Our street closed to traffic in preparation for Carnaval |
A glimpse of Carnaval |
Another hot dog vendor on our street = more friends! |
Bleachers set up for Carnaval |
Brazilians like to party! |
Elders in our district: Campbell (Oregon), da Silva (Brazil), Latorre (Peru), Freeman (Missouri), Costa (Brazil), Gorham (California) |
Helping Artur with his new phone camera |
Lidia, Idalia and Artur |
Sisters in our district: Harrick (California), Oliveira (Brazil), Carvalho (Brazil), Saavedra (Peru) |
Stacked vaults at the cemetery |
Portion of street painted white for Carnaval main performance area |
View of the crowd at Carnaval behind the gates in the alley to our apartment |
Visit to a local cemetery |
February 16, 2015
The scripture for the
week from President Castro was from John 10:10 and speaks about the abundant
life. We certainly feel like we are
living the “abundant life”. We continue
to be blessed!
On P-day we decided to
take in a few sights that we hadn’t seen yet.
We keep hearing about a missionary that served here in his youth by the
name of Elder Dexter. Elder Dexter loved Brazil and returned to Brazil later in
his life and made Cachoeira his home. He was active in the church and many
members remember him. He died here about 4 or 5 years ago and was buried in a
cemetery in Cachoeira. So we decided to
check out some local cemeteries. We
didn’t find Dexter yet, but we had fun checking out one of the cemeteries. We
started with the cemetery that is right beside the hospital. (Handy, but a little unnerving for hospital
patients we think.) They are very
different from the cemeteries we know.
There is not a blade of grass, just cement. There are walls of stacked burial vaults. The more well-to-do have their own
sepulcher. We didn’t find Dexter, but we
had an interesting afternoon. There are
a few other cemeteries that we may check out later.
It was a very warm
week with only a little rain. Guess we
are in the “dog days” of summer. We
should be used to summer weather. We
have been thinking that we have had a lot of summer. We had a hot summer in Salt Lake City before
leaving for our mission, and came to Brazil just at the beginning of their
summer. That hot summer was followed by
a mild “winter” here in Brazil. We are
now finishing up another hot, Brazilian summer.
Then we go home to spring and an Idaho summer. We figure that will make 4 summers with one
mild Brazilian winter! We will probably
freeze in Idaho!
Claudia and her family
are still keeping us busy and we are so glad.
We met with her and some of her family early in the week and gave a
lesson on testimony and how to help testimonies grow. We included an activity from the Liahona about
the fire of testimony for Thais, the eight year old grand-daughter of
Claudia. We also had a little
video. On the same day, just before this
lesson, we met with Claudia’s daughter, Gabriele, and her daughter, Thais, in
their home for a lesson on the restoration. We took our “board” and figures, hoping it
would help Thais to understand better.
After this lesson, Thais walked with us over to her Grandma Claudia’s
home for the lesson on testimony. That
is a lot of lessons for a little girl. But
she seemed ok with it all. She is a
really nice little girl. Gabriele wanted
us to come back again on Thursday for the third lesson on the gospel of Jesus
Christ. She wanted us to come back while
everything was still fresh on Thais’ mind.
So we prepared the lesson and returned on Thursday. However, they forgot that we were coming and
we found Thais and her aunt, Natália, in a swimming pool in the backyard. It was such a hot day and rather than
interrupt their swimming party, we scheduled another day for the lesson. They all told us that they planned to come to
church on Sunday. Claudia and Juliana
made it to church on Sunday. But once
again, Gabriele, Thais, Natalia and the rest of the family did not make
it. Claudia told us that morning came too
soon for them. It surprises us as they
seem so determined to come when we talk to them during the week. We will keep
encouraging.
Gabriele still wants Thais to be baptized the
middle of March. She is enthused about
her daughter learning about the gospel. She
is actively involved in helping us teach the lessons to Thais. But they need to get to church! We aren’t sure if it is a matter of liking to
sleep or a lack of courage. We will try
for next week. In the meantime, school
will start up at the end of week. Thais
will go back to school. Claudia teaches
at two schools and will go back as well.
Hopefully, this won’t complicate things too much for them. Presidente Glauber and Luci want to come with
us to do a family home evening with Claudia and family this next week and asked
us to schedule an appointment. We have
made tentative plans for it with Claudia.
We will see how it goes. She
seems a little worried. That is a big
crowd for her little house. We would
like to offer to have it at our apartment.
But that will mean they will need a ride here. Glauber would have to make several trips to
get them here. We want to do what is
best and easiest for them. But Claudia
has been at church for the past three weeks and seems happy. They are a really good family.
We had our regular
district meetings with the young missionaries, branch council, etc. We visited with several of our regulars again
this week too. We had another nice visit
with Elivelton and Bruna about testimony as well and about fasting. Bruna was supposed to give a talk on Sunday
about eternal marriage. But she didn’t
make it. We don’t know why. Her Dad filled in on another topic. Hopefully, Bruna will have the opportunity
yet to give her talk. Artur had a new
phone and wanted us to help him figure out a few things on it. Rosi (Gelson and
Fran) had a new phone as well. She was
enjoying showing us all of the things she could do on it. It was a fun visit with them too.
José was home and anxious for a visit this
week. His mother sat in on the
discussion. She is always pretty
defensive and makes sure we know that she goes to church with the Seventh Day
Adventists. It is always a little
uncomfortable with her. But José makes
up for it. He is always so cheery and
happy to visit with us and anxious for our next visit.
We had another good
visit with Julio and Rosangela although someone was mowing (weed whipping) the
grass around the house and made it difficult to pray and discuss anything. We walked down to the Praça Honorato and
visited with Renato, the hot-dog man and his helper, Mateus. Mateus wants to come to church too. But they didn’t make it this week.
It is Carnaval, mais uma vez! (one more time). This is our second experience with Carnaval,
Cachoeira style. Once again, our
apartment is right in the middle of the action.
Mid-week, they closed off the street in front of our apartment and began
to paint the road white in the main performance area, set up bleachers, put up
speakers, extra lights, etc. Saturday
was the first night of the parade of Carnaval.
It started about 9:30 or 10 pm.
(Just when we like to go to bed!)
The streets and sidewalks were packed with people. There was not even standing room. We got home early. The gates at the entrance of the alley at our
apartment were locked to keep the crowd out.
We were glad for that. We managed
to get just a glimpse at the first of the parade. We only saw a little of it
right at the start. But we got a good dose of the sounds of
Carnaval. There is no escaping
that! There were lots of drums and
singing, all over loud speakers. Our
apartment was rockin’! It lasted until
the wee hours. However, Sister Shirley
can sleep through anything. Elder has
more trouble. Carnaval lasts until
Tuesday here in Cachoeira. It is our
last time for this unique experience though!
The youth in each of
the three branches, ages 12 and up, left town early Saturday morning for the
encampment to get them out of town during Carnaval time. It is a yearly tradition. The LDS church does this, but so do some of
the other churches. It sounds like a lot
of fun for the youth. They have great
activities planned and good food. When
we visited at the home of Cleomar and Idalia, their son Artur had decided to
go. He was so excited. He brought out his list and went through it
with us, showing us what he needed to bring.
Claudia wanted her son, Samuel, to go too. We visited with Samuel about it and called
Glauber. But in the end, Samuel felt
like he didn’t know anyone and didn’t want to go. Can’t blame him for that. Glauber plans to try and get him signed up
for seminary and help him get acquainted with the youth of the branch. Maybe he will feel better about going next
year.
Lots of leaders went
with the youth, including all of the branch presidents and their wives, along
with other youth leaders. With so many
gone, they combined the União and Marina branches on Sunday. It was actually nice to be combined. Everyone seemed to enjoy it. And we didn’t have to split our time to
attend the sacrament meeting of each branch.
It was nice to be able to go to Relief Society and Priesthood
meetings. Combined, we had a pretty good
attendance. We had an interesting
experience in our Gospel Essentials class.
A new member in the branch, who was a former pastor in an evangelical
church, decided to get up and preach to us!
It was an extremely lively testimony from him. He went on and on too. Everyone kept looking to Elder Shirley to do
something, including the young missionary who was teaching the lesson. Elder Shirley interrupted him and made a
brief comment about needing to let the teacher summarize the lesson. It worked and, hopefully, no one was
offended! Interesting!
We continue to meet
and visit with so many friendly people.
We can never walk down the street without encountering so many friendly,
good people, who want to visit and wish us well. It truly is a “gente boa aqui”!! (people good here).
Hope everyone enjoyed
a “Happy Valentine’s Day”! It isn’t
really celebrated here. They do have a
“Lover’s Day” on June 12. We intended to
go out to eat, but didn’t make it yet.
However, we celebrate every day the love we have for family and
friends. We feel so thankful for each of
you! You are always in our thoughts and
prayers! We miss you! We love you!
Eu te amo!
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