Sete de Setembro

Sete de Setembro (Sep 7) is Brazil's national holiday (like our 4th of July). It rained hard all day so it was a good day to stay in our apartment and get some things done. As we looked out our window we saw a homeless man sleeping on the ground. Some of the Brazilians say they are mostly crack addicts who sleep all day and get their fix at night. We had some pizza left over from our tailgate party and Diane felt sorry for him so she packed it with some ice to keep it cool then we left it where he could find it. He got up to change positions and looked at it carefully before going back to sleep in the rain. After dark he was gone, as was the food.

Our homeless neighbor

We held Family Home Evening in Zaugg's apartment rather than going over to the office building. Usually on Mondays we are all over there for work, but today was a holiday. We celebrated Elder Zaugg's 70th birthday.

Happy Birthday

Tuesday was another rain day, but not a holiday so we had a normal day at the office. We need the rain. Diane commented on what a miracle rain is. If you look at all of the conditions needed for rain it's a miracle we have any rain at all. Part of the miracle of creation.

On Thursday we went to the Policia Federal to get our documents. We were able to take a taxi and have him wait for 10 minutes while we went and got them and returned. There is an advantage to being old in Brazil; we can go in front of lines (but there wasn't any line).

We went to a session at the temple on Friday. There were a lot of missionaries in the session using headphones for English (Diane didn't need them). We have a lot of missionaries arriving from the states now as well as other English-speaking countries like Malawi.

We decided we had better go someplace on Saturday so we could take some pictures for the blog. We went to the neighborhood called Consolação which started out as a mule train trail to bring things in from the town of Sorocaba, but is now a major street in the center of São Paulo. It didn't have the charm of some other neighborhoods, but had some interesting buildings.

Education building at Praça da Republica

I liked this painting at the art and antique fair

Father of the Boy Scout movement in Brazil

Edifício Copan

Mário de Andrade library

We stopped by the Igreja de Consolação, but they were having mass so we didn't take pictures of it's lovely interior.

Igreja de Consolação

The Indians have invaded

We had stake conference on Saturday evening. We both sang in the choir after weeks of 2-hour long rehearsals. It was a good conference with inspired leaders. We had the main session on Sunday. The choir sang for the main session also. Part of the dress for the women was matching necklaces.

Stake choir members

It has been a different week with a national holiday and a lot of rain.