We spent this week
seeking out the shady side of the street or of the buildings. It feels like summer. It has been a warm week and is supposed to be
warmer yet this week. Temperatures have
been in the 80’s and will reach the 90’s this week as they are predicting a
heat wave. We have even used the air
conditioner in our bedroom. But mostly
it is still cooling off nicely in the evenings. It has been beautiful! But it is amazing; we are starting to see
Christmas trees in some of the store windows.
Guess businesses like to get a head start on the season here too. It is still weird to see Christmas trees in
90 degree weather.
Four of the
missionaries, two Elders and two Sisters, came on Monday (P-day) to cook lunch
for us. They said that they wanted to
thank us for what we do for them. It was
not necessary, but was a nice surprise for us.
They brought the food and cooked it in our apartment. It was sure fun to see them cooking. We enjoyed it a lot. Sister Souza and Sister Oliveira cooked
stroganoff with chicken and rice. It was
great! Elder Buhler made a good drink
and Elder Soares made Cuscuz. Cuscuz was
a new experience for us. He made it with
cornmeal, sardines, butter and cheese and cooked it in a double boiler. It looked really good and tasted
“interesting”. Actually it was
good! Elder Shirley made…..you guessed
it…..milkshakes for dessert. It was such
a nice, thoughtful thing for the missionaries to do for us. We appreciated it a lot. The other two Sisters joined us a little
later. Some of us also played “Escravos
de Jo”. Some of the missionaries didn’t
know this game. You can’t leave Brazil
without knowing how to play this game.
It’s a favorite of Elder Shirley’s from his first mission to Brazil. (Sister Shirley won, by the way! It was a
playoff between Elder and Sister Shirley!
Yay!!!)
We went visiting
again this week. We focused on the Promorar and Oliveira neighborhoods. We thought the
neighborhood in Oliveira was quite nice.
We didn’t have a lot of success tracking down members. Many had moved. We also ended up making some duplicate visits
from few months ago by mistake. One lady
greeted us with something like “You guys again!
I told you I am not interested!”
Oops! Blame it on our old minds
or that a lot of time has passed! We
didn’t remember, at first, that we had visited this neighborhood months
ago. But we were quickly reminded! Oh well, second chances are good
sometimes! But we did what we were
supposed to do and got ourselves out there.
Many times people comment that they have seen us out walking in the
neighborhood. It’s good to be seen! We tell each other that we had better behave
because we are always being observed!
Artur and Jose each
greeted us warmly this week. When we
arrived, Artur was busy fixing bikes for a couple of neighborhood boys. He gave us nice, cold drinks of juice. He always has something for us. He told us that he would have to miss church
this week as Sunday is the day Brazilians vote again between the two top
candidates from the election earlier this month. He wanted to go early. There are usually long lines of people
waiting to vote. And then he had a visit
planned with his daughter. We had a nice
visit again with him. Once again, he
told us that he will be ready to be baptized by the end of the year.
Since Jose always
tells us that stress is a big problem in his life, we took an article on the
subject written by President Uchtdorf in a Liahona. It talked about how you can tell the years
that a tree had stress by the distance between the growth rings in the trunk of
a tree. It shows years when the tree had
to cut back some when there was too much stress. Of course, Elder had to draw him a picture to
help explain. As always, José had
questions about some of the scriptures he had been reading. We enjoyed our visit with him.
We have been missing
Rosi and Gelson and decided to visit again this week. Their little daughter, Francine, has been in
the hospital again this week. She is
home now and feeling better. We took
them a loaf of bread and had a good visit with them. They were busy making plans for a garage and
hope to buy a car very soon so they can get to church and work easier. Francine seems to struggle with her
health. They say that the weather is
always too cold, too rainy, or too hot for them to walk so far to church with
her. Hopefully, a car will make the
difference for them. The Elders had just
been there that same day for lunch.
President Castro had
suggested that we focus in the coming months on leader support. We decided to begin this week with President
Saulo of the Cachoeira branch. He has
been home from his mission for 5 years. He
served in Sao Paulo. He is young! But he is strong in the gospel and comes from
a strong family. His parents, Meni and
Paulinho are strong members of the Uniao branch. Saulo has such a nice, cute wife, Cassia, and
a darling little 18 month old daughter, Elena.
We took them a loaf of homemade bread.
We really enjoyed our visit with them.
Cassia has a twin sister, Sharon, who is married to Cassio. Cassio is a friend of Saulo’s from his mission. Cassio is a counselor to Saulo in the branch
presidency. Cassia and Sharon look
almost identical. It is hard to tell
them apart. Cassia had prepared cheese
bread, cake, banana batida, and other things for us. Their home was nice. Cassia had designed a really nice front door
that a carpenter had built for them. We
were just really impressed with this young family!
Elder Buhler and Elder
Soares have decided to start teaching English classes every Saturday morning
and have asked for our help. They are
doing a lot of advertising, even in the schools, hoping for a big turnout. We enjoyed teaching English classes a few
months ago and look forward to assisting them.
Classes start next Saturday, November 1.
Hoping for a great turn-out.
Some sad news though. Sister Souza continues to have problems with
her knee, even with bed rest half days.
President Castro called and asked us to make the necessary arrangements
and accompany her to Porto Alegre. She
will be evaluated by a doctor again.
Hopefully, she can continue in the mission and work in or near the
mission office in Porto Alegre. We are
sad to see her go, but know it has been difficult for her here. So we have a
trip to Porto Alegre this coming Tuesday!
Elder Hoopes and Elder
H. Silva had a baptism this past week.
It was a husband and wife. They
heard about the church when the Elders visited and later baptized
Stephanie. They live in the house behind
Stephanie and were curious when they saw the Elders visiting her. Stephanie is the little girl (9 or 10 years
old) that Dione led us to one day when we were out visiting. Stephanie’s grandma is a less-active
member. We referred Stephanie to the
Elders, who ended up baptizing her. And
now this great couple has been baptized.
And it all started with help from a member! Wonderful baptism!
We just heard that
Brazil narrowly re-elected Dilma as the President of Brazil. It was a 50.99% win, a razor-thin
victory. She campaigned on a promise to
extend more benefits to the poor. She is
most popular in northeast Brazil where there are more people on government
aid. We are glad elections are
over. It has been very noisy in the
street with all of the advertising.
There have been parades of cars with flags, honking horns and trucks
with loudspeakers blaring day and night.
Guess it makes it hard to forget
to vote! And the bus strike ended. Yay!!
They got their raise, but just 8 ½% instead of the 10% that they wanted.
It’s P-day
Monday. We keep thinking that one of
these P-days we will get out to “pay and fish”.
Some members have been telling us about this place. You keep what you catch and the restaurant
there will cook it up for you. But it
won’t happen this P-day. A few of the
missionaries have called and want to come over.
We just can’t say no to them, especially when it will be the last time
for Sister Souza! And we love these
missionaries!
We continue to have
variety in the work we do! We never know
what will happen next. We never get
bored! It’s the life of a missionary! Hope all is well with each of you! Keep on with the many good things you are
doing! Happy Halloween! (Can’t believe
it’s that time already!) Enjoy! Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with
you! We love and miss you!!
Eu te amo!
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