Ovation by the Seventies

 With General Conference over and the Area Presidency returning from Salt Lake there was an Area Council held yesterday. This is a time when the Area Presidency can give instructions to the Area Seventies to carry on to their coordinating councils (consisting of stake and district presidents) of Brazil. Their schedule was tight, but we were given eight minutes in the afternoon to talk about our plans for meetinghouse technology in Brazil. Sister Wheeler wanted me to give the presentation because it would be in Portuguese, but Emerson said that she should give part of it, so she did. We spent the week preparing and practicing the presentation. (And I thought role-playing would be over when we got to Brazil).

Paulo polishing our presentation

 Paulo, the supervisor for ICS reviewed and gave suggestions for the presentation. It was a lot of help.  At 3:00 pm Saturday afternoon the Area Presidency and 22 Area Seventies (including 5 sustained in General Conference and those they will replace the first of May)  filed into the small auditorium in our building for the meeting. We were the first on the agenda and alternated speaking, Sister Wheeler reading her portion. When we finished, President Aidukaitis got up and complemented Sister Wheeler on her Portuguese as all of the Seventies gave her an ovation for speaking so well. President Costa stood and cheered for her and said that Elder Wheeler did a good job teaching her. She speaks fluently with little accent (when reading). It was a great day for her.

Tuesday after eating at the mall we stopped to look for some needed items for the apartment. We passed a piano player playing Bossa Nova tunes. We couldn't resist a picture.

Bossa Nova on piano

Night picture of the São Paulo Temple from our bedroom window

 The church is changing their method of doing Webcast, the technology to broadcast stake conference to other chapels through the Internet. The information is not available in Portuguese yet, but we have been working with Evanir, the ICS Webcast specialist, to get the equipment we need for testing. The Webcast encoder cost about $700 in the USA, but about $2000 in Brazil. They often use glass surfaces to write on instead of white boards when they are discussing topics.

Evanir explaining with Wagner in the background

 On Wednesday Cintia and Anna were going to the Eldorado mall to pick up some electronic items for a project so I suggested that Sister Wheeler could go along to practice Portuguese while they practiced English. The next day we went there to see what the electronics stores had to offer for cables needed for Webcasting - not much!

El Dorado "Shopping"

 Elder and Sister Romrell were here during the week for some medical procedures. They are serving as MLS missionaries is a small branch called Sorriso (smile) in the middle of Mato Grosso - in the wild interior of Brazil. We enjoyed hearing about their experiences with the members of this far-away section of Brazil.

Smiles (sorrisos) for the Romrells

 We have enjoyed taking the back way to and from the office. As we come home at night we hear a terrible racket. It's a large flock of parrots that land in the palm trees by the temple and chatter away. We can't tell if they are speaking Portuguese or not. They are fun to watch clear up in the tops of the trees.

A parrot listening to Moroni play his trumpet

 We finally had a date night this week. We usually don't venture far at night, but on Friday we went with three other couples (Swenson's, Hale's, and Zaugg's) to see the movie Cinderella. We got tickets then went to eat at a typical Brazilian buffet. We really enjoyed the movie (which was in English with Portuguese subtitles so we could understand it).

Dinner time

The movie theater

 A couple of weeks ago the Hall's took us to a candy store where there are a lot of different kinds of candy. We ventured out Saturday morning to try to find it again. We took the bus seven stops then went down the street just to find a busy overpass. We went back the other way and finally found the street and the candy store. On the way we saw a different side of the city.

An outdoor laundry

The fruit seller

We have been in Brazil for four weeks. Our technology plan has been approved by the Area Presidency and presented to the Area Seventies. I guess it's time to get to work now!