Beyond the Temple

This was a slow week. I came down with the flu. Fortunately wasn't Dengue Fever, which has been going around. Even with that we were able to begin learning to use WebEx for training, send off emails to new technology specialists, get off 2 blogs, find a new life history of Lois Judd, and download an app for the iPad that syncs with Legacy. Actually, I only missed Friday at the office. Diane went to the store by herself to pick up a few items (good for her!).

Syncing Legacy to the iPad

Brazilians have colorful ways to name things. What we call peanut brittle they call pé de moleca (foot of a tomboy). 

Have a foot for a snack

By Saturday afternoon I was tired of laying around the apartment and decided I needed to get some fresh air (in São Paulo?), besides I felt a little better. As we look out our bedroom window we can see the temple. Beyond the temple we see some green spaces, houses on the hill, and colorful apartment buildings. We decided to explore. 

View of the temple and beyond

As we walked along the main street we saw an old truck loaded with empty wooden crates.

Is she getting run over by a truckload of crates?

 The sidewalks change shape as trees grow.

Is this the straight and narrow path?

 We found the Parque Luis Carlos Prestes which made a delightful trek through nature.

Are these African elephant ears or Indian elephant ears?

 The hills have some nice houses right across the street from the park.

A quiet place to live, even if a bit shady

 I just wanted a gentle walk, not major exercise.

The Energizer Bunny in Brazil?

 Most of the space in front of houses is used for parking cars behind a fence-style gate. There are some front lawns, however.

What kind of lawnmower do I buy for this?

 The actual park was fenced in and guarded, but did not show as green space on the map. The part shown in green was not fenced, run down, and had signs of homeless residents.

Who wouldn't want to live here?

 Actually we heard about favela life from Paulo. He said there are families who will squat on open land in a wooden shack. When asked to move they reply they have no place to live until the government builds them a house. When they get into a house they sell it for the money and find another place to squat. We don't know how prevalent this is. We did see a lot of green space surrounded by walls with no apparent opening. A road went through one of the areas we could see from our window, but we couldn't get into it. We did get a view of our apartment complex, however.

Our apartments from the park road, the shorter white ones on the left.

There are some apartment buildings with red-tiled roofs we can see from our window. We found them on the other side of the sealed-off green space. They are called the Garden Village.

Garden Village

 On the way back we found this pink motel. According to the sign rooms rent for R$40 for 3 hours. It must be for truck drivers who need a quick nap before going on.

Something is suspicious here

 We got back and Diane wanted to get a picture in our courtyard of the tree that had very fragrant blossoms.

Oops, where are the blossoms?

We learned a few things from church today. First, Brazilians must be healthy eaters - the children were eating fruit in sacrament meeting rather than Cheerios. Second, that may not always be true - the lady next to us was eating cookies and didn't even have children to feed. Third, it is possible to follow the example of the Savior. Sacrament meeting was about the restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood. As I listened to the president of the Deacon's Quorum speak to a large audience of many experience adults I could picture the Savior teaching in the temple at the age of twelve.

First Training Excursion

We just returned from Ribeirão Preto where we had our first training event. We spent the week getting ready and celebrating more birthdays. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday we usually have exercise. It helps to stop for a few minutes to move our muscles.

Exercise time

We enjoy it when families come by to visit the office. On Wednesday Henrique´s family came by.

Enrique with wife Tatiane and daughters Alice and Rebeca

Wednesday evening we had a birthday party for Sister Hale. We gathered at DaPaula´s apartment for cake and ice cream (including gluten-free). 

Elder and Sister Hale

The group

Emerson had his birthday on Friday so more cake (not gluten-free, but they had some chocolate for me). 

A sparkler for a birthday candle?

Sister Wheeler honored with the first piece of cake

This weekend we had our first formal training in Ribeirão Preto. Our traveling companions were Paulo (supervisor at ICS), Helemã (volunteer at ICS), and Breno (Paulo´s son). 

Packed up and ready to go

Ribeirão Preto is in the interior of São Paulo state, about 318 km from São Paulo and takes about 3.5 hours by car. We were glad to have Paulo as the driver and Helemã with the GPS as a navigator.

A long road, but beautiful countryside

 We arrived in Ribeirão Preto about 10 am. We were able to check into the hotel, but not go into our rooms yet. The let us have the buffet breakfast, however.

Breakfast in Ribeirão Preto

We then went on to the Ribeirão Preto East Stake (there are two stakes in the city) to prepare for our training.

Ribeirão Preto East Stake Center

 Our first step was to set up for presentations in the high council room and in the chapel (the two rooms with air conditioning).

Setting up in the high council room

We were invited to give training at the Ribeirão Preto Coordinating Council which consists of the Area Seventy (Elder Pinto), eight stake presidents, and the mission president. The stake presidents came from stakes that are up to 327 km away. A 2-hour lunch was planned to let them arrive any time during the lunch. We sat across from President Goes from the São José do Rio Preto Stake (205 km away). His daughter dated Elder Araujo (before his mission, of course) and his first missionary companion was Elder Grahl Baptista´s father. We worked with Elder Araujo and Elder Grahl Baptista in Salt Lake. It´s a small world.

Talking with President Goes at lunch

 Our first training was to help the stake presidents understand what technology is available for them to use in the church and the need for calling a technology specialist for the stake.

Sister Wheeler training the stake presidents

 The second training session was for technology specialists and stake clerks. Only one attended, but it gave us a good chance to try out the training. It was a long way to travel for the others.

Valter  (right) with the training crew

After the training we went back to the hotel and settled into our rooms. Brazilians like to eat late so before dinner we went to get a swimming suit for Breno so he and Helemã could go swimming in the hotel pool. It looked tempting, but they said the water was very cold. We then went to a "Shopping" (mall) and found some dinner about 9 pm.

Swimming pool at the Oasis Hotel in Ribeirão Preto

On Sunday we went to visit other chapels to learn more about how technology is used in the church. We started with the Vila Virginia Ward in the Ribeirão Preto West stake. It is the oldest and smallest chapel in the city. The classrooms are separated from the chapel.

Vila Virginia Ward building

 We interrupted the missionary coordination meeting they were having with the bishop. They were gracious enough to take a break and show us around. I won´t bore you with all of the pictures and explanations of the technical systems in the building.

With the bishop and missionaries

We then went to the Planalto Verde Ward, the largest in the stake. It isn´t the stake center, but has the satellite system because it´s the largest building. 

Satellite dish in back of the chapel

Planalto Verde Ward

 The power was out in the building (actually the whole neighborhood), but we were able to see the equipment in the cabinets even though we could not test anything.

No electricity doesn´t stop the primary

We were able to get some good views of Ribeirão Preto. It was a nice city. We liked the way the tiled houses swept up the hillsides.

Ribeirão Preto

Tile houses

We then went to the Américo Brasiliense Branch about 30 km outside of Araraquara. The chapel was a house made into a small chapel. 

Américo Brasiliense Branch

This was a chance to check the level of technology in a small branch.

Carrier pigeons?

 It was a very friendly branch. We stayed there for sacrament meeting.

Branch members gathering for sacrament meeting

 It was Mother´s Day. The girls made flowers for their mothers. One of the girls gave her flower to Sister Wheeler (with her mother´s permission, of course). Is´t that just like mothers?

Mother´s Day flower

One of the reasons we stopped at the branch was that we noticed through church software that their Internet was not connected to the firewall. Paulo came to the rescue and fixed it.

Now why isn´t the Internet working?

It must need crawling on the floor!

I felt like I was back in the olden days of my Brazilian mission.

Is there a cost for horse parking?

It seemed like a long ride home. I´m glad Paulo did the driving. We passed a lot of sugar cane fields.

Sugar cane

At times I wondered about the GPS. Was it really taking us on the shortest route?

Passing Rio de Janeiro?

Passing New York?

We stopped by a refueling station alongside the tollway for a late lunch. There was a big fire across the road (cane burning?) which added a little ash to the food. 

Smoking on Sunday

Three hungry boys

A queen in the garden

We ran across the bat-mobile. It would have been a faster way to get home. 

They seem to like this car!

We got back into São Paulo in the evening as it was getting dark and starting to rain. We were glad to be home before the rain caused flooding in the streets. We were tired, but we are certain Paulo was even more tired.

Don´t worry, he survived!

A Visit by an Apostle

I missed creating the last two blogs because I couldn´t get pictures from the camera to the computer. It connects by Wi-Fi which stopped working. For this reason you will get two blogs in a row (Yes, I finally found out how to get them on another computer).

This was an exciting week (April 27 - May 3). We received visits by several general authorities. We had our Family Home Evening as usual on Monday, but it wasn´t like others we have had. Bishop Caussé of the presiding bishopric and his wife gave our lesson. It was kind of them to take time out of their busy schedule to visit with us. They brought a wonderful spirit with them.

Bisho and Sister Caussé

On Tuesday Bishop Caussé gave a devotional for all of the church employees. He talked about the church needing to simplify as it gets larger. We received several ideas that will help us in our call as technology specialists here in Brazil. As part of the devotional we were able to see the first showing of the new video of the church "Sealed Together: The Manaus Temple Caravan" It told the story about members of the church in Manaus giving all they had to make an 8-day journey (half by boat and half by bus) to be sealed in the São Paulo Temple. Now there is a temple in Manaus.

Click here to see the video

Wednesday night was the big night - the 1st Celebration of Religious Liberty.

Brazil: one voice for the world

According to the Pew Research Center, Brazil is listed as number one in having the fewest regulations restricting religious freedom. The United States comes in about number eight. The celebration was held in the São Paulo Mosque, the first in South America.

São Paulo Mosque

Elder Hall was one of the major organizers of the event, which included many different religious traditions, including Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.

The Wheeler´s, Zaugg´s, and  Hall´s

 Our little senior missionary choir had been practicing for the occasion, but we were preempted at the last minute. It was a good thing, however, because we were preempted by Liriel, a popular Brazilian singer who had soloed with the Tabernacle Choir. We were able to have a nice visit with her while waiting for the event to start. She is delightful.

Liriel with Elder Wheeler

It was interesting to hear the different points of view of the speakers, including a chanted prayer, but there was a common theme that we are all children of God and should work together in spite of differences in belief. The highlight was the keynote speech of Elder D. Todd Christofferson, an LDS apostle. His speech was in Portuguese.

Elder Christofferson meeting the Imans

On Thursday we went through a temple session on Portuguese. It was like going through for the first time. Wagner´s 12-year-old daughter came by to see him in the office so we were able to meet her.

Wagner and Leticia

Friday was another national holiday - Labor Day (Andrea´s birthday). They actually call it Worker´s Day, but no one works. We started the day with a pancake and maple syrup breakfast at the Zaugg´s. We still need to perfect the gluten-free pancakes in Brazil. We then went to the Feira. It´s a lot of fun to interact with the people there as we buy fruits and vegetables.

Paula - the fruit vendor

Marco sells potatoes

In the afternoon we attended a missionary conference with Elder Christofferson. Everyone had the opportunity to pass by and shake his hand. He told us that sometimes we may not get an answer from the Lord on what direction we should go. We should get started the best way we know how and the Lord will let us know if we are going in the wrong direction.

On Saturday we stayed in the apartment to catch up on a lot of odds-and-ends that we have not had time to do. In the evening we had a special couples conference (for all couples in Brazil) by Elder Christofferson. Our senior missionary couple choir was able to sing "I Am a Child of God" in Portuguese. It went very well. We really enjoyed the informal, candid way Elder Christofferson led the conference. 

We decided to attend the São Paulo 5th Ward (it´s where we actually live) for our meetings rather than the Morumbi Ward which is smaller and where the other senior couples attend. In the evening we attended a devotional at the CTM. Elder Hall was the speaker for the missionaries in the CTM. They are young, but have a special spirit about them.

As I said, this has been a special week with general authorities. We had some type of activity every day.