It is such a wonderful experience to be on a mission, or really have any experience in the service of others and the service of the Lord. We are sometimes challenged to our limits, face difficult tasks, and often end up exceeding even our own expectations, with His generous help. I'm not saying that's what we did... :)
Monday, after work in the office, we had our usual FHE with the senior couples and Mom had made turkey noodle soup for the dinner afterward. The lesson this week was about the word "Holy", its origin and some of its uses in the scriptures and in quotes by the brethren. It was a really good lesson, concluding with "Holy, Holy, Holy is my name", and the admonition for us to "Be Holy". Br. McAllister gave the lesson, he`s a great guy (here I wanted to say "I really, really liked him... a lot!", but I totally resisted the temptation.) Dinner afterward was very good, and Mom's soup was excellent. Next week we get to attend a devotional on Monday morning and a Christmas Devotional with the Area Presidency on Tuesday.
On Tuesday after work, Mom walked back over to the church with the other sisters for a Relief Society activity, for which she had made cheesecake. My sugar registered at 95 (Yea!) so you can see that I didn't get any of it. :( I've lost a bit over ten pounds since we got here - I guess being sick for about a week does have it's advantages!
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| This is a big tree on a building downtown. Christmas is in full swing. |
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| And, not to be outdone... Our Christmas Lights are up! |
Of course, Thursday began a new month and with it came new resolve and determination on our part to be more strict with ourselves (no, it was Mom's idea!) on all the little things like getting up, studying, focusing on being more healthy and more spiritual, etc. We got a new assignment at work - cleaning up a lot of old issues with travel documents, etc. Basically, we got assigned a busy-work task that no one else wanted to do. So we jumped on it and I would guess we have almost half of it done already! They probably thought it would take us a few weeks (until the end of the year) to finish it up, but they haven't seen us in focused action. With the new month came also the 25 days of service from mormon.org so we started by inviting people to watch the video. We had dinner at a burger joint just up the block from us called "Stump Burger", which is a little better than "Trump Burger", if you know what I mean. The food was great, it was the first time we had eaten there but won't be the last.
We finished up the week attending the temple after work on Friday and ran into Elder William from the Cuiaba mission. It was fun to see him again and chat for a bit. We also finished up responses to an article for the Liahona here in Brazil. I guess it's a little blurb for just the issues in Brazil, but I'm not sure because the lady talked to Mom about doing it... so I did it. Anyway, we may become famous, again. We'll try to get a copy so we can post some of it later on.
I wanted to sleep in on Saturday but I woke up at 6:00am and could't sleep so I got up and finished up our monthly update - so if you're feeling like you don't have time, 6:00am is usually free time. :) Later that day we went to see a Christmas concert by a wonderful choir here in Sao Paulo. The concert was super good, and was a great beginning (or in our case, middle) for the Christmas season. Afterward we stopped at a high-scale mall here in the city, but couldn't afford to buy anything. Actually I bought a little chocolate thingy (imagine a combination of a donut and the shape of a hotdog), and found it to be quite delicious - it was also filled with chocolate cream, and only cost about $3.00.
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| The Hall where the concert was held was very upscale.. I hope you can see it. |
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| This is Sister Sonderegger and Mom and the Choir conductor |
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| Picture of the Choir - they were excellent! |
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| This was at the mall afterward - Squirrels and Christmas, who knew?! |
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| A couple more squirrels, oh, and one behind us! :) |
Today we went out to our new ward assignment in Perdizes. It was very nice and the people were awesome and very welcoming. The bishop is very excited to have us there. OK, you'll like this - one of the Brazilian sisters (who is moving to Orem by the way) got up and said that she had prayed us there to help with people needing help in the ward. It was quite touching. I got up and did a quick intro and testimony since it was fast Sunday - this was before the lady said that, otherwise I don't think I would have ventured it.
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| A view of the hill we walk up to go to Church now. |
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| Another view of the hill - the pics don`t do it justice. It's like walking up Lombard Street, three times! |
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| This is the chapel, it's quite small. The ward was organized in 1961 the same year Mom and I were baptized! |
Love to all,
The Church is True and we are so happy to be a part of this great and wonderful work!
Dad and Mom
This is the first time I've been on the blog. Luckily I have nothing to do so I can totally spend my whole day catching up :)
ReplyDeleteIt seems a little early for Groundhog Day references...but I guess if you're famous again you can do whatever you want. :) Love you, love the squirrels.