is mind boggling to think of things this old.  I want to talk to the people who lived there and get a feel for what life was like.  The city walls were 13 meters thick, so apparently there was reason for fear.  Won't it be thrilling to hear stories from the ressurected ones.
On Sat we spent the afternoon and evening with Ben, Linda, Claudia and Daniel.  Daniel is the only child in the congregation.  The family was asked to move to the english congregation because they had no families.  He gave his 1st, #3 talk a week ago.  He did such a fine job even tho he said he was very nervous. He is 12 yrs old, I believe.
In their neighborhood they have a petting zoo that we took a walk around after we had lunch.  They are such a loving family and we have enjoyed them immensely.
Sun evening after mtg we again were asked to dinner.  We had bacalhau again, but made in a totally different way. Sergio and Sandra are a young couple who work full time and spend most evenings in the ministry.  The zeal of our brothers and sisters here is a beautiful thing to behold.  We were out way past our bedtime but what fun!
Thurs. Evening our sweet Ellie made us bacalhau,  imagime that! The best one yet! We were surprised when several from the KH showed up to share dinner with us.  It was lovely but brought many tears.
Fri at mtg was tearful also..good byes are hard, but I feel so loved!  We have many new sons and daughters.  They will be a part of my heart forever.
This past week we tried to make sure we had all our gifts and souvenirs.   Over the last six months I have bought things a little at a time. Fast forward and all these small things make a very large pile!  How am I going to get all this home?  There was no way it was going to fit in my luggage, so off I went to buy another bag.  I thought this one would work for you carry on....so Heavy!  I got rid of several things...some clothes were a little big so we donated them and I left some shoes behind, but still the cases were over the allowed weight.  What to do. I will check 2 of the bags and just have to pay the overlimit fee.  We arrive at the airport and go to check in and discover we have no return flight. Apparently because our flight initially arriving in London was late and we could not make the flight to Lisbon and they had to book us a whole new flight the other booking was cancelled.  No problem, will have a lay over in London, but thats cool.
All in all another beautiful day in Portugal.

September 4-13

The days seem to be flying by now.  There is still so much to and things we want to do, but I am reasonably sure many will be left undone.  We had planned on going to Paris next week but decided that we did not want to rush seeing Paris, so we will leave it for our next stay.  Instead we will go to Coimbra which is north of Lisbon about 1 hour by train.  We are told it is a beautiful city with ancient Roman ruins.  We are looking forward to it.
Most of our days, of course have been spent in the ministry. It has started to rain in the city but it is still hot.  It can be 80 degrees and raining. It's hard to know how to dress and we carry an umbrella with us now.  We will probably spend more time on buses and metro until we come home.
Last week I was coming home on the metro and a young man and I started a conversation.  His name is Yungba and he is from South Korea.  He is a Protestant Christian and was very interested in our work here.  When I asked if he had heard of Jehovah's Witnesses he did not think so.  Of course, it may be said differently in Korea.  I was able to give him the tract on our wesite and he said he would check it out.  He is only in Lisbon 3 days.  There is a young woman studying and attending our meetings from Iran.  She has been studying cell biology in Norway for 3 years and has recently come to Lisbon...maybe 4 months ago.  She was only going to stay a couple weeks but when she was introduced to the truth she decided to stay longer.  She shared a story about being stopped by the police in Iran because she had some of her hair showing from under her scarf and she had on red sunglasses.  What a crime!  They penalty is a large fine IF you become more modest.  She said there is no respect for woman...in the family or out.  So wonderful to find out Jehovah teaches his people to treat women with respect. We have many interested ones attending the meetings and it is so encouraging to see their progress.

I had another part in the TMS. I think this was my 3rd.  It is encouraging to see how hard the brothers work to handle assignments in the school. The sister Debra who is with me did a really fine job.

We had a congregation picnic on Saturday evening after the ministry.  It was at the top of a hill (yes, another hill) in a park quite a ways from our home.  There were alot of trees for shade so that was a good thing. A congregation picnic here is not like at home. We were to bring our own food to eat.  We asked why  doesn't everyone bring a dish like we do at home?  The answer ...most will come from the ministry and what you get is 10 bags of chips.  That's what comes from having young single people making up the majority of the congregation.  We had a good time until we were in need of a toilet and realized there were none!  We suffered for a time and then said we had to go!
Everyone was about ready to leave by then so made it home with no mishaps.
All in all another beautiful day in Portugal.  :)