More missionaries

This was a week of lots of meetings and no lessons (all were canceled). On Tuesday we had our weekly missionary coordination meeting with the missionary committee followed by our missionary planning meeting with the Portuguese elders. Wednesday morning was our senior missionary training meeting. They are starting a new 8-lesson series. Thursday we had zone conference - all day. Sunday started with Ward Council, followed by our 3-hour block of meetings then another missionary planning meeting.

On Monday we went to visit the Lindsey's, a missionary couple we knew in Canada. They recently returned from the Houston Mission where they served as an office couple. They let us taste some peanuts from the Church peanut farm they have in Texas - Delicious!

The Lindsey's

We had four lessons cancelled this week. Two of them were on the Plan of Salvation; one with an investigator family and the other a new-member lesson. We were hoping to use our Plano de Salvação puzzle we like to use to explain the Plan of Salvation.

Our teaching aid

At our zone conference President Chambers challenged us to reread Preach My Gospel. We have it in English and Portuguese on our iPads, but decided to get the mini version in Portuguese to read. We had the large ones in Portuguese, but left them home. On Friday we went to the Church Distribution Center and were told they were out of them so we would have to order them. We decided to call Deseret Book downtown. They had two left they said they would set aside for us so we hurried to Deseret Book. The cashier was named Hillary who had recently returned from Vitória, Brazil. 

Hillary at Deseret Bookstore

We then walked through Temple Square to see what has changed. We encountered three other Portuguese-speaking missionaries: Sister Moreno from Porto Velho, Brazil, Sister Oliveira from Brazil, and Sister Araújo from Porto, Portugal. Diane got a little Portuguese speaking in there.

Sis Moreno and her companion from Gilbert, AZ

Sis Oliveira and her companion from the Philippines

Sis Araújo and her companion from Mexico

 We had a special preparation day on Saturday. Andrea and the family came down from Logan and met us at the zoo. We really enjoyed seeing them again. "Grandpa" was able to get some teasing in.

While we were leaving to meet them a lady stopped and asked where and when we have church. Since we go to the Portuguese ward across town we didn't have any idea where the church was for our neighborhood. We called the local elders (since we had their card with their number) and they were able to give directions. One of them was Elder Xavier from Brazil. We have encountered quite a few Portuguese-speaking missionaries this week.

Th zoo was really fun. They had a new African Savannah area open. The animals were very active so we saw zebras fight, lions roar, and bears feeding on fish and oranges (Oh yes, there was a tiger also).

The family is back together again

Brynlie eater - the lion

Sherlock, Watson, and who's that good looking boy?

King of the jungle

Kohler's elephant ride

In the eagle's nest

Alyssa as Sherlock

Kamary as Watson

Hanna as Hanna

The grizzly

Lauren on a snow leopard

After the zoo we went to the This is the Place Monument to see the figure of John Pack, an ancestor who scouted out the Salt Lake Valley before Brigham Young. We then went to Chuck-a-Rama for dinner (crowded) then to our room (also crowded). 

How many people can you fit in a box?

We are still split between meetinghouse technology and visiting members of the ward. We'll see what next week brings.