convention center in town

 

Santa Maria Hospital

 

In front  of Campo Grande

 

Day 24:

Feeling much better after a good night's rest, Tenesha, Audry, Makenzie and I all made our way out to the universities to search for students in the English program. It's amazing how accustomed we have all become to eavesdropping; listening to conversations around us just to determine whether or not we can understand what people are saying. Most of the time the language is foreign to us,  but every now and again a word spoken in English can catch our attention. One thing we have been trying is smiling and saying, "hello, good morning", or some other greeting to see what kind of reaction we get from people. More often than not, they shoot you an awkward look and keep walking. I like when they smile back, though- even when you can clearly tell that they have no idea what you just said. Today, the university seemed pretty stagnate, but we did talk to some people. 

There was one young man in particular who had been standing at the entrance to the metro station passing out flyers to the students whom I asked if he spoke English. He replied that he only spoke a little but that he was trying to learn. After some small talk about where we were from and how we got to be in Portugal, I offered him a Truth tract. I apologized for not having the tract in his mother tongue, but he was happy to have one in English because he wanted so badly to learn the language in hopes that one day he could go to the states. It was interesting to talk to him, though. Despite his background, he was a fairly zealous and spiritually inclined person- he carries his bible in his backpack wherever he goes and was thrilled to find out that scriptures are cited and quoted in the tract.

From the universities, we headed to the hospital. There have been rumors that in the lower levels of the building exchange students study medicine, so we gave it a shot. Inside the lobby, a man had approached me and said something in Portuguese. When we had told him that we spoke English, he apologized in English and we asked if he knew where we could find the exchange program for medical schooling. He explained that he did not know, but as the conversation progressed we discovered that he was studying with Jehovah's Witnesses in Portuguese and could tell by our literature and attire that we were witnesses when we walked in the building. I appreciated that comment. It goes to show that in all our difficulty searching to identify English speaking people, people often identify us as witnesses first just by looking at us. 

The rest of the day consisted of roaming about town, ears peeled and mouths ready to simply approach someone and ask if they spoke English. Post search work was the usual cooking, cleaning, bonding at home or over a lovely jog in the park. Nothing too exciting, but it made for a wonderful day. Tomorrow I work with Crystal, a sister from North Carolina who has been here in the Lisbon English congregation for nearly a year now. I am very excited and ready for day 25!

Today's Positives:

Had a fun day searching for people

Met a nice guy who was genuinely concerned about the bible and I left him with a tract and the information for the website

It didn't rain on us

Enjoyed parts of the town we haven't yet explored in depth