Mission 2 - Week 33

OK, I'm not sure if we're catching up or getting behind little by little...
Monday we went over to the office early for a special devotional meeting with the Young Ambassadors from BYU.  It was awesome, and they sang a few songs in Portuguese, to the great pleasure of the mostly-Brazilian crowd.  They bore testimony and shared sacred experiences, three of the group were missionaries that had served in Brazil - they helped the others with the pronunciation and some translation.  It was soooo good.  Afterward, I went up to the American that "hates" BYU and said, "It just makes you hate BYU even more doesn't it?!" (What?!  I said it with a smile.)  He said, "It was good, but it still doesn`t change my opinion!"  Wow, seriously?Anyway, let's move on.  FHE that night was presented by Elder Schoiser, they are one of the Brazilian couples that meet with us.  It was very nice, about the PR work that they do throughout all of Brazil.  He told the story of a young man that came into the church by helping on one of the big service projects - Helping Hands (Mãos que Ajudam, here in Brazil).  His father was a minister in the Assembly of God church, but when his son decided to serve a mission the father was very proud of him and would tell all his congregations, "My son is a full-time Mormon Missionary!"  The cool part was that when the son returned home from his honorable mission, as promised in his Patriarchal Blessing, he baptized the rest of his family into the church - including his father (who had to change professions!).
Tuesday was a busy day trying to get things done before our big mission reunion trip with the Rebers.  We were able to score some really nice VIP tickets to the Young Ambassador performance (thanks to Elder Schoiser!) so we cut our English class a little short and took off for the Arena where it wass being held.  Traffic was crazy so we combined Uber, walking, subway, Uber, and walking to get there.  But we made it a half-hour before the performance, so it all turned out great.
This is a link to some of their Belem performance here in Brazil:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGfISA_ffqM
Try it, it might work... (try cut and paste if it doesn't)
Anyway, the performance was fantastic and the crowd just went crazy when they would start singing in Portuguese.  One of the girls started singing over the Rainbow in English then started the second verse in Portuguese and the place went nuts!  It was fantastic, and her pronunciation practically flawless.
Wednesday, the day before the big trip, we hurried home after work and finished up our packing - meeting the Rebers at the airport here in São Paulo and flying up to Recife.  We also moved all of our stuff (well, most of it) out of the main bedroom so that Rebers could have our room and bed when we passed through São Paulo for the reunions.

I'm going to end this blog here and make the next Blog a full report of our trip with President and Sister Reber - our mission presidents from Cuiabá.

Love to all,
The Church is True (and so are my roommates! - Go BYU!)
Dad and Mom