The Gardens

OK, we don't have any gardens to show you, but we had a chance to walk through the Jardim district of São Paulo yesterday. It's the ritzy section of town. Jardim is the Portuguese word for garden.

We have another training visit next week, this time in Piracicaba, so we spent the week updating our training materials.

We went to an unknown meeting at 7pm Sunday night with the goal of meeting two new families in the ward. When we got there we found out it was a 7:30 pm meeting for single adults so we went back to the apartment. As we passed through the courtyard we met two new families from the ward.

Sis Lopes and the Soares family

We have a new apartment maintenance person who came to our FHE Monday to talk to us. We then watched the  DVD "Meet the Mormons". It's nice to have a FHE group, especially with the dinner that follows.

The missionaries have started a 3-month English class for Tuesday nights. We went to observe how it is different from what we did in Canada. Not much!

Missionaries teaching English

 Every morning at 9 am we have a special leadership training session in English for the workers at ICS. There is a wide range of English skills so there is a wide range of understanding. We often get into some good gospel discussions. At 9:30 they can speak Portuguese again and the discussions can get even wilder.

Sis Wheeler during leadership training in English

 We went to the feira again on Friday to pick up more fruits and vegetables. We leave early so we can get back to the office by our 9am training session. On Saturday we took Elder and Sister Thompson to the candy store so they could stock up on sweets. Sister Thompson has decided to try a gluten-free diet, which has helped her a lot, she says.

Over the hill from the candy store

 As mentioned we went to the Jardim district of São Paulo on Saturday afternoon. There is Jardim Paulista, Jardim America, Jardim Europa, and Jardim das Rosas. We went to the first to find a new bookstore.

This must be a jazz building - it has the blues!

Is this Jardim China?

We found the bookstore, which is for "artsy" people. We got a couple of books on the Portuguese language. They were having a book signing with free sandwiches and wine. They also had a nice little restaurant.

Bookstore restaurant

 There were a lot of fashion stores and galleries. A lot of the places close by about 2 pm on Saturday.

Side street in the Jardim district

There was a group on the streets trying to raise funds for some cause. We don't know what the cause is, but when we saw a man in a tutu we decided we don't want to know.

Street fundraisers

Today we ended up going to two sacrament meetings, ours first then to the Morumbi Ward where the senior missionaries sang for their ward conference. We also had a High Priest Quorum meeting this evening. The women were not invited as they are in our home stake.