Tom and MarJean in Brazil: Mission 2

Another fun week in paradise.
Monday - Ricardo was still out of the office (he's our supervisor), did a lot of visa renewal things. We presented the lesson at FHE, it was on the Proclamation on the Family. We showed Mary's video and had groups summarize parts of the proclamation - in English and Portuguese. It was nice and went well, thanks to Mom's good preparation (she even made a Prezi presentation on the computer!)
Tuesday - Office work, Ricardo is back but Cristina and Daniel left today to oversee trips by Elder Christofferson and Robbins (of the 70). We weren't able to teach our English class because they shut down the church building for security purposes as Elder Christofferson was going to speak later at a Fireside. We watched the Fireside for the stake (on-line at the Salisbury apt so as not to take up space in the very crowded stake center) and it was wonderful. All the talks were excellent - we heard from Br. and Sis. Robbins and Elder and Sister Christofferson. Br. Robbins had a son and a daughter that served in Recife, Brazil.
Wednesday - today's highlight was a special devotional with Elder Christofferson, for all the employees and volunteers in the Area Office. It was also fantastic. One of the talks was on the two important verbs, "To Do" and "To Be", how both are very important in the church, but "To Be" is far more important as we need to change ourselves to become more Christlike in all our doing. Elder Christofferson talked about how scripture study teaches children to hear the voice of the Lord. He also talked about taking up your cross - every day. No temple because it's closed this week.
Thursday - Before we went to the office, we found out it was Jouber's birthday. He's probably the one we work with the most and he's a super nice guy. I help him with his math study for the GRE every week. I took him my new Van Heusen shirt, which was exactly his size so he was pretty excited as it's very hard to get those shirts here in Brazil. After work we met with Elder Freire (from Cuiabá) and his girlfriend and had dinner over at Spoletos (Italian) in the mall. It was a lot of fun getting to know them even better.
Friday - Saint Patrick's Day! I wore a green tie and mom wore a green blouse... just so you know. After work we went to dinner and a movie with the Sondereggers and Sister Cox. We saw King Kong and ate at Manias Churrasco, both were very good. Burkes, the couple that lived next to us, left to go home today and we will miss having them around. They left us a ton of stuff, a lot of kitchen things, and other fun stuff as well.
Saturday - Up a little early to cook French Toast for the mission office Elders of the West mission. We invited Sondereggers over because we had so much food, then went with them to Embu to pick up a painting that they had commissioned painted - it was of an old train station in downtown São Paulo, back at the time before Elder Sonderegger was here on his mission as a young man. After that we went to the "Sacred Art" museum here (which happens to be by the same old train station!). The museum has a collection of religious items salvaged from churches throughout Brazil. Most of them are Catholic art works, since it's the predominant religion here.

Breakfast with the São Paulo West Mission Elders

Sacred Art Museum 1

Sacred Art Museum 2

Sacred Art Museum 3

Sacred Art Museum 4

I loved this one, using the tongue to support the bar...

This was out in the garden area of the museum

"Our Lady of Pain" - no wonder, right?

Sunday - went to our assignment in the Perdizes Ward, where there are still some people calling me "President"! After church we went to Hélio and Nora's place for lunch. He is the High Priest group leader. The food was good, but the ride to their house was awesome! An older brother in the ward that usually falls asleep in High Priests, gave us a ride to their house. He's about 80 years old (no kidding), but he drives like... well, like me sometimes. He was zipping in and out of traffic, just missing other cars, it was just kind of laughable because he was driving a bright red little sports car.