Special People, Incredible Opportunities

On March 5, 2011 we had a wonderful visit from Elder and Sister Camargo, one of our Brasil Area Seventies. Here in this photo you can see Elder and Sister Burnett, from Porto Alegre, who are serving in our mission as housing secretaries (taking care of all the rental contracts for our apartments, and doing inspections now and then.) Next to them Sister and Elder Carmargo. Elder Camargo was the Mission President here from 1997-2000. They moved from the Mission Home (house) that was here for years, into the condo that we are in now. They were taking a little walk down memory lane, remembering the rooms in the condo, and seeing the furniture and remembering some of our neighbors, and the people who still work here. It was the first time that they had been back here since their mission, so it was kind of fun for them.

We held two special Conferences in our mission with the Camargos. Here we are in Porto Alegre with half of our missionaries. One last photo with Elder Skanchy and Elder Hickman, Curt's assistants at that time.

On April 16th, Curt was invited to baptize this wonderful man, Jaci Fernando Machado da Silva. His wife and family are already members of the church. In the month of March our mission held a special fast with all of the Wards and Branches, to be able to receive help in our missionary efforts. The Bishop of the Pineirho Ward felt like Jaci decided to be baptized after the ward members fasted for him. He had been investigating the Church for at least 5 years. Now in a year from now his family will be able to go to the Temple to be sealed for all Eternity.

On April 20th we had a Temple day with the missionaries in the Porto Alegre Area. Who did we run into at the Temple but Curt's good friends from Caxias, João Carlos and Claire (Curt knew them from his first mission). Our son Nick also knows them because he finished his mission in Caxias. Curt, Danielle and I ate a wonderful churrasco (Brazilian Barbeque) at João Carlos and Claire's home when we came to pick Nick up at the end of his mission. This is about the fourth time that Curt has "run into" these friends at the Temple.
On April 24th Curt and I flew up to Campinas (near São Paulo) for our yearly Mission Presidents Seminar. We had 3 wonderful days of learning at the feet of Elder & Sister Neil L. Andersen and Elder Donald L Hallstrom the first 2 days, and then Elder and Sister D. Todd Christofferson joined us at the end of the second day.

We had a nice reunion with the other Presidents/wives that were called in 2009 with us. The Vecchis (Salvador South), Campos (Belem), Parrellas (Belo Horizonte), De Oliveiras (Cuiaba), Moreiras (São Paulo East), Dias (Teresina). The Pavans our neighbors here in Porto Alegre are missing in this photo.
Curt's two mission buddies and their wives will be finishing their missions in June. We will miss seeing them and corresponding with them: President & Sister Chris Jackson, and President & Sister Steve Richardson. They will be living in Utah when we get home, so hopefully we can have some fun reunions then.

Chris Jackson and Curt were companions here in Porto Alegre, and Steve Richardson was in the same group with Curt in the LTM (Language Training Mission) for 5 months while they were waiting for their Visas.

Some more friends who are completing their missions this year, President and Sister Beynon from the Maceio Mission. These are our new neighbors in the Santa Maria mission in our state of Rio Grande do Sul, Presiden & Sister Ribeiro.

Seated here with Elder & Sister Christofferson, are the Mission Presidents/wives from our State of Rio Grande do Sul, the Ribeiros (Santa Maria), Pavans (Porto Alegre North), Christoffersons, and Curt and I (Porto Alegre South).Who ever thought that a little girl from Pullman Washington would have the great blessing of learning from and associating with Apostles of the Living God. What an unbelievable opportunity. I am still pinching myself.

Kathy read a terrific talk and testimony in Portuguese, and her accent was very good. Elder Christofferson was amazing. He spoke with-out notes for more than an hour in Portuguese. He told us that the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has been studying recently, what it means to "take upon you the name of Jesus Christ". He lead us through the scriptures and taught us in such a powerful way who our Savior is, and what it really means to try to be like Him. It was an experience that I will never forget. At the end he gave all of us an Apostolic blessing upon our families. Our family has already benefited from that Apostolic Blessing.

Here we are with Elder & Sister Andersen, and our wonderful friends, Elder and Sister Christofferson.

In this photo we are standing with our Brazil Area Presidency, Elder & Sister Mazzagardi, Elder & Sister Soares, and Elder & Sister Godoy. Elder and Sister Soares will be moving to Africa where he will be President of the Africa East Area (I think), and Elder Claudio Costa from the Presidency of the Seventy will be coming to Preside over the Brazil Area in June.

While we were in Campinas our wonderful friends Claudio and Cristina Souza, Lucas, Claudinho, and Mateus, came to visit us at the Hotel. They were our very first friends in Porto Alegre, but are living in Campinas now. Claudio was serving as Curt's first Counselor in the Mission Presidency for our first year.

At the end of our seminar we scurried home, excited and anxious, because Elder and Sister Christofferson were scheduled to arrive in two days, to hold a Missionary Conference with the Porto Alegre North and South Missions in the same chapel. Our missionaries from both missions were so excited. First of all this could be the only chance that some of them will ever have to meet and Apostle. Secondly they were excited to have a double mission conference, because that is really unheard of these days, and many of our missionaries have good friends serving missions in the North mission.

Kathy gave a wonderful talk to the missionaries from 2 Kings 4 where Elisha helps an impoverished widow woman by inviting her to find as many vessels that she can, bring them into the house, and they will be filled with oil that she can sell. Kathy taught the missionaries that the Lord is ready to fill your vessels, but you are the one that needs to find and prepare the vessels that you want filled. Some will bring a few, others will bring many, and fill them to overflowing with the blessings of the Lord. Elder Christofferson gave our missionaries wonderful advice and encouragement to continue working diligently, and they would receive the Lord's blessings.

It was such a special experience to have them here with us, even if it was only for one night. It felt like we had family visiting, and it gave us such a big lift and motivation to continue serving as best we can.

Flood in São Lorenço

On March 10th Curt's phone rang at 6:00AM - Elder Walker was on the other end telling us that there was a flood in their city, São Lorenço, and their apartment was surrounded by water. Even though they live on the second floor, the water was about 1 foot below their doorway. He told Curt that the Branch President wanted them to swim out to dry land and go to the chapel. After Curt realized that the water was about 8 feet deep, he said <NO> don't leave your apartment. Can you climb onto the roof and wait for someone to come rescue you in a boat? We told them to put together a 72 hour kit, with clothes and food, and things that they might need, and then Elder Walker and Elder Teriipaia climbed onto the roof, and waited for about an hour, until they were rescued.

It was a strange flood because it wasn't raining much that night in the city, but there must have been a big storm up-river, and the river rose very quickly. Many of the peoples homes were destroyed, and two bridges that connected them to the next largest city, Pelotas, were washed out.

A few hours later, when Curt and I were able to find out from the government, if we could drive to São Lorenço from Porto Alegre, we bought some water, and food, and hygiene supplies and jumped in the car and drove to find our missionaries. When we found them at the chapel they looked like this:

You can see that they were actually pretty excited to experience this grand adventure on their missions. It is too bad they got rescued so soon, because they missed out on being airlifted by a national guard helicopter. On our drive down from Porto Alegre the highway was practically empty. The only other people on the roads were transporting boats to help in the rescue efforts.
This is about as close as we could get to the flood area. As you can see only a part of the city (near the river) was flooded.
We drove Elders Walker and Teriipaia to a neighboring city, Camaquã, to spend a couple of nights with a set of Elders in their district, until the water subsided and they could get back into their apartment.

It took the government about a week to build a route around the washed out bridges, so about 10 days later some of our Elders from Pelotas were able to go be "Helping Hands" and assist the people in São Lorenço with the clean-up

The residents in Pelotas gathered donations of clothing and other items to help the flood victims.

This flood happened in the same week that Japan had its horrible earthquake and then tsunami. That made us all realize that even though people lost their homes, and some animals, there was little or no loss of human life - the city is equipped with flood alarms when the river rose, and everyone was forewarned. Curt and I were so sorry about the crisis in Japan, and we could relate just a little to how the Mission President there must have been feeling, so concerned about his missionaries and the members, and he wasn't able to call them, he had no cell phone service. We are grateful that none of the missionaris there lost their lives.