A Time to Give Thanks

After living in a foreign country for a while, we really feel so blessed to be Americans. Most Americans seem to take for granted all that there is in the United States and don't know how blessed they are to have the things we have there. Seeing how other people live and the things they have to do without, helps us give thanks to the Lord for all He has blessed us with so abundantly. There are people from the Ward we attend here that live in housing like these pictures.

Notice the nice cars some of them have. We are amazed at the contrast between the housing and the cars.

These people do not know what it is like to live in a house that has a yard with grass, trees and flowers. They live in tiny little rooms with neighbors on both sides and above or below. We hope you all take time this Thanksgiving to express your gratitude to our Heavenly Father for blessing all of us in America with so much.

We go to a family's house every Sunday after church to have dinner with the family that is feeding the missionaries that day. We always bring lots of food for the dinner. The members live in such poor surroundings, but they are so loving and generous. We love our Ward and the members there. This is a picture of the Elders in our Ward in front of one of the houses where we have dinner. One evening after a Ward Family Home Evening, the Elders left early to go to an appointment. They were robbed at gun point of their cell phone and watches. We don't walk around these neighborhoods and always have a car that we rent from the church pool for the week-ends.

The ward we attend is part of the Campo Limpo Stake. The stake relief society recently put on a cultural night. Each ward in the stake was assigned a region of Brazil where there currently are temples. The ward relief societies then had to come up with a dance routine that would be representative of the culture of that area of Brazil. It was a fun and entertaining night to watch the different dances.

Ken's birthday was celebrated throughout the day. In the morning all the people that work on our floor of the Area Office held a party in the auditorium singing Para Bens (Happy Birthday) and providing a birthday cake. In the afternoon several of the other Senior couples came by and sang Happy Birthday and had another cake. Then in the evening all the Senior couples got together to welcome a new couple that had just arrived and they all sang Happy Birthday to Ken again. So there was a lot of celebrating going on that day.

We went one Saturday morning to a high mountain peak here in Sao Paulo that has great views over the city. There are two peaks side by side, both having communication towers on top. It was a hazy day, so we could not see too far. This first picture is looking up at one of the peaks, then the others are views from the top.

There are 252 steps to get to the very top of the peak we were climbing.

This is a picture of Roger and Linda Ketcheson from Orem, Utah. They were with us on our hike up the mountain peak. We are very blessed to work with about 18 other senior couples here on our mission in Sao Paulo. We have lots of fun adventures with them.

In the trees around the church office building where we work we always see these small green parrots. In the evenings they make a lot of racket as they come to roost in the trees around the temple. They know a good place when they see it.

We live just across the street a block from the Sao Paulo Temple. We love to be so close to a temple and we attend a session every Tuesday after we get off from work. The Temple is such an oasis in the middle of this huge city. You can see our apartment buildings in the left background of this picture.

Every week Heidi's favorite job has been receiving from Salt Lake all the mission calls for Brazilian missionaries and sending them out to their stake presidents. 

 This was the last week for her to do that. We just received word that starting next week the calls will all be sent by email, so no more mailing out of mission calls.

Spring Update

The month of September flew by so fast we don't know where it went. Being in the Southern Hemisphere, spring starts the 21st of September. The winter here in Sao Paulo is not too cold, mostly having lows in the 40's and 50's. We had some beautiful 80 degree weather at times as well.

All the American couples took a two hour trip to a place called Holambra. It was started as a Dutch colony after World War Two and has some American and Brazilian influence, so the name combines Holland, American and Brazil, Holambra. Every year they have a big flower festival in the Spring. It was very crowded like Disneyland. There were some beautiful flower displays.

 These are real roses that they somehow dye to come out in multiple colors

 These are just facades to make it look like a village in Holland.

 There was a youth group performing traditional Holland folk dances.

 We still are amazed by the neighborhood where we go to church on Sunday. The hills are just covered with brick houses built side by side with no yards.

 One Sunday the Elders in our ward wanted to show us where the really poor neighborhood is in our Ward boundaries. This was an area with dirt roads and wooden shacks. The poverty there is extreme, but look at the satellite dish.
 Then there are big beautiful apartment buildings where the middle class lives.

 The second week of September we went to the Campinas temple to attend the wedding of one sister missionary we knew on our last mission in Gramado, Sister Nelson.

 In the little town of Embu das Artes there are many artisans. Here is a picture of one lady doing knitting,. She works so fast you can hardly see her hands move. Heidi has purchased three of her knitted vests from this lady.

There was also a puppy fair going on where they were trying to sell these adorable puppies. Hard to resist these cute little guys.

The department we work in at the office is called the Materials Department. Within Materials is included the Distribution Center. On Monday this week the whole department went to visit the site of the new Distribution Center that is just being completed. It is a very beautiful building and huge inside.

There is a garment factory that is currently in our Area Office Building. It will be moved to this new building in this space. They make garments for all of Brazil.

One of the senior couples that we work with were celebrating their 44th wedding anniversary, so we joined them and two other couples for a night out at a beautiful fondu restaurant called Chatezinho. 

 The atmosphere was  very beautiful.

 We had live music from a man playing the harmonica, and he was very good.

 The food was fantastic and the atmosphere very romantic. Great place to celebrate an anniversary.

Saturday morning before conference, which starts at 1:00 p.m. here, all the senior couples got together for a pot luck breakfast. We had a large variety of food, and we enjoyed each other's company.

Well, life on a mission is wonderful. As you can see, this mission is not like a mission for young missionaries. We work hard during the office hours Monday through Friday, but we have lots of time to enjoy ourselves with the other couples and seeing the sights.