There and back again - Already!

March 10-March 19th

We had a Happy Birthday celebration for President Acosta on March 10th.  You can see President and Sister Acosta in the middle of the photo and their daughters Hannah and Renata in front.  The couple we served with the Mencls (Sister Mencl in the red blouse.) The Elders serving in the office starting on the left:  E. Clark, E. Carson, E. Bridgestock, E. Torres, Elder Burgon, Swensons, E. M. Bezerra, Sister and President Baron, Sister Walton, E. Lundgren, in front former Sister Isabela returned missionary.

 The day after that everything was turned topsy turvy for everyone around the world because of the corona virus.  When I look back to February 3rd, the day we entered the Provo MTC, I remember hearing some news that China was being hit by a flu-type virus that was causing some death.  Then within a matter of 5 weeks the virus was quickly moving throughout the world and creating havoc wherever it went.  Next we heard that Japan was facing challenges with the virus and that missionaries would have to be sent home.  

On Wednesday we had a Ward Missionary Committee meeting with David Godoy (our Ward Mission Leader - who also served with us in Porto Alegre) and Sister Resende and Sister Az.  The Sisters  announced that Bruno was going to be baptized on Saturday.  We were all so excited.  Bruno found out about the church at the São Paulo Temple Visitors Center.  he had already been given a Book of Mormon and had been reading a lot on the church's web-sight.  So when he finally came to church he had a good understanding of the gospel already.

We also discussed in our meeting that on Sunday March 8th our Stake President called all of the missionaries in to his Stake High Counsel Meeting.  He asked us to spend the week contacting all of the church members who had joined the Church within the last 2 years, and give them a special invitation to Stake Conference the  March 14-15.  Since Curt and I had been visiting 2 less active families, we decided to take them some homemade bread and an invitation to the Conference.  I scurried around to bake the bread, and we hurried out before it got dark to deliver the invitations.

We dropped off some bread to Julio and Tereza, and had a short but nice visit with Ricardo and his daughters Rafaela and Pietra.  Then when we got back to our apartment we found out that President Nelson asked us to stay home on the Sabbath and cancel all Sacrament Meetings and Stake Conferences and Leadership Training Meetings. So I had to send Julio and Tereza, and Ricardo and Lucy a message telling them that Church Meetings were cancelled until further notice.

On Fridays we had always held our FHE in UBA, but they had changed it to be a Saturday lunch to welcome back a beloved missionary, Elder Rogers and his family who would be visiting.  President Acosta asked us to stay indoors as much as possible to try not to get sick.  But the missionaries in UBA said they had a possibility of baptizing 4 people on Sunday.  So we knew that we would go out on Sunday.

Saturday morning came and The Sisters called to say that Bruno wouldn't be baptized because he had been out of town working and wasn't home yet.  So they rescheduled the baptism for Sunday.  What a Special Sunday it was.  We began our day by partaking of the Sacrament with the Assistants and the
Mission Secretaries.  Then we studied "Come Follow Me" together.

After that we went to the Baptism of Bruno which was a very special experience.  Bruno was baptized by Bishop Sa and confirmed by Curt. 

After Bruno's baptism we invited the Assistants to drive out with us to UBA for some more baptisms.

But when we arrived no one was around.  The Elders were busy running around to all of the member's homes, and helping our newly ordained Priests and deacon bless and pass the Sacrament for their families.  They were also visiting other members and blessing the Sacrament for them.

By the time the Elders arrived we realized that there wouldn't be a baptism that day.  But we hope that there can still be a baptism in the next week or two.

Here we are with the members missionaries and the family of Elder Rogers.  As we said goodbye to the members there we realized that it could be the last time we would see them for quite some time, and our hearts were breaking.

Monday was the beginning of Transfer week for President and Sister Acosta, but we were under instructions to remain indoors until 6:30 when were invited to the Farewell dinner for the departing Missionaries.  I kept having the feeling that we were invited because President and Sister Acosta thought we might be going home soon as well.  It was very nice to visit with the departing missionaries and see how excited they were for having completed their missions.

Here is a photo of the Elders who were departing.  When I get a photo of the Sisters I will include it as well.

We had a special treat on Tuesday.  President Acosta asked us to take Sister Araya from Costa Rica to the São Paulo MTC because he had arranged for her to spend and hour with her sister who was there beginning her mission.  So we were able to meet President and Sister Terry (the MTC President) and have a tour of the facility.  It was especially interesting because our son Nick had his MTC experience there. 

                       

Sister Araya was under strict orders not to touch or hug her Sister because of the virus.  

What a difficult thing!

                    

As the week went on we realized that the writing was on the wall.  It was time for us to prepare to fly home and wait out the corona virus.  So we tried to tie up all of our loose ends and prepared to go.  Curt finished some repairs on our apartment, and I finished up some work at the Bazar of the Mission (where missionaries can get use clothing donations)  We had been stockpiling food in case we were ordered to stay in our apartment.  So on Wednesday we decided to invite the office Elders over for a big lunch.

After that we spent the day Friday packing up our suitcases and turning in our keys.  Then it was off to the Airport to catch the red-eye to Atlanta at 9:50pm.  

We spent our wait at the airport notifying all of our new-found friends that we were leaving.  It is amazing how quickly life can change!  We are home now, but our thoughts continue to go back to Brazil and to the sweet friendships we made there.  We hope that this world health crisis will abate soon, and that we might be able to return and continue serving in São Paulo

After two weeks of rain, and thinking we should build an ark, the rain has finally subsided.  When the sun came out and the blue skies appeared, Curt remembered a phrase that people used to use on his first mission - “Tudo azul”, if someone asked how you were, you’d respond “Tudo azul,” everything is blue.

Last week in response to all of the Corona Virus scare on the Internet, we had an All Mission Conference with the Area Medical Advisor Elder and Sister Swensen and a church member Irmão Paulo who is a Psychologist.  We spent the day talking about how to keep from sharing germs.  This photo is Elder Clark our Housing Secretary.  He is the one who helped us with all of our buying furniture and moving in process.

The great thing about the Doctors coming was the stories they shared, in particular stories about why the Chapel we were meeting in was special to them.  Elder Swensen told us that when he had served his mission as a young man in the São Paulo Mission, on his P-day he helped to build the Chapel we were meeting in. Irmão Paulo was married in our Chapel. 

While we were at the meeting, Elder Swensen looked at the finger of one of our Elders.  He cut his finger while slicing watermelon 🍉.  Unfortunately Elder Lopez was told that he would need surgery on his finger because he had cut the nerve.  So after the meeting Curt and I took him to a sort of Insta-care, and were able to set things up to take him to a hand surgeon the next day.  Then on Friday we took Elder Lopez in for his surgery.  The lesson we hope the Elders learned is that you should never slice  a watermelon while your’e holding it in your hand.  You can see the bandage on Elder Lopez fingers.

We had two lovely visits this week.  We met Ricardo and Lucy and their daughters, and we met Eduardo and Simone.  It is a tradition here that anytime someone comes to visit, you feed them.  Even at 8:00 pm we can a nice conversation with Lucy and Ricardo, and then they fed us some pizza and some lemon meringue pie.  We are hoping that they will come with us to Stake Conference next weekend.

Eduardo and Simone and their two oldest children were just baptized in December.  They are excited about the church, and Eduardo just had his interview with the Stake President to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood.

We were doing a lot of driving around in our little rented Renault Logan.  With some of the steep hills around here, there were times when we wondered if our little car 🚗 would make it up the hill, or if we would tumble down end over end.  With the rain falling it was a pretty exciting experience. 

So on Thursday when we had to turn our rental car in after one month of renting it.  We weren’t super sorry.  Now we are driving a little Chevrolet Prisma, and it has been much better.

When we were at our group “UBA” last week, we realized with all the work President Acosta has to do, that the young men had not been advanced yet in their priesthood offices.  I think I have already mentioned that we have a terrific group of young men there.  Felipe is turning 12 this year and was ready to receive the Aaronic Priesthood.  Mateus and Robert, were ready to advance to the office of Priest.  So Curt talked to President Acosta about it, and was told that Curt is the Group Leader and that he was authorized to go forward with the ordinations.

On Friday when we had our FHE with the group, Curt asked these young men to come prepared on Sunday for some training on the Aaronic Priesthood, and afterwards they would be interviewed.

I posted a message on the Group’s WhatsApp account reminding everyone to invite their family members to come to Church for the ordination.  I was hoping for a large group, but we still only had about 20 people, (our regular attendance.)

(Curt) As I sat with each young man underneath tropical trees and vines and talked about the priesthood and that it was God's power shared with men to bless the lives of all of His children, I couldn't help but be struck on how much He loves all of His children. Here we were, in the middle of a small "jungle," and the Savior's gospel was reaching all of these wonderful young men and giving them an opportunity to grow in knowledge, understanding, and potential. These are truly special times and special young men!

Even though we were a small group, it was really special. The Lord even revealed how the ordinations should proceed to give them a chance to use the priesthood they were receiving. Robert’s older brother Rogerio first ordained him to be a Priest. Then Robert conferred the Aaronic Priesthood upon his nephew, Felipe, and ordained him to the office of a Deacon.  Alyson then ordained Matheus to the office of a Priest. It was the first time any of them had had the privilege of ordaining another person to an office in the priesthood. I stood next to each of them as they performed the ordinance and whispered into their ears the words that they should use to perform it correctly. It was a very sweet experience and they were so excited to have that opportunity to help one another.

 Rogerio and Robert

 Robert and Felipe

Suellen (Felipe's mom), Felipe, Rogerio and Robert

Alyson and Mateus

Curt had all of the men in the group stand in the circle, because he wanted them to use the power of the Priesthood.  We have 3 men that could be ready to be ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood sometime this year.

I often think about a training we had from then Elder Nelson when Curt was called to be a counselor in a Stake Presidency.  Elder Nelson taught us that as the Priesthood holders in the Stake become more diligent in their calling the Church as a whole will grow stronger.  I hope that will be true with the group in UBA.  After the ordinations they had a dinner to celebrate.

UBA meets in a kind of Forest Preserve Area that we travel on a Ferry (Balsa in Portuguese) to get to.  I think that I have already mentioned to you how lovely it is for us to get out of the big city and go out to the Reserve.  I have included some photos of the Ferry

 

We had a great week this week.  We are starting to get to know our way around our part of São Paulo, and to find the best roads to get us where we want to go without spending a huge amount of time driving.

On Sunday, we went to Claudinho's house, who is part of the UBA Group that we help oversee.  We met his wife Adriana, and also their son Claudio and his wife Adriele.  They are wonderful and we gave Claudio and Adriele a Book of Mormon and taught them how to read and and study it. We also talked to Claudinho and Adriana about eternal marriage ans how their family could be sealed to be together forever.  We began plans to take them to the São Paulo Temple so they can experience the Visitors Center there (opened about a year ago) as well as the Spirit that is present there.  It will help them all begin to visualize how worldwide and amazing the Church is.  They were so kind during our visit and had us join them in a churrasco lunch they were having to celebrate Claudio's birthday.  We forgot to take photos-we'll have to do better!

Each Sunday we attend church and the Sáude Ward and the UBA Group.  Today was Fast Sunday and we both enjoyed both sets of meetings and especially hearing testimonies that were shared.  The youth just returned from their Specially For Youth encampment this past week.  They try to hold a special youth activity each year during Carnaval since the environment in that annual Brazilian celebration generally is not the best.  The youth  had a marvelous time and returned with stronger testimonies and desires to serve missions.

This week in the mission was a little different because it was Carnaval.  In São Paulo that generally means that small businesses are shut down from Monday until Wednesday.  The Grocery stores and Big Box stores are still open though.  Most of the people go out of town to the beach.  But unfortunately it was very rainy, so I don’t think their holiday was quite what they had hoped for.  Curt and I did a lot of planning and organizing.  

On Monday Curt and I went to our District Meeting here in the Sul/Saude Zone. There were two Elders there who had asked Sister Acosta for some shoes.  So I went to the “Bazar” Where we keep the used clothing donations, and found some shoes in pretty good shape.  But when I gave them to the Elders, they weren’t too happy with what I had to offer.  I think they were hoping for some real work shoes, and instead the shoes I gave them were more Sunday shoes. So I’ll have to figure out what Sister Acosta wants me to do.

After that meeting we go a call from The Financial Secretary Elder Mencl, asking us to deliver groceries to some Sister missionaries.  Apparently they didn’t receive any money on their mission debit card, and they couldn’t buy any groceries.  It was raining like crazy and when we found theIr apartment.  The Sisters came out to meet us - soaked from head to toe.  They were so grateful for the groceries but I told them before you do anything else, get out of those wet clothes and dry off. They were so cute.  After that we had to bring home an Elder to our apartment who had sprained his ankle.  He was going to spend the week with the Office Secretaries, but they had gone to to a service project in UBA with the Guarani Indians.  So we fed Elder Lundgreen some dinner, while he waited for his temporary companions to get home.

We celebrated this week because we got an oven and on Thursday a young man came to install it.  So I baked cookies of course.  We also had our first home cooked meal.  It was so great to be able to eat something besides sandwiches for dinner. I know we keep saying that we are mostly moved in, but now I think we can say we’re done shopping for Household items and are completely moved in and settled.

Curt and I were trying to figure out how we could contact the people that Bishop Sa wants us to reactivate.  We decided to send out some emails and some texts to make our first contact with the 4 family’s.  One of the lady’s sent us a text back that day, so we have a date to go meet their family next Wednesday night.  For the other family’s we wrapped up some cookies and made a note with our photo on it and some contact information and planned to take it to their homes.

We were able to visit two families and also set up visits for this next week with several of the families in the Sáude Ward and in the UBA Group.  We are excited to get to know these members and new friends better so that we can understand how we can better support and help them.

Friday afternoon we parked at the Church, and walked 1/2 a block to the first home.  (They always have these wrought iron security gates.). Curt clapped his hands really loud to see if anyone would come out to talk to us.  Nothing.  Tried again, nothing.  So I was reaching through the wrought Iron gate to set the cookies inside when I realized the the gate wasn’t locked.  I went through the carport and set the cookies by their front door.  We felt pretty good about that.  We walked back to the church and were getting in our car to go to the next house, when this man came running into the parking lot calling to us.  It was Eduardo, the man we had left cookies for.  He was very kind and appreciated us coming by.  We set a date to go see he and his wife next Thursday. YAY!

Next we drove to Julio’s house  The information we had didn’t mention his wife Tereza.  But when we arrived at their home Tereza was out hanging up laundry to dry in the yard.  It turns out that their family has many members of the church, and some of them are active.  We invited Julio and Tereza to go to church tomorrow, and Tereza seemed very sure she would go.  So we are hoping they will come and have a great experience.  We still have one more  plate of cookies to deliver today, but we feel like people are very kind and willing to talk to us.

Last night we went to the Fellowship Night at the UBA group.  It was so rainy that we didn’t know if anyone would show up, but we had 20 people there, and 4 were teenagers that are interested in the Church.  It was so dark and wet that I already have my rain boots and my flashlight set out to put in the car.  Tomorrow we are going back to UBA for Church and I am hoping that we can go visit some less active members there before the meeting and invite them to come join us.

We live across the street from a park, so this week Curt and I figured out where the entrance gates were, and we have been trying to go walking in the park each morning. 

 

This is a beautiful time of year.  There are Flowering trees everywhere.  The Jacaranda is called Ipe here, and we’ve seen yellow and purple Ipe trees.  The orange tree is called Flamboyant.  The pink flowering bush is the Brazilian Plume.

This is one of our favorite trees.  The Ficus Religiosa.  We see it a lot when we are out driving in the city.  It is planted in the median between the lanes of traffic and the roots are overflowing past the curb and into the pavement.

Curt and I are learning how to use WhatsApp.  It is a phone service that is very popular here for texting, and especially group texts, Cell calls, and for Video chats.  If you download the app, you can call us or text us for free.  Just use our US phone numbers it works great. Just remember we are 4-5 hours ahead of you.

I hope you all have a terrific week!

Weeks 3-4: February 9 - February 23

We’ve had 2 more very busy weeks! We have met all the missionaries in the mission now by accompanying Pres. and Sister Acosta to the Leadership Council and all of the Zone Conferences held in the mission the past week and a half. In all, the 12 zones came to 3 Zone Conferences. They were great and the Acosta’s asked both Val and I to share some training with the missionaries. It felt a lot like being back in the mission in Porto Alegre Sul, but I didn’t have to prepare all of it or be in charge. I liked it! 😊

We were able to go back out to the UBA Group on both Friday and Sunday. We already LOVE those wonderful Saints. They are humble, loving, and pioneers in every sense of the word. There are some strong families and individuals who faithfully come to everything. We are going to start working more with the Elders assigned there, Elder Christensen and Elder Florentino, to go visit both members who need a little move “carinho” (love and affection), as well as those to whom they are teaching the lessons. The picture below is our friend Claudinho. He has been a member for about a year and we are going to visit he and his wife and children (mostly grown) one of the upcoming Sundays to get to know their family better. We hope to make a difference in the Group and help to make it grow stronger and larger!  

We went to visit Bishop Sã of the Saúde Ward on Sunday afternoon and he provided us with a list of those members that he’d like us to go visit to help strengthen and, in some cases, reactivate them. We hope to get started on these visits in the next few days. The Sã's also invited us over for lunch on Saturday with the 2 Sisters in the ward, Sisters Risende and Az. It was fun to get to spend more time with them. 

Another fun thing happened while we were at church on Sunday in the Saúde Ward. We have been anticipating running into some of our returned missionaries from the Brasil Porto Alegre Sul Mission where we served 11 years ago. I was talking to a member at church before the meeting started, and heard, “Presidente, o que está fazendo aqui?!” (President, what are you doing here?!). I looked up and Elder David Godoy was standing in front of me! He was part of the first group of missionaries that completed their mission when we first arrived in 2009. It was fun to catch up with him. He will be in our ward staying with extended family for 6 months. We hope to run into others in the weeks/months to come!  

We returned to meet with the Riberão Pires Zone this week and enjoyed their District Council (formerly known as District Meeting) with them. The Zone Leaders, Elder Hunter and Elder Borge, are doing a great job and working hard to lead the zone. We had one of “those” days in the São Paulo traffic – it took us nearly 3 hours to get to the meeting, and normally should take 45-60 minutes. I’ve got to trade in this manual shift car and get an automatic – the shifting is wearing out my left foot! But we are finding better ways to get around the traffic on better roads, so we're learning! 😊

We did return to Riberão Pires on Sunday evening for the baptism of Rosilane and her daughter Gabriela. It was wonderful to see 2 more of Heavenly Father’s children come into the Church. They were from the Valentina Group that is part of the Riberão Pires Stake and the bishop, group leader, and Primary president did a terrific job of welcoming them to the group/ward. Elders M. Silva and John are doing a great work there! 

We’ve just about got our cute little apartment furnished now. So far we’ve purchased a kitchen table and 4 chairs, a 2-person recliner (for those days where a 15 minute nap would be good at lunchtime!), an oven/range, a microwave, a bed and linens, bedside stands, curtains, storage cabinets for the kitchen, bathroom, and storage room, and a bazillion other smaller items. We finally got the internet hooked up, and hopefully our fogão (oven) will be hooked up to gas on Thursday so that we can actually have a hot meal that’s not made in our only appliance that heats food at this point – a “sanduicheira” (small sandwich grill). Wish us luck!!

The weather in São Paulo is pretty consistent – clear skies in the morning and then by early afternoon, it clouds up and pours buckets! Since arriving in Brazil 3 weeks ago, we’ve only had 1 day that didn’t have rain. There doesn’t seem to be a lack of “moisture” in this part of the world!  But when the sun is shining, we have a beautiful view from our apartment. 😊

We went to Outback Steakhouse on Saturday (there are several in the São Paulo area) and had a nice meal with Élder and Sister Mencl, who serve in the office as financial secretaries, and with Pres. Fabian Gonçalvez (2nd Counselor in the mission presidency) and his wife Patrícia. It was fun to get to know them better - they're all terrific people and friends already! 

We’re loving serving together and hope to make a difference this week in the work the Lord has given to us to do. We wish for each of you an ótima semana!! (a great week!)

Our love and a grande abraço,

Élder and Síster Swenson

2/23/2020

I’m a week late in getting my email off to you all.  We are still in the middle of getting settled here in São Paulo.  Each day is different from the rest except for the fact that by the end of the day we are pretty darn tired.  Its good to be needed though and good to feel like you have something to offer in the work of the Lord.

We checked out of the Ibis Hotel on February 11th.  We thought the bed we bought would be delivered  that day - part of it was.  We have been sleeping on our mattress on the floor, but the rest of the bed should be delivered today.  We will feel so luxurious when we have a real bed to sleep on.  This is the apartment building we are living in.  We are on the 10th floor.

We have lots of people tying to help us with everything.  The apartment that we are living in was the apartment of the Office Secretaries. It is in the building right next to our Mission Office.  Sister Acosta bought all sorts of things for us, bedding, bath towels, plates, silverware, Iron and ironing board, blender, sandwich grill, etc.  It felt like Christmas.

They also asked the handyman Rodney, and Elizabet  his wife(who work for the mission) to come and get everything clean and beautiful.  They whitewashed all the walls and waxed and shined up the wood floors.  He also installed new kitchen cupboards, hot water faucet in the kitchen etc. We’ll take pictures when its all done.

Living in Brazil is a little different from the USA because you usually have to buy storage cupboards for your kitchen and bathroom, and sometimes bedroom. Our apartment has big built in closets in the bedrooms, but we brought some kits and Curt has been putting together more storage for the different rooms.  In the last week we have had  a washer/dryer (one machine), a stove, a recliner, a desk and chairs, Kitchen table and chairs, all delivered.  

These are the cool dining chairs we bought with rhinestones.

We were super duper excited to find the double recliner at Sam’s Club here and it got deliver yesterday.  Boy oh boy did it feel good after a long day.  Sam’s Club also had peanut butter which is a rare find here. So all in all we are feeling comfortable and getting a pretty good nights rest.  

This is the view from outside of our window.

One interesting thing about where we live is that we are very near Congonhas Airport which is in the center of São Paulo.  They have flight restrictions that there are no flights taking off or landing before 6:00am and after 10:30pm - which is very funny in a way because it forces us to live the missionary schedule, which means waking up at 6:00am and going to bed at 10:00am.  At first when we moved in, the roar of the airplane engines seemed super loud, but we were getting used to it now . . . . Or as the Brazilians would say “the Gente is adapting”. (They use 3rd person for themselves on a regular basis.)

This time of year, we wake up everyday and it is sunny then after lunch the clouds get heavy and at about 3:00pm the rain starts.  Sometimes there is some terrific thunder and lightning as well.  The people don’t even to mind though, they still keep up business as usual.  I don’t see very many people using umbrellas either.  They just dry off eventually.

As far as missionary work goes.  We think we have some good ideas of how we can serve. After we get our WiFi we will be able to access the addresses of the missionary apartments and go do some unscheduled inspections.  We are also hoping to bake some bread or some cookies and take them to some less active members of the Saude Ward and the Uba group, and invite them to come join us.  We are almost ready to bake as soon as our oven gets hooked up to gas.

The last two weeks our President has been holding Mission leader Councils and Zone Conferences.  I really loved one of the videos that the Assistants showed as an example of missionaries helping each other to succeed.

Check it out:

https://youtu.be/liCRrheKIOI

President and Sister Acosta invited Curt and I to say a few things during the training.  Sister Acosta’s topic was obedience, and specifically she wanted me to talk about getting along with your companion.  So I spoke to the missionaries about the Celestial Principles they are learning in the mission - learning to love and respect people in spite of your differences.  And that in fact it would prepare them for eternal marriage.  Curt related some stories from our first mission,  about missionaries who didn’t lower their expectations.  they set high goals for themselves.  They continued working in the rain and working until the end of the day, and since they were so faithful and diligent, Heavenly Father blessed them to be able to find and baptize a family.  

At one of the Zone Conferences we met Elder Finlinson, who is from our former Stake in Sandy.  

President Acosta told this story of God asking this man to push a rock.  Each day the man diligently  tried to push the rock up the hill.  He never made any progress.  Finally exhausted, he shared his frustrations with God.  “I’ve tried and tried everyday to do what you asked me, but I will never be able to punch that rock up the hill.”  Then God responded, “ I didn’t ask you to push the rock up the hill, I only asked you to push it.  Now you can see with all of your diligence, humility and effort you have become a strong instrument in the hands of the Lord.

We have also spent some sweet time with our group In Uba, getting to know the members.  We attend Sacrament Meeting with them, and will be going to their weekly fellowshipping meeting tomorrow night,  The group gathers in a Nature Reserve Area, and we get to ride over o a ferry.  It is very nice to get away from this huge city.

Curt is getting to be a really good Brazilian driver.  I don’t drive because our car is a standard transmission, and I never really learned to drive one.  We were surprised to see some antique cars in the garage of the Mission Home.

 

There are some fun names to pronounce around here.  We live in a part of the city called Jabaquara.  We saw a license plate with this city listed: Itquaquecetuba.  I’m guessing that they are Guarani Indian names.  There is a reservation on the Island were the Uba group meets.  The Elders really want to teach some of the indigenous people.  But there is a law that they cannot teach on the reservation, but they could teach if the meet Their investigator outside of the reservation. They asked President Acosta if he could find a Guarani Book of Mormon.

These are some of the young men from the Uba group:

Matheus, Elder Christensen, Renato, Robert, Curt and another Renato.  We spend Friday nights with them in a fellowship meeting, and we attend Sacrament Meeting and the second hour meetings on Sundays. We are also hoping to go visit some less active members this Sunday and invite them to church.

Talk to you next week!