Feeling Better

The past two weeks we have been sick. This week we felt a lot better. It was a good thing because it was a busy week.

Monday we were responsible for Family Home Evening. I spent the morning making sure the projection system worked. Many of the couples come just before the FHE and have trouble getting it to work. One thing we have learned is to take time to really test things before you need to use them. The lesson was on Ipoméia, the beginning of the church in Brazil. I was fortunate enough as a missionary here 50 years ago to visit Ipoméia and meet some of the pioneers of the church. Diane fixed a taco soup that was loved by everyone.

Tuesday was a Christmas devotional by the Area Presidency. Elder Costa talked about not just reading the scriptures, but entering the scriptures - picturing yourself as being in the stories.

Friday we had a department party at lunch time. We had a secret friend for whom we purchased a small gift. During the week we went over to Butantã shopping to try to find something. I drew Diane's name, which made it tricky to get her a gift. We ate at Feijão Corda which is a restaurant with cuisine from the Northeast.

Dinner time

I got a Roberto Carlos DVD 

Diane got a tiger

We delayed our Portuguese class until 3 pm. It was Sister Cox's birthday so we had some cake as part of the class.

Happy Birthday Sister Cox

Half our class 

The other half

Since we have been in the apartment so much we decided to get out and see if we could find Christmas. We went to Paulista Avenue which was supposed to have a lot of Christmas decorations. There wasn't much there, but we did find a few things.

Crafts fair in the park

Welcome Santa!

Paul in the park

Nativity in a shopping center

Music of the street

Saturday evening we had our ward Christmas party. Brazilians eat late so we had the program first. There was a roadshow-type presentation by the youth that was very impressive. 

Nativity at the church 

Setup for the party

Youth "roadshow"

 The ward had their own orchestra - not as big as the cello section in our ward orchestra at home, but it was nice music.

Our ward orchestra

 The primary presented a part of the program.

Our primary

It was a very nice Christmas party. We got there about half an hour late and was still half an hour early. The party included  children running around the tables, typical of ward Christmas parties.

Today we got up early (4:30 am) to be picked up by Márcio at 6 am for a ride to the Taipas Ward in the north zone of São Paulo. We were invited by the bishop (Paulo from ICS) to teach about technology in the church.

Márcio and his wife

 We first gave training to the Ward Council. I guess it went OK. At least we were able to show a couple of Christmas videos.

Bishop Paulo at the ward council

They have a technology specialist (Deborah) assigned to their ward. It is good to see the women working in technology.

Deborah, the aTS

 We attended Priesthood/Relief Society meetings, Sunday School, and then both spoke in Sacrament Meeting. After church we went to Márcio's house for lunch, which gave time to talk with the bishopric and their families. He then took us back home, which is a 45 minute ride on Sunday (a lot longer on the weekdays).

Park from Márcio's house

Overall it has been a very busy week, but we are doing better even though we still get tired easily.

Home Sick

This week was Diane's turn to be sick (with my cold lingering). I was able to go into the office most days, but Diane spent Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday (with some on Monday and Wednesday) in the apartment. This has been a bad bug. On Thursday evening the Hart's brought some chicken rice soup, which was greatly appreciated. Since we don't have much to show for the week, I'll include some old pictures from my iPhone that didn't make it into previous blogs.

We got a send-off at the airport in Recife. Actually, they were there to send their friend off, but we claimed them anyway. The boy in the white t-shirt has been called to the Salt Lake South Mission, Portuguese-speaking.

Our farewell ambassadors 

 Two of the icons of the Nordeste folklore are Lampião and Maria Bonita, a cross between Bonny and Clyde and Robin Hood.

Lampião e Maria Bonita

 Our flight from Recife to Maceió was on a small prop plane by Azul Airlines (owned by a member of the church - JetBlue).

Not part of the jet set

Our covered walkway

Welcome to Brazil

 We did manage to make it to Family Home Evening on Monday. We had a farewell dinner at a churrascaria for the Halls who will be leaving next Monday. Before that we heard from our new temple presidency who barely arrived from the states - no time to change clothes. You get to see the counselor since the picture of the temple president was too blurry (so much for iPhone photos).

We have a very young temple presidency

Last year the Halls visited a large display of the nativity at the São Bento Monastery so we went as a group of 16 missionaries to see it on Saturday.

Missionaries gathering

 Diane had been looking forward to seeing it so she took some Aleve and was ready to go.

Does she look ready to you?

 A bus ride, walk to the metro station, two metro rides later wee arrived at São Bentos. We must have been quite a sight, all of these old Americans crowding on a bus and walking down the street. When we got to São Bentos there were only a few nativity scenes on display. They had decided not to put up their normal display but to display several small scenes instead.It was a bit disappointing, but it was good to get out of the apartment.

One of the few nativity scenes

We then went to Café Girondina for lunch. The problem was we arrived at 11 am and they don't start lunch until noon. We were a large enough group that Elder Hall talked them into starting early for us. It was good food. I had a tomato risotto.

Lunch time

You can tell she liked the lunch too

 We went back on the metro then bus to return to the apartment for some needed rest.

At the metro station

We were able to attend our meetings this Sunday. It has been five weeks since we attended our ward. They must have thought we had returned home to the states. It's now Sunday afternoon and we are listening to a downpour outside. That is good because São Paulo needs the water.

The senior missionaries decided to sing Christmas carols in the courtyard this evening at 6:30 pm. Meanwhile the São Paulo 5th ward decided to have a Christmas program in the courtyard at 6:00 pm. With the rain the ward program moved to the activity room. It took about half an hour to get started so when the senior couples arrived there was no one around to sing to. We weaseled our way into the ward program and had a lot of fun.

Nativity in the courtyard

Ward choir singing Christmas carols

Senior missionaries singing Christmas carols

Children's nativity re-enactment

We all crowded into Zaugg's apartment for sloppy joe's after the program. The Christmas season is here.

Giving Thanks

We are back in São Paulo, but not back to normal. We got in about 1:00 pm on Monday, took a taxi to our apartment, unpacked, then went to the store for some needed groceries. With overcast skies, São Paulo looked like a huge drab city, with no beaches in sight. We are both very tired and came down with colds, but had to plow through the week. We went back to the office by 4 pm and attended family home evening with the other senior couples. It has been quite a while.

Which is the real Papai Noel?

A Christmas tree in our office

When we got back to the apartment we had a new washing machine. We also had a leak, so we waited to wash clothes. They haven't come to fix the leak so we went ahead and washed clothes catching the water in a bucket.

Leaky washing machine connection

We felt tired and achy all day Tuesday, but went to the office to catch up on work we missed while traveling. We had our last English class on Tuesday evening, which called for a party with Diane's gluten-free cake.

English class

Randy Hall had a birthday so we went over to a bakery after English class to celebrate.

Randy with his new headdress

Goody time with the Halls and others

 Wednesday was another dragging day. We needed to get some cash from the bank at lunch time so we ate at the "shopping". We had our Portuguese class then went home early so Diane could make some gravy and a gluten-free pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving.

We were back in the office Thursday morning and it was good we went in. Emerson was preparing for a director's meeting for Friday morning and needed a report on what we have been doing. In the afternoon we went to the McAllister's apartment for Thanksgiving dinner. He is the area attorney for Brazil and lives in a nice apartment. It was the only place that could hold 26 people for dinner. It included the São Paulo South mission president (a friend of the McAllister's) and a mission couple.

View of São Paulo from the 25th floor apartment

Table setting for 26 people 

Our table

Gluten-free pumpkin pie (yummy)

Thanksgiving dinner

I haven't been sleeping at night because of coughing. We dragged through Friday, including our Portuguese class, but Paul had to wait for Diane to go to a choir rehearsal for the Area Presidency Christmas Devotional (She couldn't get a sound out but she knows what they are doing). We crashed that evening. Diane got really sick, so we stayed in the apartment Saturday and Sunday resting as much as possible. 

Tomorrow starts a new week and ends a month, November. We'll have to see how it goes with our colds.

Salvador

On Thursday we got an afternoon flight from Maceió to Salvador, getting in about 4:30 pm. It was fun to watch Salvador from the air with patches of city and green space.

Getting on the plane at Maceió

Salvador from the air

 Leaving the airport there was a long tunnel of bamboo across the road.

Road from the airport

We were picked up by Leonardo and taken to the Intercity Hotel. Salvador is the third largest city in Brazil after São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

City view from our hotel window.

There is a "shopping" close to the hotel so we went there for a bowl of good soup for supper. Mine was a cream of shrimp soup and Diane´s was squash soup. The mall was all set up for Christmas with a large Santa village and a children´s choir singing Christmas carols (out of tune).

Santa´s helper

Children´s chior

On Friday we had a meeting with the FM group for Salvador. They have an office right by the Amaralina stake building, which is built next to the ocean.

The FM offices

Ocean view from the church

Bezerra and Leonardo

We then went to visit the Itapuã chapel.

Courtyard for the Itapuã chapel

 We went to another "shopping" for lunch. They had a carousal set up for Christmas.

Carousal at the mall

 From there we went to the Liberdade chapel. It has city on one side and a favela on the other side.

Liberdade chapel

Favela behind the chapel

 We stopped at the Cabula chapel where there is an Institute, and a self-sufficiency center. Several of the sisters were decorating for a wedding. This is the ward where Leonardo is bishop.

Members at the Institute building

Sisters from Peru, Espirito Santo, and Dominican Republic

Self-sufficiency center

We returned to our hotel to get ready for training in the evening. Paulo, the CTS to be trainined called and said he would be delayed so we had time to interact with some of the members. A group of boys flocked around Diane to ask her a lot of questions.

Bees and honey come to mind

Paulo  (CTS) and Bezerra (FM)

 This hotel is different because it is in the middle of the city rather than close to the beach. We can see the city as well as favelas from our window.

Salvador city

Salvador favela

 We had some leisure time planned for Saturday morning so we took a taxi to the historical city center to get some Bahian culture. We started at Cidade Alta which is high above the ocean. We saw quite a few Baianas at Praça de Sé in their native dress (who wanted money to take pictures, of course).

The Baianas 

 We also saw a memorial to Zumbi, an escaped slave who set up a community of escaped slaves in the interior.

Our friend Zumbi

 There were a lot of stores, especially around Terreiro de Jesus

Gift shop

Terreiro de Jesus

We enjoyed walking down some of the cobblestone streets with brightly colored houses.

Rua João de Deus

 We passed by a store with an interesting carving. For some reason it reminded me of Kohler.

We didn´t take him home with us

There are a lot of old Baroque churches in the area

 There is an influence of Baianas all over.

Selling special ribbons?

 An elevator takes you from the Cidade Alta to the Cidade Baixa (lower city). Since we had a taxi we didn´t take the elevator to the Market in the lower city.

The elevator

Municipal market

 There was a small group doing capoeira in back of the market (for money, of course).

Capoeira

Joilson, our driver

 After we got back we went back to the "shopping" for lunch. As we were leaving we heard "White Christmas" being sung in English in the background. It didn't quite fit for Brazil.

More of Santa´s village

 In the evening we had more training where we actually prepared a webcast.

Technology specialists preparing a webcast

Sunday was a different day. We went to afternoon meetings so we spent the morning in the hotel room reading, etc. Leonardo (or I should say Bishop Nascimento) picked us up about 12:30 pm and took us to the house of Del, his counselor for lunch. Apparently on Sundays they meet together for lunch in one of their houses.

Street in the bairro of the ward

Del´s house

 It was a nice house and there were a lot of people there, including five sister missionaries.

The missionaries

It was a nice lunch with rice and escodidinho (a regional dish). Sariah, a recently returned missionary from Natal (sitting next to Diane) kept the conversation going.

Good food

 We then went to church, which went from 3 - 6 pm. Their ward choir sang (25 strong) with their whole heart. This was followed by Sunday School (where we gave the prayers) and Priesthood Meeting and Relief Society. Since the bishop was busy with interviews we went with his family and Del´s family for some fruit salad while we waited for a ride back to the hotel. Finally Del was available to give us a ride.

The bishop´s family

Del´s family

This has been a nice stop in Salvador and we were really welcomed, but it´s time to go home (São Paulo) tomorrow morning.