The Dentists

I don't know if I mentioned it, but coming back from Washington I had a bad toothache. By the time we got to Salt Lake City I could hardly eat anything. We bought some Ibuprofen, which got me through the trip. As soon as we got home we went to the dentist's office (another missionary was going to the dentist as soon as they dropped us off so I went along with him) to see if he could do anything. He took an x-ray and sure enough, it was infected. He gave me a prescription for penicillin and made an appointment with a root canal specialist for the following week. On Tuesday, June 30th, we went to see the specialist, prepared for the worst. Since the tooth had already had a recent root canal he decided to grind off some of the tooth to improve the bite. It worked! When I went to pay for the visit, I was told there was no charge. I asked about the dentist who saw me first and had the tooth x-rayed; again, no charge. What a wonderful surprise!

Party store on the way to the dentist

Fruit stand on the way back from the dentist

If you want to know how to get there, follow the map behind me

June 30th was arrival day for the new mission presidents. They were scheduled to have a meeting in the auditorium down the hall from us, but their flight from the USA was cancelled - no meeting. Not knowing the meeting was cancelled, President Andrews (São Paulo East Mission and a second cousin) stopped by the office before returning home after completing his mission. We met President Silcox (the new president for São Paulo East who took a different flight) and his wife.

President and Sister Andrew are on their way home

Everyone in Brazil is excited about the new Webcast, a method for broadcasting stake conference to other chapels. I brought a Teradek VidiU back from the USA so we were finally able to do some testing. Evanir was especially excited because he was the expert for the old Webcast system. I have been preparing training material (not available in Portuguese) and we have been running some test webcasts.

IT WORKED!

Saturday was the 4th of July. Since not much was happening around here, we decided to take a little trip to Embu das Artes. We had gone earlier with the Halls, but this time we were on our own.

Add color to your day

Embu das Artes is a small town where artisans create, show, and sale their work (a bit like Taos in New Mexico). There are booths set up in the park, galleries in the town, and stores with all sorts of interesting objects. We passed by one booth selling crafts from Indian tribes of the Amazon. They are members of the church and gave us a small concert on a native flute.

Flute from the Amazons

Colorful stores and galleries

 We talked to one artist who painted colorful scenes from Brazil. We decided to get a small painting from her. She was introduced to the church earlier, but is not quite ready.

Paintings of Brazil

Quiet, please!

 It started raining in the afternoon so we found refuge in a small, outdoor restaurant (covered, of course). We got on a very small bus which took us a different way home. We were able to find where to get off and walk to our apartment.

Server at our restaurant 

July is here and we are in the middle of winter. We have had a few cool days, but it also gets quite warm in the afternoons. We miss the celebrations back home, but are glad to be serving here in Brazil.