June 2018 Update

Time seems to fly by very quickly. Since we work in the office Monday through Friday, there is not a whole lot to write about. One Saturday we went with a group of other Senior Couples to a little town outside Sao Paulo called Embu das Artes. It is about an hour bus ride (free for seniors) outside the city. It is a town where many local artisans sell their wares in a large area in the center of town. Here are some pictures of what we saw.

 There were some very interesting paintings.

 This was a stand where the person had used old record albums to make some beautiful looking clocks.

 This is what the back side of the clock looks like.

 After walking around for a little while, we all stopped at a little shop for lunch.

Our friends, Vanessa and Ricardo Nacarado, have four cats, two of them kittens. We love to visit them and play with their kittens. 

 We had a baptism in the ward we attend.  This young lady is named Isabeli.

 This is one family that feeds the missionaries every fast Sunday. They are poor but are so loving and generous. We always take a jello fruit salad, cookies and guarana to add to the meal.

 They have hammock and chairs on their porch that we enjoyed.

They live in a very poor area, but have a "nice" view over the neighborhood.

We were able to meet with one of the former Sister missionaries, Danny de Paula, that we knew from our last mission. We took her to lunch and she asked us to be Padrastos at her wedding. She has eight couples that will walk down the isle before her at the chapel wedding. Her fiance is from Chile, who served a mission in her home area when she was on her mission in Gramado. She will have a church wedding in Sao Paulo, a second chapel wedding in Vinho del Mar Chile (where his family lives), and a temple marriage in the Santiago Chile temple. Heidi has to find a dark red (wine colored) dress for the wedding on July 7th. Ken will be wearing a matching tie.

 In the local shopping mall across from the area office where we work, they have a display of dinosaurs to promote the next Jurassic World movie. 

Five stakes here near the temple had their youth put on road shows one night, with each stake acting scenes from a Broadway musical. The five were Sound of Music, Anastasia, The Wizard of OZ, High School Musical and Hairspray. We were blown away by the singing, dancing, costumes and enthusiasm of the youth. They did a marvelous job, and we loved every minute of it.

We celebrated our 48th wedding anniversary with another couple, Scott and Terry Olsen, that have their anniversary on the same day. We went to Outback Steak House and the food was wonderful. We will celebrate our 49th here on our mission as well. We will be home for our 50th and are planning a cruise around the Hawaiian Islands, where we met, with all our kids and spouses in 2020.