The Language Barrier

We have been going with the local missionaries to teach CTMM, which is basically to train them how to give a Book of Mormon to their friends.  It is a great program and has been welcomed by many of our members.  On Monday, January the 11 we had an appointment with several families to have Family Home Evening (Noite Familiar) and dinner.  It is always a fun time with this group and we look forward to it every time.  However, the local missionaries were called to Lisbon so they asked us to teach in their place at another home.  I usually understand most of what is being said in appointment conversations but I totally missed this one.  This lady had previously given her friend a Book of Mormon and she was coming for a lesson.  She wasn't there when we got there and we had dinner and then everyone got up and put their coats on so I thought we were going to her house to give her the lesson and I had just misunderstood.  Boy had I!
   We drove for a long time. Dad said it wasn't that far but Portugal's tiny streets at night make it seem much farther than it is.  We arrived and parked near a large Catholic Church,no big deal as they are everywhere.  We then walked across the courtyard and behind the church where a group of women stood near another woman who was crying and acting like she was going to faint. Remember we have signs on our chest that tell who we are and we did get some looks.   Our member, Odelia, walked up to her and kissed her and greeted her and talked for a minute.  Dad and I waited.  Then Odelia led us to a door in the building.  When I walked in this small room there was a casket with four large lit candlesticks surrounding it.  We stood there while Odelia went over to the casket and lifted the handkerchief over the face of the dead woman.  I was thinking I do not want to do that. I checked and no one was in front of the door thinking I could mark a run for it (albeit slow).  We then sat down in chairs amid a few stairs and waited while Odelia spoke with the grieving woman who had come in from the outside.  We sat there nearly an hour.  Dad had no idea that I had not understood a thing before. When everyone started leaving we finally got up.  I noticed a chest across the room with paper flowers in it and a sign that said 50 centavos.  You buy these paper flowers and put them in the coffin..  After everyone else had left Odelia wrote in the book of remembrance they had in the windowsill and beckoned us to come write in the book also.  We each just signed our names and followed the woman who had lost her 80 year old mother outside.  Odelia went to say good bye and we sort of hung back then Odelia told us we needed to say goodbye to her which means again kissing  the cheeks of some woman I have never met and saying something appropriate.  So I did and after we dropped Odelia off at her apartment I told Dad what I had and had not understood and we had a good laugh. Though it didnˋt seem very funny at the time.