We are lucky now to have two other American couples in our area. David and Ann Egbert were on a mission in the Gramado and Canela area from 2011 to 2013. They finished their mission at the some time Ken and Heidi took a mission reunion tour in April of 2013, and the Egberts joined us on that tour. They were influential in our decision to come to Gramado on our mission. David's brother Merl and his wife Kathleen were also on the tour. After David and Ann were home for a year they decided to come back to Canela for another six months as tourists, but to do the same things they did as missionaries. Merl and Kathleen decided to come and spend the time with them, even though they did not know any Portuguese. So we now have these two couples to do fun things with on P-days. Two weeks ago we went to the Caracol waterfalls on P-day with the Egberts and four missionaries from Canela. Before arriving at the Caracol waterfalls we stopped at a park where we had a view over a beautiful valley with a river running through the bottom. It is called Parque dos Paredoes.
We then arrived at Caracol and took these beautiful pictures.
There is a set of 730 steps that go down the side of the mountain to get a closer look at the falls. We took the steps down and Heidi was the first one back up to the top, beating all the young Elders.
These are the four Elders that were with us for that day.
After returning to the top we hiked up above the falls to see some beautiful spots along the river.
While walking along the trail by the river we saw a big monkey up in the trees.
We met a family that were members of the church from Rio de Janeiro and took a picture with them.
There was a cable car ride that took people down where they could get a picture of the falls, but we did not take it.
There are always beautiful hydrangea plants around that add beauty to the scenery.
For P-day this week we took the four Egberts and went to a town about 30 kilometers from Gramado called Novo Petropolis. It also have a very heavy German influence and has a park called the Parque Aldeia dos Imigrante. There is a rebuilt German village from the 1800's there where they try to show what life was like for the people living there.
We took a nice walk through the park to the village enjoying the beautiful scenery.
These are the pictures of the little village. First was a blacksmith shop.
Next came a one room school with the teachers house next to it.
Then there was a little bank, which claims to be the first cooperative bank in South America.
Then there was the Lutheran Church.
There was even a big spider by one of the pictures in the church.
Outside the church was a general store where they were selling some typical German bread and cakes.
We walked back to the park exit past more beautiful scenery.
We then took the Egberts to the park with the maze and we all found the center.
We see some beautiful sunsets here.
Yesterday we took two of our Sister Missionaries to visit a member of their branch that lives about 50 kilometers from Gramado. When we got close, there was a truck accident on the road and sand was spilt all over the road blocking all traffic. We were told it would take them two hours to clean it up and open the road again, so we drove back to Gramado and took the Sisters to a Chinese restaurant. They are both Brazilians and had never had Chinese food before. It was delicious.
