The night before the conference started (Sunday) a big group of the “staff” and missionaries went out to a restaurant that serves authentic “steak on a rock.” Its actually really good.
The conference began tonight (monday) and we got to meet the teens and watch a traditional Portuguese dance group perform. It as a lot of fun to watch them twirl and twirl and twirl… I get dizzy just going in one circle so I applauded harder for their awesome skills.
Afterwards, we had a great time hanging out with the teens and playing a game called train wreck. Its a silly game where you set up enough chairs for everyone in a circle then take one away. Then, the person w/o a chair stands in the middle and tells the group something about themselves. If anyone sitting down also has done what the person says, they get up and switch seats. The person left standing then says another thing about them. If the middle person wants to “mix it up,” they call out train wreck. We ended up laughing a lot and getting to know the 16 teens a bit better. We then moved “inside” to our room (which is a room inside another room) and played a name tag game. Right now we’re about to start watching a movie and hanging out.
Today, Tuesday, we are taking a safari… more like a Jeep tour of the area. It was crazy fun. Of course it was the one day that was nearly pouring rain but it made it really pretty and foggy. The tour took us from the town of Tavira to the boarder between Portugal and Spain. We learned all sorts of things about the area from the huge sea salt piles to the local trees and wildlife. At lunch time we stopped in this little town at a restaurant and had a special meal prepared for us with live music and a warm fireplace. We ate wonderful veggie soup (its close to warm gazpacho but no tomatoes) and fresh sheeps milk cheese with fresh bread. Then we had wonderful fresh garden “salad” made of cucumbers, tomatoes, onions and peppers sliced and dressed in the authentic “dressing:" vinegar and olive oil with salt. And some fresh steamed baby potatoes with sea salt on them and then this wonderful region specialty chicken. It was wonderful. We then drove back through the crazy switchback terrain and made it back around 5. 
Tonight is just planning to be a low key night and a sweet game of “signs”!
Here’s the link to our total Portugal Photo Album.
How awesome. My parents just told us you were taking this trip. What an awesome opportunity. We pray that you will be blessed while blessing others during your trip.
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