50 years

 On May 1st, 50 years ago the São Paulo stake was organized. I was on my mission back then. Tonight we had a special fireside at the stake center where 7 out of the 8 stake presidents spoke. There was a video presentation about the first president who has passed on. This was the first stake in Brazil and the first stake in South America.

Musical number by the primary

The new mission president for Angola

On Monday we were responsible for Family Home Evening. We were informed that the power in the building would be turned off at 6pm so we started at 5 pm with a quick lesson about the administration of Spencer W. Kimball. In his first conference talk after becoming the prophet he said that he didn't anticipate many changes in the church in the near future. The lesson was about all the changes that were made during his presidency. We then went up for a simple, but nice dinner of soup and cornbread. Diane always does a good job with the food.

We are preparing for a visit from Elder Holland in May. On one evening there will be three meetings at the same time broadcast to about 100 chapels in São Paulo area. We have never done anything like this in Brazil (actually neither has it been done in the church) so we need to find a way to use the new webcast in a massive way.

On Wednesday we went to the Polícia Federal to get our new IDs. We are now good for another year. We needed a copy of certain pages from our passports (which Diane had, of course), but we then needed to make new copies in the office. We went home a little early to work on some things in the apartment when Diane noticed she left the passports in the copier/printer on her desk. They would be OK until the next day, but I decided to go back and get them. It's a good thing I did because when we got to the office the next day the printer was gone (to be used elsewhere).

Diane had her last physical therapy session Thursday morning. There are some good views from the clinic which is just down the street from our apartment.

Our apartment complex

Penthouse garden

São Paulo view 

Diane's last treatment

 We are starting to clean out files on the computer for the Andersons, who will be our replacements. It is a slow laborious process, but needs to be done. On Friday we went to see Captain America and had a late dinner. We enjoy going out with the other couples.

Does anyone speak Japanese? 

Captains America

We are getting several new missionaries. On Saturday we decided to see some museums on the University of São Paulo campus. Other couples decided to tag along. We were delayed leaving, which was good because we were able to greet the Shumways who just arrived from the airport.

Burkes greet the Shumways

We picked out 5 museums which according to the São Paulo guidebook were open on Saturdays. We went to the Museum of Contemporary Art, which ended up being an empty building (the exhibit moved across town). We then tried the Geosciences Museum (closed on Saturdays) and the Oceanographic Museum (also closed on Saturdays). Striking out, we didn't try the other two, which were smaller museums.

Sculpture in front of the empty museum

 We were able to walk around campus a bit, which was nice.

The clocktower

Many nice shaded areas

Brazil's olympic ski team?

The academic crew strikes out

We had our regular church meetings today. After priesthood meeting I went outside for a breather and encountered two visitors from George Washington University who are here to give training. We took them into Sunday School then fast and testimony meeting. It gave me a chance to try translating for them. 

Friends from George Washington University

We had a webcasting test scheduled this afternoon. Everything went OK at Rio de Janeiro and from another chapel in São Paulo, but the CTS for our building had to go to the hospital for a birth of a baby and none of the rest of us could get into the system to test the webcast. At least we learned something - that's why we test.

How does this thing work anyway?