Missionary Life is Wonderful

We are keeping so busy that time just seems to fly by.  We have been doing a lot of visiting with inactive members, some of whom we really love and feel we can get them back into activity. As we drive around this beautiful town we see such beautiful sights.  It is hard to capture them in pictures.  Because Christmas is going strong here we see a barrage of Christmas decorations. This is the Saint Peter Cathedral in the center of Gramado, and it and all the surroundings are fully decorated for Christmas.

These are statues of the twelve apostles just outside the church. 

This tree is inside the cathedral. 



The street in front of the cathedral is loaded with decorations.

 

 

 

 

 

The street to the side of the cathedral has a whole line of reindeer that have been individually decorated by different people.

 



 

 We have four sister missionaries that work here in Gramado.  This Tuesday was transfer week so on our P-Day Monday we found out that three of the four were being transferred to other locations and we had all of them over for lunch and, of course we had to teach them to play Qwirkle. Here are the pictures of the four and around our table for lunch and Qwirkle. 

Sister Alves is from Brasilia, Sister Aidukaites is from Virginia, Sister Lorenco is from Fortaleza, and Sister Cuaycal is from Ecuador.  Heidi made a delicious Brunswick Stew for our farewell lunch.

They have a street here that they tried to make look crooked like Lombard Street in San Francisco. It is hard to see in this picture but it curves back and forth all the way down the hill.

 

Some interesting things we have noticed here:

• The town of Gramado is small enough that the are no stop lights, only traffic circles, like the one in the picture above.  Not everyone obeys the rule that the person in the intersection has the right of way, and so they try and force themselves in and make everyone else wait for them.  If you are not aggressive and get right out in the circle they will keep coming from other sides and not let you in. It is really fun to be in a town so small that they don't need street lights.
• Houses are painted in lots of bright colors and mostly are small.  We have also seen some neighborhoods where there are mansions and others where all we can see is the front gate and a driveway winding into the thick vegetation.  We can only imagine what the houses look like back in those areas.