Old Bananas, a Matter of Priorities

I love banana bread. It smells so good, and tastes even better. It´s the best when it is warm with butter. The best recipe is aunt shirley´s (something I forgot to write down). Banana bread is so satisfying to make because you take something that is no longer desirable (black bananas) and turn it into a delicious comfort food. I always feel like I´m being so thrifty when I make banana bread, even if the cost of other supplies outweighs the price lost if the bananas went unused.

This last week we had 4 bananas that had reached their ripeness and when they passed the eatable ripeness they passed right into the banana bread-able ripeness. These four bananas were ready for banana bread last Monday, but I was too lazy to make banana bread on p-day, I figured I would wait until a night that week to ´´whip up´´ some banana bread, really quick, it wouldn´t even get in the way of anything...But this was a lesson I learned before, but forgot along the way.

There those bananas sat on the counter, each day I would look at those bananas and in my head I would think, ´´Oh I have got to make that banana bread, Maybe right before studies in the morning.....`` and then I would think ´´ NO! It will take much longer than I think, and I will be late starting my studies and I won´t get all the studying in that I need´´ So I put off making the banana bread for the moment, but during studies I would every once and while glance over at the bananas and think ´´Ya, but it has been so long since I have baked something and I love to bake, I should just cut my personal study early and ´´whip up´´ a quick batch of banana bread. But I would yet again resist the urge, remembering how important it was to study so I could be ready for the day. The days went on and the same thought process happened, until Friday morning. I was determined to use those old bananas, because it would be so thrifty and I really wanted to bake! So I woke up, said my prayers took quick a shower and went strait to the kitchen to do what I had been dying to do all week, make banana bread. And you´ll never guess what happened....I did it. It took the whole morning right up until studies, and I was only a few minutes late for studies. But the whole time during my studies I was getting up and walking over to the kitchen to check my banana bread. In the middle of studies it was done. It smelled like heaven and it looked perfect! What pride I had in my banana bread! I´m so thrifty, and still good at baking stuff, I thought to myself. Well I set the bread out to cool and went back to my studies, now interrupted 5 times.

As we ended our hour of personal scripture study, I got up to check my banana bread only to find that my light fluffy banana bread sank in the middle, and looked rather disappointing, but determined that it must still taste delicious I flipped it over on the a plate. The bottom was burnt. Black. In the end it turned out to be one of the worst batches of banana bread and one of the worst hours of personal study.

It was a matter of priorities.

Those old bananas were ready to be used on Monday, it was a blessing, I had all the time in the world to ´´whip up´´ some banana bread on my p-day, but I got lazy a took a nap instead. So then later in the week my priorities were all muddled. I chose the banana bread over doing what I knew would be better for me. In the end I wasn´t thrifty or good at baking, or good at focusing on the more important task at hand. That day I was reminded of my three options ``good, better, and best``, Old bananas didn´t make the cut at ´´best´´ that morning.

And as Bil would say at the end of a introspective story like this, ´´Sometimes I don´t know why I write you what I do, but glean what you can from this story, lizzie´´

In other news... Gino and Beatriz were baptized yesterday!!!! Two of the coolest, smartest, most humble kids I´ve ever met. Gino is 9 and Beatriz is 8, we will invite their mom to be baptized this weekend, and in two weeks they will be moving to Denmark! It was a week of miracles.

Also we have a new investigator her name is Archna. She is from India. Our first real lesson at her house, she made us Indian food. It was divine, but also the spiciest food I have ever eaten in my life. She doesn´t know very much about Jesus Christ so teaching her was really different and exciting. Because I got to strip down all of the fluff that comes with a habit of teaching and tell her exactly who He is. After the lesson with her, I realized that is how I should teach everyone. It was a tender mercy.

Side note: Does everyone know that I no longer have access to my ldsmail account? All emails that have been sent in the past 2 months I have not received in mylsdmail, so send ´em to this email please (lizzie.mccrery@gmail.com)!

Ok well that's all for now. Transfers are in a week. I think I´ll be stickin around Hogwarts for another term. Hopefully my cloak comes in the mail soon.....

Love,

Sister Liz

How did I get here? This is not my beautiful house....

Bil (and Stepper and everyone),

Great update, Bil! My favorite emails are the ones where you start ranting about the uselessness of subject lines, and then the email ends up describing the type of poop your children had this week. Truly a Bil email classic move. But I´m not being sarcastic when I say it never gets old. Really it never gets old, I love it. I love hearing about your little family. Sounds like a little bundle of joyful trials and growing moments that will echo in your memory forever Bil. You are a Dad, did you know? Do you keep a journal? Because one day you will forget about that Nerf fight, and you will want to remember.

Speaking of throwing up I forgot to tell you about a funny story. One night a couple weeks ago we had a lesson that was super important (you know one of those make it or break it, they are on the line deciding if they really should be baptized that weekend or not) and we brought a member with us. We taught a lesson about the Plan of Salvation(my personal favorite), and the spirit was so strong, we had explained up until the three degrees of glory and as the member was bearing her testimony I glanced over at Irma De Sousa, she mouthed the words ´´EU VOU VOMITAR!´´ with out making a sound. That translates to ´´I WILL THROW UP!´´. And boy did she start to look like it. So I slid my water bottle over to her ever so casually as to not disturb the strong spirit. But that girl could not hide it. She quickly asked ´´Can I use your bathroom?`` and scurried off to the other room. We all pretended like nothing happened. She came back sat back down and tried to be normal....she ended up being so not normal, she still looked so sick. We quickly finished the lesson and got out of there. REASON WHY SHE THREW UP #1: She is companions with Irmã McCrery who can eat anything, so went we had gone home for dinner and I grabbed some bread with some nutella slathered on, so did she...and then she decided she wanted another and another. She ended up eating 3 nutella sandwiches before the lesson... duh, who wouldn´t throw up? (I only ate one for the record). But I am a bad influence.

OK somehow I always get distracted in my emails and write things that are probably not very interesting or important.

But this week we had interviews with the Presidente Torgan. It was great as always. Now that all of Portugal is one mission we are seeing miracles in full force here. I don´t know if you have heard anything about the prophesies about Portugal from years past, but on various occasions church leaders have prophesied that Portugal would become the ´´lighthouse´´ of Europe, that it would be an example for the rest of Europe. Our President stood before our zone and informed us that in the month of July, 115 of Heavenly Father´s Children entered the waters of baptism. That's big. Really big. He then stated very clearly and powerfully that last month the prophesy was 100% fulfilled. The prophecy that Portugal would be the light house of Europe, was fulfilled.

It was a humbling and powerful moment. To know that in spite of our weaknesses and inadequacy that the Lord has allowed us to be instruments in his hands. It was a moment I will never forget. As I had my personal interview with Presidente Trogan we talked a bit more about the miracles happening in the mission, and he explained very humbly and gratefully that he had prayed at the beginning of the month to know how many of Heavenly Father´s children would enter the waters of baptism. He felt a goal of 100 people, and with tears welling up he looked at me and said ´´But he gave us more... he gave us more.´´ It was a seriously tender moment.

Do you realize where I am right now? Portugal.

How did I get here? And how I have I lived here for over a year? How is it almost over?

Let me tell you about a funny story from the other day, can I?

Irmã De Sousa and I were walking down a street called Rua de Brasil, it´s a busy street with old architecture mixed with the new. But there just so happened to be a house that I had seen a few days earlier and wanted to return to knock the door. As we approached the house, the door bell looked a bit old and almost like it didn´t function, but we rang it anyway and waited patiently. While waiting we looked around, and all of a sudden I saw an old man across the busy road leaning out of his vintage balcony. He was signing to us something, he was trying to explain something, but because of the traffic we couldn´t hear him. But as we kept looking, we realized he was telling us to go around back and then up some stairs. We looked at each other


Normally old people just tell us that no one lives in their neighbor´s house. But our guardian seemed to have a heart of gold.

Also the other day I saw a wild pack of stray dogs, none of them had milkshakes, neither was it a pack of family dogs, but as we rounded a corner we were surprised to see about 7 dogs of all shapes and sizes meandering down the street. It was classic. It reminded me of one time in the Azores when Irma Morrison and I were walking through a little poor neighborhood and we said hi to a group of kids playing in the street, and slowly but surely we looked back and the kids had started to follow us with curiosity, and slowly but surely, there accumulated more kids, a couple here and a couple there, until we had a serious fan club following us through the street, but as soon as we rounded the corner to get out to the main road, like and good kids they turned back toward home. Wild pack of azorian kids.

Did I tell you that I talked to Pres. Resendes (The old branch president from my branch in the Azores) on the phone the other day? It was a real treat. But the funniest part was that I couldn´t understand what the heck he was saying because of the wonky azorian accent. I couldn´t believe it´s been so long that I had a hard time understanding him! Isn´t that nuts?

Well, here is to another week, in the wonderful world of a mission. I sure do love it. The work is sweet and time is short. October is coming quicker than I expected. I miss you and love you.

~Lizzie

P.S. This one is for the blog,please.