Thursday, October 27, 2011

Girl Power

A great thing that we were able to do in October was arrange a special "division" with the Sister missionaries in our mission.  As a general rule, Elders have a division every 6 weeks or sometimes more often, where they trade companions and learn from working with someone new.  There are so few Sister missionaries in our mission, that they hardly get to see one another, so we decided to arrange a "division" in each half of the mission for all of the sisters.  They were thrilled to be together.  You can see from the photos that they had a wonderful time.



Left to right:  Sisters do Rosário, Conde, Campos, Souza, Fasterra, Silva, Kersh, Modesto, Azevedo, Michael Sister and President Swenson.

                        
Here the Sisters in Pelotas are having lunch with President Francisco Asconavieta (First Counselor in the Mission Presidency.) and his wife Angela. From Left to right:  Sister Vicente, Barreto, Negreiros, Daniele, President and Sister Asconavieta, Sister Withers, Almeida, dos Anjos, and Gregory.

Some of the Sisters are having a HUGE impact on the work here in our mission.  They are showing the other missionaries how to have 20-30 lessons a week, they are showing them how to baptize.  In the month of October, Sister Barreto and Sister Withers helped with the baptisms of 3 families in their ward, Arco Iris (Rainbow). They baptized 11 new members in that month. Now in November Sister Withers with Sister Souza now, are hoping to baptize 2 more families, 8 more people.  Sister Daniele Gregory and Negreiros are doing a fantastic job as well, and will baptize two families here shortly.  We are so grateful for their hard work and examples.  Because of them the other missionaries, especially the Elders are sitting up to take notice.
Hooray for Girl Power!!!!!!!


A day at the zoo

In September Curt and I decided to celebrate our wedding anniversary by going to the Zoo.  The Zoo isn't huge or elaborate, but it was very fun, and we saw some beautiful birds and some interesting monkeys.  There were lions and tigers and capybaras too.  It was fun to walk around on a beautiful sunny day, and also fun to see some new animals that we hadn't heard of . 
 

Maned Wolf
The most interesting animal to me was the maned wolf. I had never heard of this wolf that looked like a fox on stilts and was very stinky like a skunk. Isn't this world full of interesting animals?  When we were approaching his cage, we thought there must be a skunk nearby. . . . but as we drew nearer we realized it was a smell much worse than a skunk.  We also realized quickly why the Zoo manager arranged for his cage to be on the far edge of the zoo, away from the other animals.



One of their largest collections was several varieties of wild boars. There were at least 6 or 8 different types, but being as I am not a wild boar expert, I really couldn't determine what distinguised them from one another.  


Curt and I enjoyed seeing this Condor as well.  He was quite a lot larger than he appears in this photo.




Capybara
 About a week before our trip to the Zoo we drove at night to the city of Bagé.  We had quite the wildlife experience driving at night.  We saw, yes you guessed it, (insert drum roll here) after a long 2 year search we sighted a Capybara. HOORAY!!!!!   Then at the zoo the next week, we saw these two cuties.  I just love how the pond is covered with a type of lily, and then when the capybara climbs out of the water he his covered with green. Too cute.


Gray Brocket
We saw lots of other fun wildlife on the side of the road as well
– 2 deer, 4 silver foxes, and a rabbit. 
Crab Eating Fox

Rhea

On the next afternoonwe sighted 3 Emu (a Brazilian type they call Rhea here.) I was surprised to see them because Bagé is the coldest area of our mission, and it can get down in the 10-20 degree Fahrenheit, I thought Emus were a more warm weather bird. So we felt amply rewarded for our long drive.

Missionary Buddies

I checked in on the blog this week and I realized that I haven't written anything for about 6 months.  OOOOOPS!  I guess we have been busy.  I will try to catch you up on our life here in Brazil.

On July 9th Curt and I were VERY excited to welcome Rich and Marianne Reading, Mark and Belinda Romney to come visit us in the mission.  Rich and Mark are mission buddies of Curt from their mission almost 40 years ago.  They were so happy to return to their mission for the first time, and to be able to show a little bit of Brazil to Marianne and Belinda. 

Since they arrived on a Saturday we took them downtown to see the
Public Market
We stopped by our favorite pet shop on the way to see the beautiful
birds, monkeys, chinchillas etc. 
But the thing Curt liked the most was this boa constrictor. 
He was about ten feet long, and weighed over 50 lbs. 
The owner said he was about 20 years old.
That night we took them to our favorite Churrascaria
Roda de Carreta  (check out the video)
Where they have the show with traditional gaucho folk dancers.  I made sure to seat Rich and Marianne next to the stage so that the
Bolo dancer would invite Marianne up on stage to
get her hair combed by his bolo while it was whirling over 100 miles and hour.
On Sunday we went to church at one of our beautiful new Stake Centers here in Viamão.  In the remodel they used the former church which you can see on the left, and added a huge chapel with cultural hall and stage and even Stake offices on the right.  Things have changed a lot since these boys were holding their meetings in rented houses.
On Sunday afternoon we invited Walter and Ângela Pinto to have lunch with us. Walter was one of only 2 or 3 Brazilian Elders who served here in the mission with Curt, Rich and Mark. Now 70% of our missionaries are Brazilian, which is truly remarkabel change to have in only 40 years.  From left to right: Rich and Marianne, Mark and Belinda, Walter and Ângela, and you know the other two. Walter and Rich were companions on the mission.



On Monday we took a drive up to Gramado and wandered around the town
window shopping and enjoying a gorgeous day. 
Then we drove to the lovely Caracol Parque nearby,
where Curt and I go a couple times of the year to have our walk in nature.
 We stopped in to have an early dinner at one of the restaurants that they call Colonial.  They serve a lot of pastries and meats and cheeses that are very European fare.  When Curt and I stay in hotels as we travel, this is the type of food they have every morning in the restaurants. 
Unfortunately the Temple was closed when our friends came.  We forgot to check the schedule when they booked the trip.  On our last day we took a quick drive to the Temple . . . . it was really rainy, but still wonderful for these returned missionaries to see how the church has grown in Brazil in the last 40 years.
We had a wonderful time Readings and Romneys. 
Thank you so much for coming to visit us on our mission.

Uraguay


We decided after serving for two years here it was about time for us to drive to the far reach of our mission, Jaguarão, which lies on the border with Uruguay.  On October 9th we arranged with the Elders there and in Arroio Grande (Great River), to stop by on the same Sunday for a short visit.  We stopped in Arroio Grande first and met with about 40 members there.  We taught them in their Relief Society and Priesthood meeting about how you can invite someone over  to learn a little more about the church.  Curt is here with two of the future missionaries from the Arroio Grande Branch. Curt likes to take off his missionary tag and put it on the young boys so that they can see how they would look as a missionary.
 This is the front of the house in Arroio Grande which has been converted into a chapel.


 Here we are with the Branch President and his wife, and Elder Higdon and Elder Melo who are currently serving in Jaguarão.  We were able to take a photo with almost all of the members who were attending church that week. 
We went to Jaguarão to their testimony meeting, and shared short testimonies. Afterwards we had interviews with the 4 Elders serving in those areas and even had time for a quick photo at the Border of Uruguay. The church was first preached in Jaguarão by missionaries who crossed the border from Uruguay. They have a nice chapel there and I was surprised when we asked them how many of their ward members had served missions, and there were 5. We finished the Sunday night by giving a Fireside in Rio Grande about how to share the Book of Mormon with a friend
 We are taking turns posing by the border of Uraguay:  Elder Melo, Curt and Elder Higdon.  We couldn't actually go over the border, but it was fun to know that we were close enough to touch it.

 If you cross this bridge you would be in Uraguay.
 Almost every one of these cities has some kind of Statue of a Gaucho.