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!