Can't believe it's already February

Time continues to fly by as we are always busy working with the Gramado branch and Gramado District.  The weeks pass by so quickly we just go from one P-Day to the next.  We have been having some success with the work as well.  The Sister missionaries in our district taught Flavio and baptized him after he had attended church two weeks.

The week after he was baptized he was ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood and was given a calling as our branch greeter.  The young man on the right who performed the baptism is Jeferson, and he was just baptized himself last August.  He is now working on filling out his mission papers and will go as soon as he has been a member for a year. 

Heidi has been busy with the Relief Society.  She conducted a Relief Society training meeting on January 25th for the five branch relief society presidents in our district.  One of the things she is helping them with is to not forget even one sister in the relief society.  She started a poster for the Gramado branch and gave poster board and a picture of the Savior with a lamb to each of the other four relief society presidents.  She is taking pictures of all the sisters in our branch (with the help of the visiting teachers) holding the restoration pamphlet, and is putting the pictures on the poster.  Here is a sample of the pictures.  The first is Manuela, the relief society president of the Gramado Branch.

 The next is Rita, an inactive sister we have visited.

And even one of Sister Copa.

 

For the March Relief Society Birthday the relief society presidents have been challenged to take pictures of all their sisters, put them on the poster, and bring them to display at the Birthday event.

 

One P-day we went with the Egberts to visit the Parque da Cachoeira, which is another beautiful park with waterfalls.

The next P-Day we went with the Egberts back to the Zoo and Gaucho Park because the second Egbert couple had not been with us when we went last time.

 This is some of the beautiful scenery around the Zoo and Gaucho park.

 

Since we can't be with our own grandchildren, we also love to play with the Brazilian children.  Here is one example of how cute they are.

 

Heidi and I went to a dance in the Taquara Branch building.  This was a fund raiser for the youth of the branch who are going on a big campout in February.  The church tries to get the youth away from the cities during Carnival (which is like Mardi Gras) because it is such a worldly and carnal time that the youth don't need to be exposed to it.  They had a Hawaiian theme for the dance and the refreshments were all different types of fruit.

We love the Hortencias, hydrangea plants that are the trademark flower of the Gramado region. We cut them regularly and have them around our apartment, and have even bought some silk ones to put on our wreath after taking off the Christmas decorations.  There are some beautiful colors.

 

We took the Sister missionaries from the Petropolis branch to visit an investigator family that lives about 40 miles away.  While driving there we can see a beautiful red field down at the bottom of a valley.  One of the Elders told us it was a field of red flowers.  We decided to drive over to see it on the last trip there.

We could not get too close to the field, but with the zoom on the camera we could see that it wasn't flowers but a red canopy that was protecting the plants underneath.

Sister Rocha, one of the Sisters in the Petropolis branch, wants to go the U.S. and study English for about four months after she finishes her mission this August.  It might work out that she will stay with Kimberly and Eddie during those four months.  Here is what she looks like.

We do a lot of work with the Sister missionaries here really get to love them.  But then they always get transferred away.

This last P-Day we went with the Egberts to Caxias do Sul for lunch and to see the sights.  The main thing we saw there was the Catholic Cathedral.  It is beautiful and we got to take our picture with the retired priest.

 

 This is a picture of the ceiling.

They even have a replica of the Pieta that is well done.

We took a picture of the Mormon chapel while we were there also.



Recent P-Day Activities

We are lucky now to have two other American couples in our area.  David and Ann Egbert were on a mission in the Gramado and Canela area from 2011 to 2013.  They finished their mission at the some time Ken and Heidi took a mission reunion tour in April of 2013, and the Egberts joined us on that tour.  They were influential in our decision to come to Gramado on our mission.  David's brother Merl and his wife Kathleen were also on the tour.  After David and Ann were home for a year they decided to come back to Canela for another six months as tourists, but to do the same things they did as missionaries.  Merl and Kathleen decided to come and spend the time with them, even though they did not know any Portuguese.  So we now have these two couples to do fun things with on P-days.  Two weeks ago we went to the Caracol waterfalls on P-day with the Egberts and four missionaries from Canela.  Before arriving at the Caracol waterfalls we stopped at a park where we had a view over a beautiful valley with a river running through the bottom. It is called Parque dos Paredoes.

 

We then arrived at Caracol and took these beautiful pictures.

 

 

There is a set of 730 steps that go down the side of the mountain to get a closer look at the falls.  We took the steps down and Heidi was the first one back up to the top, beating all the young Elders.

 

 These are the four Elders that were with us for that day.

 

After returning to the top we hiked up above the falls to see some beautiful spots along the river.

While walking along the trail by the river we saw a big monkey up in the trees.

We met a family that were members of the church from Rio de Janeiro and took a picture with them.

There was a cable car ride that took people down where they could get a picture of the falls, but we did not take it.

There are always beautiful hydrangea plants around that add beauty to the scenery.

 

For P-day this week we took the four Egberts and went to a town about 30 kilometers from Gramado called Novo Petropolis.  It also have a very heavy German influence and has a park called the Parque Aldeia dos Imigrante.  There is a rebuilt German village from the 1800's there where they try to show what life was like for the people living there.

 

 

We took a nice walk through the park to the village enjoying the beautiful scenery.

These are the pictures of the little village.  First was a blacksmith shop.

Next came a one room school with the teachers house next to it.

 

 

Then there was a little bank, which claims to be the first cooperative bank in South America.

 

Then there was the Lutheran Church.

 

There was even a big spider by one of the pictures in the church.

Outside the church was a general store where they were selling some typical German bread and cakes.

 

We walked back to the park exit past more beautiful scenery.

 



We then took the Egberts to the park with the maze and we all found the center.

 

 

 

We see some beautiful sunsets here.

 Yesterday we took two of our Sister Missionaries to visit a member of their branch that lives about 50 kilometers from Gramado.  When we got close, there was a truck accident on the road and sand was spilt all over the road blocking all traffic.  We were told it would take them two hours to clean it up and open the road again, so we drove back to Gramado and took the Sisters to a Chinese restaurant.  They are both Brazilians and had never had Chinese food before.  It was delicious.