Late Fall in Gramado

Even though it is late fall going into winter here we can still find hydrangeas and love to have them in our condo.  Here are some pictures of the arrangements that we have in the house now with the different varieties and colors.

 

 

There was a sweater fair in Novo Petropolis, a town about 20 miles from Granados, so we drove over to check it out.  We each bought a sweater there.  The fair was held inside a huge building and all the different manufacturers had booth set up next to each other, and we walked around checking them all out.  There must have been about 50 different booths.  We had to take a picture of the manikins at one of the booths to show you the style they are wearing here now.  We don't know if this style has already appeared in the U.S. Notice the leggings they are wearing.

 

We were looking for a lost member when we passed a cute little house that is beautifully decorated so we had to take a few pictures.

 Notice the sign in German.  There is a lot of German influence in this town.

We thought it was interesting that in the yard they used some old bathtubs for flower beds.

 



They also had a poinsettia tree in the yard.  We had never seen a whole poinsettia tree before.

 

 

We are amazed at how they build houses on stilts here.  It is a amazing how fragile the foundations look.  What if they had an earthquake? 

 

Here is another one on stilts.

 

The missionaries have a very small allowance here and when one came to our district meeting with his hair kind of long because he didn't have enough money to go to the barber, Heidi invited him right over for a hair cut.  

 

 

Last Saturday night we had a party in our branch. In Brazil during the month of June they have a celebration that the country people started, so everyone dresses up country style and has a good time.  Here are some pictures of the party.

 

We had a baptism yesterday for Irma Sonia.  She is the mother of Luisane Kemerich who we recently activated.

 

 

Heidi attended a "cha" or tea for inactive members and investigators that live in Tres Coronas, a city about 20 miles from Gramado.  She had a fun time fellowshipping these people in the house of the Petropolis Branch President..







May Activities



 

Once a week we have a missionary district meeting.  There are four Elders in our Gramado District and usually one of the Zone leaders participates in the district meeting with us.  The Elders love having Sister Copa in their meetings because she always provides snacks.  Usually it is fruit, deviled eggs, and cookies or cake. Brazilians don't know about deviled eggs and most just love them.  The Elders do a lot of roll playing during the meetings.  Here the Elders are talking about the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham.

 Once every transfer we have a Zone meeting with the other three districts in our Zone, Canela, San Francisco de Paula, and Taquara.  Then about every two or three months we have interviews with President and Sister Wright for all the Elders in our Zone.  Here is the latest picture of all the missionaries in the Zone with President and Sister Wright.

We love the hydrangeas and can still find several blooming.  They were just starting to bloom when we arrived in October and bloomed all summer.  Now that it is late in the fall there are only a few, and we love to have them in our condo.  Here is a sample of  several of the different colors we get here.

 Sister Copa went to what the Brazilians call a "cha de fralda" (diaper tea), which is a baby shower. This was one put on by the relief society of the Petropolis branch for an expectant mother.

They played games, like feeding each other baby food while being blind folded. 

There were lost of presents and stuffed animals.

Heidi and I went recently to visit a hotel on the outskirts of town.   The grounds are beautiful so we walked all around.

 

 

They also have an exhibit of exotic birds on display there.

 There was also a cute rabbit there.

 We had a beautiful sunset that day.



 

We heard about another hotel out in the country that we wanted to check out as well.  Here are some pictures of that one.

 

 

 

 

 

The surroundings were beautiful and they had some animals also.

 

 

We drove back home through the countryside and saw logs piled beside the road.

 

The road wound around and came out by Snowland.