Brasilia

We got up this morning at 4:30 and Kleber dropped us off at the airport in Palmas. We ended up having to check our baggage on this flight since the domestic flights have a 5 kilo maximum (that's only 11lbs!) which pretty much expires anything but maybe a few books or a laptop. We thought that was a stupid rule, and it had not been enforced on us up until today. Even though I argued with the desk agent, it didn't do any good.

Our flight into Brasilia was quick. Only an hour. Once there, we put our belongings in a locker and grabbed a bus into the city to explore.

We made it to the bus station on the main plaza, similar to the mall in DC. At one end is a tower. At the other is the congress and Capitol buildings. In between are all the government department buildings.



We walked all the way down to the Capitol and took some pictures around it. We found out in conversations with some other people on the plaza that today is a holiday. We asked the guards at the Capitol if they were still giving tours. They were, so we took an hour tour through the senate and house of representatives. Brazil uses approximately the same system we do, except that they have 3 senators for each state.

After the tour, we went around back behind the capitol and saw the "3 powers plaza" (legislative, executive, and judicial). Then we walked back up the mall to the Conjuntos Shopping Center to get some lunch. We found a place in the mall that had all the normal Brazilian fare. We ate beans and rice, beef, salad, mandioca, pudim and maracuja mousse.

After lunch we looked around the shopping mall for a while and then walked up to the tower at the north end of the mall and took in the great view all the way down to the other end of the mall to the Capitol. We walked through an outdoor market right next to the tower and then returned back to the bus station to bus it back to the airport. Our bus ride was so hot and uncomfortable. Hard to believe we did it every day while down here as missionaries.

When we got back to the airport, we grabbed our bags and when we went into the restroom to wash our hands, we realized that we had gotten pretty sunburned. Ladies, this is a heads up that we will need an aloe rub down when we arrive home :)

We caught our flight back to Sao Paulo and we're now waiting to get on our flight back to SLC through Atlanta.

Two last things: I would recommend TAM airlines to anyone flying withinb Brazil. They have great service. Even on the one hour flights, we had meal service and at least two beverage service passes. And, we are super excited to come back to our families. We miss them and love them and can't wait to get back to see them!

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Church in Porto

We woke up Sunday to pouring rain coming down in sheets. Jonatas picked us up at the hotel. We passed by and picked up Kleber and all drove out to Porto Nacional for Sunday services. Kleber is on the high council and had to speak there, too. On our way, we got stopped at a police roadblock again, but luckily I wasn't driving, so it was quick.

We arrived at church a few minutes late and started out in priesthood meeting. I was asked to read a few scriptures and comment on them. The lesson theme was on giving our all. We ended up talking about the importance of the priesthood and living worthily. Jared also commented about a blessing he had received.

During the sunday school lesson on being spiritually and materially self-sufficient, we participated, were asked many questions and made several comments. When sacrament meeting was about to start, I told Kleber he should invite Jared to give a little talk. A few minutes later the branch president came over and asked me to play the organ for the meeting. I looked over at Kleber as he was laughing out loud. He told me I wasn't getting out of doing something today, either.

I played the songs as best I could on their ancient organ, and had to adjust my tempo accordingly. Brazilians sing hymns fairly slowly and like to slow down and put in fermatas that normally don't exist.

Jared got called up to bear his testimony after the branch president expressed his gratitude for Jared having served there, and he gave a great testimony of the truth of the gospel and how grateful he was to be in Brazil again among the people he had served.

The rest of the meeting went well, and Kleber's talk was excellent about the importance of the priesthood. We returned to Palmas after visiting with some members after church. On our way out of town, we saw a member of the church on his way to work in Palmas. We gave him a ride, and he ended up knowing where one if the women Jared had baptized lived now. We had been unable to locate any of his Porto baptisms thus far, so this was exciting news. She lived in Palmas now, so we decided to pass by there after lunch.

Lunch was excellent as always at Kleber's house, and afterwards we went by Ellen's. We only knew the general area where she lived, but the first house we stopped at happened to be hers! We went in and visited for a while. She had stopped attending church a few years ago, but she seemed to want to go back, and we asked her permission to ask the bishop to assign her home and visiting teachers. She accepted, and we said our goodbyes.

That night, there was a fireside for the stake, so we went to the stake center and arrived a little early. Soon after we arrived, we got a call from Michael, who had stayed home with Deborah who was supposed to be on bedrest for her current pregnancy (she is about 6 months along). She was having a lot of contractions and hurting, so her dr. told her to go get an ultrasound. Kleber and Deborah's mom left to take her while we stayed at the fireside.

The fireside turned out to be more of a training for those wishing to find better employment (all about the LDS employment services). It was not your typical fireside. They showed lots of videos and talked about what the employment center can do for you. They also talked about getting a good education and learning other languages. They asked all who spoke English fluently to raise their hands. Of course Jared and I did, and everyone in our group laughed. Hey, he asked, and didn't specify whether it was our first language.

As the fireside came to it's conclusion, Kleber and his mother in law came back to pick us up and let us know that Deborah seemed fine.

We went back to Kleber's house and ate some dinner, did some more visiting together, gave Deborah a blessing, and said our final goodbyes. We won't miss the heat and suffocating humidity, but we will miss these dear friends we have made. They are what have made the trip worthwhile. It was fun to see where we had served our missions, eat the food again and speak Portuguese, but the lasting impressions of this trip will be the lifetime friendships we have made with such fantastic people.

Tomorrow (Monday) we'll fly to Brasilia for the day and then fly home that night, arriving Tuesday mid-day.

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Photos of Tocantins

Lunch with Kleber's in-laws







The open air market in Palmas



Jared in front of the old house in Porto Nacional where he lived and had church meetings




The central Catholic church in Porto Nacional



Looking out toward the lake from Porto Nacional




Praia da Gracinha in Palmas

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Porto Nacional

Today we were picked up by Kleber and we drove down to Porto Nacional, where he had some work to do at his place of business. He runs a wireless internet provider. He drove us by the old house where Jared used to live and where they used to hold church meetings. Since that time, the church built a chapel there. It was while Jared was there that the branch in Porto Nacional grew enough to get permission to build a chapel.

After a quick auto tour of Porto, Kleber dropped us off downtown and went to work. Jared and I walked down the main street and found the supermarket he used to shop at. We went in and bought soft drinks and a snack. We walked on and passed by the old church house and took a few photos, then went on to the Catholic church and park in the center of town. We spent about an hour walking the streets of Porto until Kleber had finished and then we returned to Palmas.

We ate lunch and hung out with everybody at Kleber's all afternoon, visiting and sharing stories. We also finally finished our laundry, which takes forever to dry in this humidity when you have to hang it up on a clothesline outside.

Around dinner time, we all went out to the mall in Palmas to get some ice cream. We stopped at a little kiosk in the mall that sells açaí and caçuapu smoothies. We all got the caçuapu, but I didn't think it was that great. I thought it had a fishy aftertaste, but I downed that sucker so as not to offend.

After the smoothies, we stopped at an ice cream joint that specializes in açaí ice cream creations. Most everybody ordered the banana açaí with granola, but I had tasted açaí on our way to Ribeirao Preto in a drink mixed with guarana and hadn't liked it, so I didn't get anything. I ended up tasting Jared's and liking it, though.

After our ice cream adventures, we went back to the hotel and crashed. These late nights really take their toll, but it's worth it. We won't have these opportunities again for several years, so we've got to make the most of it.

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Tocantins

We woke up early this morning in order catch our early flight through Brasilia to Palmas in the state of Tocantins. When we left Sao Paulo, it was cloudy and about 70 degrees. When we arrived in Tocantins, it was 95 and it seemed like about 150% humidity. Getting off the plane, we were immediately drenched in sweat.

Jared's friend Kleber, who was a young man in the ward when Jared was here, picked us up from the airport. We went back to his house and ate lunch with his family. His in-laws are visiting from the south and his sister in law is visiting from Curitiba. We enjoyed getting to know them, and soon after lunch, we went to visit another young man from the ward where Jared served named Jonatas. He had served a mission, ironically, in Las Vegas. When he returned to Palmas, he became inactive in the church, and started working for the university in Palmas. We visited with him for a bit, and invited him to church with us on Sunday. He accepted the invitation, and we arranged to meet him later that evening at the local open air market.

On our way back to Kleber's house, we stopped at a few hotels and chose which one we felt would be the best. Back at Kleber's, we started some laundry that needed to be done and the got ready and went out to the open air market.

There, they had all sorts of different fruits, vegetables, candies and goods. We walked through trying different things and checking out the local specialties. They have a type of plant here called capim dourado from which they make hats, purses, jewelry, and lots of other stuff. We browsed through everything and purchased a few things we liked, then bought some paçoca de carne for dinner and headed back to the house.

During dinner, I talked with Deborah and Michael from Curitiba, and discovered that they had lost a baby last year who had only lived for two months. He had been born prematurely and had not been able to develop his heart and lungs properly. We shared our stories of losing our children so early in life, the difficulties we've had, and the blessings we have seen in our lives since then. I don't know how to explain, but even before I knew about their story, I felt some sort of closeness to them that only comes with shared experiences. And when they shared with me what they had been through, I knew at once that was why.

After we were finished with dinner, Kleber took us back to our hotel, where we immediately turned on the a/c. No way we were going to sleep without it.

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It was all worth it

We slept in late today and got some much needed rest. After we got up, we grabbed some breakfast and headed over to Paulo's house. When we arrived, we clapped outside is house (that's the way you knock here) and he answered the door with his little girl Thiffany. I almost didn't recognize him with his hat and glasses.

He invited us in and we found out that Eliane had had to go to work and wouldn't be back until 3pm. We chatted with Paulo while we played with Thiffany for a while, remembering about when we met and their baptisms. Paulo told us about his mission and how when he got back he and Eliane had decided to get married. We talked about others that had been baptized while I was there and about how the church had grown since I had left.

We decided that we would stop back by around 3 once Eliane had gotten home, and we left to get some lunch. We ate at a little restaurant down the street from the old house/chapel. After lunch, we took the opportunity to walk around downtown and window shop.

When we got back to Paulo's house, Eliane was already there and they had prepared a snack for us. Sandwiches and guarana with ice cream for dessert. We stuffed ourselves even though we had just finished lunch. We visited more and played with Thiffany a bit. She really wanted us to watch Bolt with her, and we watched the first few minutes. I gave Paulo and Eliane each a BYU hat and gave Thiffany a BYU ball. Paulo's father carves wood and Paulo gave us each an armadillo cut entirely from one piece of wood that he had just finished.

As we were preparing to leave, Paulo called his cousin Alessandra, who I had baptized first, to come over and see me briefly before we left. We took some pictures all together and said our goodbyes and got on the road back to Sao Paulo.

We arrived back in Sao Paulo late, turned the car in and stayed the night at the Marriottt near the airport.


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More photos

Jared couldn't wait and decided it would be okay to use the women's bathroom.







Chapel in Palmares, Rib Preto. That's our little car in front.







Me with Marco during our chance encounter at the mall in Rib Preto.







Me with Paulo, Eliane and their daughter Thiffany in Sao Joaquim da Barra. I baptized both of them, and now they are married and he is the Bishop.







Jared getting off the plane in Palmas, Tocantins.







Talking with Kleber and Jonatas, who were young men in the ward when Jared served in Porto Nacional, near Palmas.


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Amazing

After another fantastic breakfast, we went and visited with Valeria for a few minutes at her place and then went to her friend's house and visited with Ne and Jadilson and their little girl Sofia. As lunchtime approached, we picked up Valeria's husband Eduardo and her 4 year old son Vitor and headed for a nice churrascaria where they had celebrated their last anniversary.

The churrasco was great. Much like Tucanos or Rodizio Grill, except that the waiters brought the meat out so fast that we couldn't keep up. My plate began to pile high with all kinds of meat, and Ne kept joking that I was going to have to pay a fine if I had any left over.

After stuffing ourselves, we took Ne and Eduardo back to work. Eduardo thanked us for inviting them, and thanked me for having helped teach Valeria and bring her into the church. As Elder Henry and Lane put it, she was about as golden as they come.

We drove with Valeria over to Manoel Penna and
São José and went to the house of the former branch president. His daughter, Lucia, was home with her husband and little boy. We talked with her about how the branch had been absorbed by another ward (Iguatemi) and that most members from Sao Jose are no longer active. We found out that a family that Elder Lane and I baptized (Claudio, Marilda and kids) had moved to Uberaba, but I was able to get their address.

We also dropped by the home of Fernando, who I baptized with Elder Lane. He had moved and was no longer active, but we had a nice chat with his mom and sister, also inactive members. At first his mom didn't want to come out and talk to us because she was embarrassed that she was inactive, but she eventually came out. We talked about our trip with her, and about her kids and the church. It ended up a nice visit, and we left with Valeria after encouraging them to begin attending their church meetings again.

We stopped briefly at the Palmares chapel, which has since been rebuilt much larger and nicer. Once finished, we dropped Valeria back at her house and said our goodbyes. I also recorded a video message of her to Elders Lane and Henry, so I'll have to get that posted as soon as I get back.

We dropped back by Walmart for the free wifi and updated emails and called our wives. We were headed into the mall to get Jared some cash from the ATM when I recognized Marco, a member from Sao Joaquim da Barra, which is where we were headed as soon as we had hit the ATM. Crazy! Jared and I turned to each other and mentioned that it wouldn't seem like Heavenly Father would care too much about our little jaunt here in Brazil, but it sure seemed like we were receiving divine guidance throughout this trip.

We talked with Marco for a few minutes, and it turns out he had moved away from Sao Joaquim. He updated us on several of the members, and we gave him a ride to the bus terminal in downtown on our way out of town.

We drove up to Sao Joaquim, arriving there about 8pm and went straight to the chapel. When I was there, we met in a house. They now have a chapel. The missionaries were there with the ward mission leader and a few other members. We walked in and introduced ourselves. I told them I had served there 12 years ago. They asked who I had baptized while there, and I told them I didn't remember everyone, but I had come to see if Paulo, his cousin Alessandra and her friend were still around. They were all floored to hear that I had been the one to baptize Paulo, who is the current bishop, and his wife, Eliane. They were both baptized the same day, Paulo had served a mission, come back and married her, and he was now bishop! Wow! I can't tell you how good that feels to know that I made such a difference in a person's life, let alone in the leadership of this little town near Sao Paulo.

We talked for a while with the elders and the members that were there about my mission, and how it was back in the 90's. Then we called Eliane to arrange a time that we could stop by. Paulo was already asleep, so we decided to stop by the next morning.

We left the chapel and went to eat and find a place to sleep. We ordered a X-tudo, which is a cheeseburger with everything on it, including eggs, and a hot dog. We stopped at the Hotel Plaza in downtown to check it out, and then went over to the Hotel Barra to see which one we liked better. Turned out there was no room at the Hotel Barra.

On our way back to the Hotel Plaza, we were drivig up a road and ended up at a police road block where they were stopping cars. They stopped us and asked for my license and documentation. I gave it to them, and then he asked for the translation of my driver's license. I played dumb and asked what he meant. He said that we needed to get a special permit from some authority in Sao Paulo in order to drive there. I explained that when we rented the car we were not told this, but that we were headed back to Sao Paulo the next day. He asked what types of vehicles my license allowed me to drive, and once I explained it, he seemed satisfied and left us on our way. Whew!

On our way back across town to the Hotel Plaza, it started pouring rain. It was such a downpour that the streets started to fill up with water, and I was nervous that we would hydrolock the engine going through some of the puddles. We parked in front of the hotel and decided to wait a few minutes to sees if the rain would let up. While waiting, a car parked in front of us, and proceeded to back into our car. We realized what was happening a little too late, but honked our horn like mad. Still he came and hit us. Instead of stopping, he drove his car across the street, parked, and walked into the hotel. When he walked in front of the car, he gave us a thumbs up. What?!?

We got out after the rain had let up a little, checked the front of the car (which looked fine) and went in to get some rest.


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A few photos

While I have a chance, I'm posting a few photos:




Jared and I in the central park of Ribeirao Preto.



Jared and I drank some passion fruit juice in downtown Rib Preto. We love this stuff!











L-R: Me, Simone, Junior, Irene and Jared. Jared baptized Junior during his mission and we attended his sealing in the Campinas temple.













L-R: Matt, Valeria, Vitor, Eduardo and Jared. I taught Valeria while in Ribeirao Preto.













The crazy parrot at the gas station.










Me in the park in downtown Rib Preto. I have an identical picture from my mission days.










We encountered Marco in the shopping mall in Rib Preto. He is a member from Sao Joaquim da Barra, where we planned to go this evening. Talk about divine intervention. We have truly been blessed this trip.

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Goin' to the temple...

The Comfort Hotel was pretty nice, and ended up costing a little more than we had wanted to pay. But the breakfast was worth every centavo. Just imagine: pineapple, papaya, oranges, kiwi, fruits of every kind, cereal, pao de quejo, eight different types of breads, three types of cake, eggs, yogurt, hot chocolate, orange juice, milk, and chocolate caramel cream puffs. Who could ask for anything more?

We jumped on the road and took off to Campinas. We had tried to contact Junior to know the exact time of the sealing, but figured his cell phone wasn't working down here since he hadn't ever answered. We figured that his bride would probably receive her endowment that morning, and so the earliest that the sealing would take place was around 11am. We rolled onto the temple grounds right about 10:30am.

We went inside and spoke with some of the workers and found out that Junior's group would finish the endowment session at 11:30am. We waited in the waiting room and read scriptures while we waited.

At about 11:30am, a member of the group came out and found us and ushered us into the largest sealing room there. Junior and Simone and the rest of their stake were there, all ready to go. The sealing was a great experience, as we got to attend two different dealings; that of Junior and that of one of his friends immediately following.

After the sealing we ate lunch at the temple's cafeteria and visited with everyone who had been in the sealing. Then we headed out of the temple, took some pictures, changed our clothes and drove into downtown Campinas.

There, we went to the Iguatemi mall and got some shake's from a fast food joint called Bob's and window shopped a little. We left the mall and also walked around all the shops and flea market downtown, looking for gifts for the fam. Junior helped us out in the flea market by bartering with a woman there. It is definitely easier to do that when Portuguese is your native language.

When we got back from our little paseo in the city, the sunset as a backdrop to the temple was gorgeous. We took several pictures, and then went inside the temple dormitories with Junior et al to eat dinner. We had a yummy soup with chicken and shell macaroni and guarana.

By that time it was getting late, so we had to say our goodbyes to Junior and his family and head back to the Comfort hotel in Ribeirao Preto. Our experiences so far have been so wonderful, and today we were both filled with such gratitude for having been able to serve here in Brazil with such choice people.


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On to Ribeirao Preto

We awoke at 5am and bid Rosangela goodbye. On our way out of town, we thought for sure we would find a padaria open to grab some breakfast. But we didn't, and we were grateful for the cookies and snacks that Rosangela had packed for us.

We made our way back to Sao Paulo through some of the most beautiful countryside that we had been unable to see the rainy night we had arrived. Once through Sao Paulo, we stopped and ate some breakfast and decided to call our wives, who had been worried about us. We had no access to wifi nor cell service while in Curitiba, so once we were back in Sao Paulo, we wanted to let them know where we were. It was 6:30 in the morning for Angenette when I called, and the first thing I did was apologize for the early hour. She was just glad I had called.

We headed on to Ribeirao Preto, passing something like 15 toll stations. Each one charged between $3 and $5, and we felt like we were going to run out of money before we reached our destination.

After driving here in Brazil a few days we have observed the following:

When driving, it's basically a free for all
Lines on the road are just a suggestion
Pedestrians have no right of way - get out of the way or get hit
When climbing hills, expect to be cut off by a semi several times
Smoking at the gas station is ok if you're an employee
Watch out for photo cops - they are everywhere
100 km/hr is not that fast, although it feels like our little car will fall apart at anything over 80

So anyway, we made it to Ribeirao Preto and found the WalMart in the shopping mall there. We looked around a bit and got a few things we needed. While there, I discovered that there was free wifi inside, and so we took the opportunity to call our wives again and post some things up on the blog. From there, we drove around a few of the neighborhoods where I served; Sao Jose and Manoel Penna. I didn't recognize much, and so we decided it would be best to go find Valeria, a girl I helped teach and who was baptized while I was in Ribeirao Preto.

I had gotten her address from my former companion Elder Lane, and we drove across the city to her new house. When we arrived, she was just locking her front door and leaving for work. What a blessing to have arrived just in time! We talked with her for a few minutes and then offered her a ride to work, where we were able to visit some more on account of her arriving early (she usually takes the bus). We arranged with her to get together Wednesday again and visit some of my old areas.

We left Valeria and went to downtown Ribeirao, where we found a small juice stand and ordered some passion fruit juice. It was a favorite of most missionaries here. After some sightseeing and window shopping, we went to the Churrascaria Gaucha for dinner.

When we had finished dinner, we drove around the Jardim Paulista area, which had been assigned as my first area. Unfortunately, nothing looked too familiar to me. We couldn't even find the house I lived in on Joao Bim, but after talking to Valeria, we think it may not exist any longer, razed to make room for other housing and stores.

We returned one last time to WalMart to check our email, and then found the Comfort Inn just around the corner, where we got some much needed sleep.


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Photos from the first part of the trip

Sao Paulo temple






Opera de Arame - Curitiba







Chapel in Curitiba







Roberson's family in the Parque in Curitiba






At the temple in Curitiba