Another day another dollar

So, what do we do here? Let me give you a typical day... The alarm goes off at 6:00 am which starts our day. We exercise, shower, eat breakfast, and get ready to leave the apartment around 8 am. On Mondays we need to be in the office for an 8 am devotional. Other days of the week we need to be there by 8:30 am so we can get through the back gates before they close. We have two ways to walk to the office, both requiring us to cross Avenida Professor Francisco Morato, a busy street. The most direct way is to walk along Ave Morato and enter the front gate, which is very noisy. The second way is to take the back roads to the rear gate, which is nice and peaceful.

We give a lesson on the Leadership Pattern (a training program set up for church employees) in English every day from 9:00 - 9:30. Sometimes we only get through one slide of the lesson, but that's OK because we have no time schedule to finish the program. We then work on technology - updating the spreadsheet of technology specialists (Sister Wheeler is getting quite proficient in Excel) or preparing training modules of the time we will be visiting the coordinating councils across the country. We do this while the rest of the group answers phone calls about anything technological that doesn't work for church employees, mission presidents, or the CTM. They are the ones who have to solve the difficult problems. Most of them live a long way away from the office and may take up to two hours of travel each direction.

We usually go to the temple cafeteria for lunch (except on Monday when it's closed) for a good Brazilian lunch for about $5 for the two of us. On Monday we can go across the street to the mall for a more expensive lunch and a lot more noise. Come about 5:00 pm we go back home (a 10-minute walk). On Monday and Wednesday we have a half-hour choir practice for a big meeting scheduled in the mosque at the end of the month. We have now been disinvited because of time. There are many churches and dignitaries who want to speak at the occasion that they won't have 5 minutes for the choir. We will sing at several other occasions, however.

In the evenings we have a nice home-cooked meal. We often go to the market on Tuesday evenings to get stocked up with groceries. On Friday morning we often leave early and go to the Feira for fruits and vegetables. Other evenings we are free to remain at the apartment to read or watch TV, etc. or we may go out for a movie.

As you can see, our life isn't really exciting, but we have work to do and good people to be around as we do it. Now of the photos of the week:

The sun on a hazy day

 We had a guest speaker for Family Home Evening - Alex who had quite a story. He grew up in Bahia  where his family was so poor they were often evicted from their home. He joined the church, left school to go on a mission, got involved in the production of the short movie "Brazil, Meu Lar" and went on to work with Faye Dunaway in Hollywood. His parents were opposed to the direction he took in joining the church, but felt better after he was able to buy them a house. He left all of this to work for church productions in Brazil

Alex, our producer

 This was the last week for the Fergusons who went home on Tuesday.

Goodbye gifts

 We like our back-street walks to the office.

A green wall with green plants

 The streets really have deep dips. This bus got caught on one in front of out apartment.

Stuck bus

We have already mentioned the parrots that like the trees around the temple.

Anyone for a free parrot?

On Friday mornings we go to the Feira, an open-air market.

A melon cutter

 We have a basketball court in on the church property.

Hey, that's not basketball they are playing it's soccer!

Our office building taken from the mall

The train in the mall

 I came down with a cold and spent Saturday morning resting. In the afternoon I had to get out so we went on a little walk around the neighborhood. By now you should know that a little walk is really longer than we expect it to be.

The São Paulo soccer stadium

 We saw signs to the Palácio dos Bandeirantes and didn't know what it was so we stopped (we needed the rest) and saw it. It ended up being the home and government offices of the Governor of São Paulo state.

Entrence to the palácio

 We had to wait for the next tour which gave us time to sit in the shade and look at the orchids.

Orchids

The grand hall

Here we are :-)

 We had another family on the tour with us. The father was from Goa (a Portuguese area of India) and the mother from Mozambique. They met in Mozambique and got married in Portugal where they raised their family. One daughter is finishing a residency in São Paulo and the other studying economics. Paulo, our tour guide (next to Sister Wheeler in the photo) had trouble understanding them at times.

Our palace tour group

 My cold was worse in the morning so I stayed home listening to the Mormon Channel while Sister Wheeler went to church at the Morumbi Ward. We have an old apartment building across from us that looks fairly drab except for one apartment that puts flags outside their window to brighten things up.

We like the flags

Another week has gone by and we are still alive (I think). Our choir was asked to sing for an area public relations meeting tonight. I took some decongestant and got through OK, even playing the harmonica (with guitar and flute) for an instrumental interlude. It was raining when we got out and we forgot the umbrella so we are soaked.

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!

General Conference

It was nice to attend General Conference in the comfort of our apartment. We were told that in Brazil it is a sin not to go to the chapel to attend conference. We had the excuse of testing out the technology  we will be teaching. It ends up that some of the methods to receive conference are not available in Portuguese.

We started our leadership lessons on Monday. Every day from 9-9:30 am we have a "Pattern of Leadership" discussion (following the Savior's way of doing business for Church employees) in English with the ICS group. On Monday, however we were also responsible for the 8 am devotional. Just before noon we were informed that the Swenson's needed to go to the airport with a missionary and couldn't give the Family Home Evening lesson, so Diane prepared one on "O, Divine Redeemer" from Elder Maxwell's talk in 1981 when he was first sustained as an Apostle. She developed a Power Point with videos and music. That's pretty good since last week she had never developed a Power Point. That means we had three presentations on Monday.

Let's introduce some others in our ICS group.

Helemã - a bright young volunteer

Henrique - sits next to me so he gets lots of questions

Evanir - a bishop in Santos

Vagner - not the composer

At lunch we passed by the travel team who helped us get our Brazilian documents from the police station.

Fabio and Jonas in front

 At easter time instead of baskets they get a big egg filled with candy. They hang tham all over in the stores.

Hanging Easter eggs

We get a lot of nice fruits. Bananas come in several varieties as well as mangos. Papayas are good for breakfast, avocados are large  (yes I eat avocados here), and maracujá (passion fruit) is ... - well you can really smell it and the seeds are crunchy.

Our fruit collection

A view from our window

Every Monday and Wednesday the senior couples have a song practice. At the end of the month Elder Christoffersen is coming to visit Brazil and will be speaking in the large mosque in São Paul. We will sing "I am a child of God" as the closing number.

At our practice

 On April Fool's Day Evanir went to the CTM (MTC) to solve some technical problems. We asked if we could tag along so we had a nice tour. Typical of Brazilian facilities it's like a guarded prison complex. Yes, the missionaries can leave the compound, but they have everything they need there.

The CTM

We made it inside

Where does that wire go?

Isn't Portuguese fun to learn?

The CTM track

 As I mentioned a lot of the facilities in São Paulo are fenced off and guarded. If you want a job in Brazil, try being a security guard - there are a lot of them around.

The guard for the Area offices

Friday was a holiday (Good Friday) so we didn't go into the office. We decided to take the bus to Paulista Avenue, the business and shopping street in town. Even though we got on the wrong bus and had to find another we found it. 

Resting in the park

Artwork in the mall

Here is the pica-pau again

How would this be in your bed?

We stopped for lunch in a food court. A man walked up and introduced himself and his family. He is a bishop from Curitiba and his son is here for a chess tournament. Later a couple from Tennessee stopped and talked to us. He was a missionary in Argentina who will be moving his family to São Paulo.

Potential investigator?

The big city

We took the metro to the station closest to our apartment then walked home (about 1.5 miles). A family passed us on the way home from the temple.

Typical Paulistanos?

Between sessions of conference on Saturday we went over to the Zaugg's apartment to wish Sister Zaugg a happy birthday. We fit a lot of missionaries into a small apartment for cake and ice cream.

Birthday party

 When I turned on the kitchen light we got some sparks and a burning smell. We called maintenance to replace the ballast. Sure enough, the circuit board was burnt. They came by to repare it, so we hope we won't have a fire in the apartment.

Light work

 Since the first session of conference starts at 1 pm here, we had a little time Sunday morning for a little walk to a park up the street.

A mural on a wall

School kids

This is called a lake on the park map

Bamboo forest

Well, another week has passed and we haven't been sick yet. The dange fever seems to be going around. It is estimated that about 100 missionaries in Brazil got it last month.