Mission 2 - Week 23

Hello to all, we hope that you are enjoying life as much as we are (or more would also be OK)...

The weeks seem to be shorter, perhaps because we are not wondering in the Pantanal, perhaps because we are aging, or perhaps because in the US you just lost an hour to Daylight Savings!!

Sunday - We went to our ward in Perdizes as usual, but ended up taking another bus with a member - it meant walking quite a ways to the building, but we still made it on time.  The HP group leader asked me to teach the lesson in Priesthood at the last minute - but it all went well and there was good participation.  It was on teaching in the church so I used the new Inservice manual.  Then we were invited over to the Burkes for dinner since they are leaving, their mission ends next week.  They have been giving us a bunch of stuff from the US, and a bunch of pots and pans, etc. that we can use.  Oh, they also gave us a prized possession here - a crock pot!  It was a very nice dinner and we will miss them, they are our next door neighbors in our apartment building.  I finished up the Pantanal pictures (previous blogs) and we Skyped with the older kids.

Monday - Office, then FHE.  Andersons "taught" the lesson, but actually we just sang several songs and it was fun.  The meal afterward was good, as usual.

Tuesday - Office, then we taught our English class.  We have a bunch of people coming now, this week we had 10 people and 5 of them were new to the class.  I still have people coming that I've met on the Hello Talk app on my phone, which is cool.

Wednesday - Office, then went to the temple (which will be closed for 2 weeks!), always enjoyable.  Oh, today we got approval (officially) to travel to Rio in a couple weeks with the Sondereggers since they will be leaving in a month.  We also got approval to travel with the Rebers when they come down for mission reunions in the North (Recife), Central (São Paulo), and South (Porto Alegre).  We've made all the travel arrangements and reservations, etc. so it's going to be a blast seeing them and the Cuiabá missionaries again!

Thursday - Office, had to rescue 3 Elders from the Rio mission who almost had their visas expire.  It's funny (not Ha Ha) that in the 5 months we've been here we've had to bring in five Elders from missions throughout Brazil... oh wait, ALL 5 that we have brought in were from the Rio de Janeiro Mission, no others!  Sad when a mission president gets trunky... (home in June).  After work on Thursdays I help Jouber (guy in our department) with GRE study and it's been fun - mostly Math and Algebra review.  Then after study we walked down to a bank to pay for one of our Rio tours and I got a couple good sunset shots - not like John's, but really who does get shots like John's anyway?!

I couldn't get it without the light post - so I put it in the middle!

Just grabbed this on our way back from the bank - very
pretty purple sky

Friday - Office, after work it was really raining hard.  When we got to the exit doors at the back of the Area Office, everyone was just waiting for the rain to die down.  So, what did we do?  We got out our umbrellas and proceeded out the door - to their astonishment, and we got soaked!  It was really fun, but we did get pretty wet in the three blocks to our apartment.  Here is a picture at the side of the area office - look at the water running down the steps, it was a river.

The rain was crazy, we had to walk through a couple
rivers on the way home!

Saturday - We stayed in most of the day, didn't need to shop, and we did need to clean.  Later in the afternoon we took Burkes for their last dinner at Outback (last dinner here in Brazil, that is).  We were all supposed to split their bill and pay for them, but it ended up being Mom and I that payed for them - thanks for the experience!

Elder Burke, Us, Sondereggers, Sister Cox at Outback

Love to all,
The Church is True
Dad and Mom