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.