Weeks 1-2: January 27 - February 8, 2020

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Hello All!

We're here in São Paulo and have had a great Weeks 1 and 2 of our mission! We spent Week 1 in the Provo MTC during the day and then we flew from Salt Lake City on Monday, 2/3 through Atlanta, and arrived in São Paulo on Tuesday morning. We then met with all of the other newly arriving missionaries from Brazil and the U.S. at the Bosque da Saúde chapel and had a standing ovation welcome from the 50 or so missionaries present - it was very amazing and made us feel immediately at home! They were very excited to receive a missionary couple to help them with the work. 

We've met with President and Sister Acosta several times and they are terrific and doing a wonderful work in leading the mission. They will finish their mission in June and are preparing for the arrival of Pres. and Sister Hirschi from Rexburg. We've met all the office missionaries and assistants and they are also great. Pres. Acosta has already given us several areas that he would like us to focus on:

• Attend church in the Saúde Ward (also the Acosta's ward) and help the bishop with reactivation of members of the ward. We'll attend church there on Sunday 2/9 for the first time to meet the bishop and get started.
• Work with the stake president of the Riberão Pires Stake and the zone serving in that stake to reactivate members and help those that are actively coming to provide additional help to the missionaries. We have already met with the zone leaders and will meet with the stake president on Sunday afternoon, 2/9 to begin to understand how we can support him and the members of the stake and accelerate the work forward.
• Help oversee a small group, called the UBA Group, to grow and be strengthened. This group meets in a remote part in the south part of the mission near a very large reservoir called "Represa Billings." To arrive at the group meetings, held at a members home, you need to travel south from São Paulo and take a small 40 car open ferry into an area that is very "jungly" (i.e. they have monkeys and say that there are jaguars in some of the areas). We visited there on Friday night with Pres. Acosta so that he could introduce us to the two Elders working in the area and attend a "Night of Integration/Seminary" that they hold each Friday evening with all members and friends that would like to come. We had a WONDERFUL time with these amazing Saints. There were 15 total in attendance and we are already growing to love these new friends. We're planning with the Elders on how we can help them find and bring home others who haven't been coming. We will attend their church services on Sundays in the afternoon and the Friday night integration/seminary meetings most weeks. I'll post some pictures in the coming weeks when we're their during the day - beautiful jungle forest all around. He was very shy until I put my nametag on him, and now we are best buds. Fun!!!

• Help in overseeing the "Bazar." That is what Sister Acosta calls the storeroom in which she stores clothes donated by the departing missionaries that can be used by missionaries still serving in the mission - shirts, ties, shoes, dresses, pants, etc. All donated by the missionaries to be used by the missionaries. Val had created the "Sister Swenson Store" in the mission office when we served in Porto Alegre, so she is excited to do a similar thing here in the São Paulo South Mission.
• Visit the houses/apartments of all the missionaries in the mornings from time to time to study with them and do an impromptu "inspection" of how they're doing in maintaining the apartment. This will be fun and we have our first "surprise" visit on Monday afternoon in Riberão Pires. :-)
• Val will help Sister Acosta with missionary health needs as needed from time to time. She has plenty of experience with that! We are having dinner with the Area Medical missionaries at the Acosta's on Friday 2/14 to meet them and get started on that.

This next week we will attend Zone Conferences throughout the week, as well as a Leadership Council and a District Council. It'll be a busy week meeting all the missionaries in the mission!

That about covers it! We're already very busy, driving around in the crazy traffic in São Paulo in our rented car (we're hoping to receive a Church-owned vehicle, but nothing on that yet), and having a great time. We are still staying in a hotel temporarily while they put the finishing touches (cleaning, painting, new furniture, etc.) on the apartment that the secretaries and assistants have been living in, and they have moved all of their furniture, etc., to a new rented house nearby. Our apartment is very nice and is immediately next door to the mission office. We hope to move in on Tuesday 2/11, and then somehow find some time to get it furnished, final cleaning, and arranged.. Wish us luck!

That's all for this week. We are already having many experiences that are strengthening our love of our Savior and His beautiful gospel that He has brought to us. We are grateful to be in His service.

Our love, 

Elder and Sister Swenson