We Fit! (7/27/18)

Welcome home Ellie, Shannon and Kevin!! We are so glad this day has come. Great things have happened and are continuing to happen.

Our big achievement since last letter was fitting all but one of the 26 senior missionaries into our single wide trailer sized apartment on July 9th (holiday here)!!!  We had a WONDERFUL Café Rio style dinner and, of course, a game! We had pork, chicken and all the fixings - people said it was better than Café Rio! They don´t have a lot of Mexican food here to buy, so when I went to Oregon, I picked up flour tortillas, green enchilada sauce and a large Pace salsa! I´m sure that all helped to make the food yummy!

July 11th was Girl´s Night out at our apartment. We had a “garage sale”. Everyone brought things they weren´t using and we traded! Of course, we had lots of treats! The 14th was a birthday dinner at a pizza place near us for Elder Barrett. Tuesday morning on the 17th, one of the Seniors arranged for a tour of the Beehive Clothing before work. (In the basement of our offices).  It was very interesting how everything is done. Sunday, after church, we drove 4 hours to Ribeirão Preto for a meeting that evening. We trained newly called Humanitarian/Welfare specialists and members of 2 stake presidencies on the wheelchair program, post delivery interviews and how Public Affairs and Humanitarian can work together. Great 3 hour training Papa did! Monday and Tuesday we spent doing our first post wheelchair delivery interviews with 11 people. Ana Lucia from APRAESPI helped set up the visits and do interviews with Papa.

Things are going well with the Victor Reader Screen project for the blind. Ana, one of our pioneers with the project gave her first talk in Sacrament meeting a couple of weeks ago. With the aid of the VRS, she finally felt like she could give a talk. (She invited us, thinking we wouldn't come!) She is a super sharp young woman. She takes the bus and subway 2 hours each way, 2 days a week to get to the office. (We took an Uber!) She used the Victor Reader Screen with great success. When she wanted to quote a scripture, she quickly found it on the VRS and held it to up to the microphone and the machine read it!! Great talk! Marcos is our other blind “pioneer”. Their training with Brother Gardner in Utah is going well and both Ana and Marcos are loving the VRS.

Saturday, the 28th of July, is going to be a special day. It would have marked Grandma Gege´s 100th birthday. She wanted her children to all be together with her in the Temple on that day. That big day is Saturday and we can´t be with her, or all together, but Papa and I will be in the Campinas Temple with 19 of the Senior Missionaries. We will be remembering sweet Grandma Gege.

Have a great week! Give each other a hug from us!

Com Amor,
Papa and Gma

“If you want to walk fast, walk alone; if you want to walk far, walk together” - African Proverb

Post delivery interviews (with Ana Lucia)

More interviews 

And more!

Ana Lucia's garden--cool idea! Beautiful lettuce!

Our Cafe Rio dinner

Some of the senior sisters at the Area office

And the Elders with the birthday girl, Willa!

Soccer Letter (7/4/18)

Happy 4th of July!

Lots to report since I last wrote. Two missionary couples have headed home this past week, with only one replacement couple. AND we are only 2 couples away from being the “long timers” here! I didn’t want to say “oldest” because we might be that too! July 7th marked our 11th month serving.

Sunday was the last of 8 classes for our Marriage and Family Relations class that we teach. It´s been a great class and fun to get to know these cute couples and they really seemed to loved it! We have a new class starting soon.

All the Senior Missionaries got together to celebrate the 4th at the office. We had a late lunch, after the Brazilians were done with the lunch room. Lots of red, white and blue. We had hot dogs, pulled pork and all the traditional foods. I even made baked beans from scratch… Bush Beans are sooo much easier!

Since our last letter, we have had couples over for dinner, gone out to dinner to welcome the “newbies,” visited APRAESPI in Riberão Pires to train local leaders to perform the post wheelchair deliveries and spent many hours at the computer working on upcoming projects and doing finances. Papa is working on “importing wheelchairs,” the Victor Reader Stream project for the blind and working with a young man who has been here with the Huntsman games. He will have to write about those three things! It is very exciting!

We have some big trips planned. I take care of flight arrangements and hotels - Elder Papa does the rest! I have the easy job! Before the end of our winter (your summer) we will be traveling to Manaus, Petrolina, Boa Vista, Macapa, Riberão Pires .…and probably more! We are working on spreading the Church's wheelchair program to the North and interior areas of Brazil.

For the last week or so, Brazil is full of excitement with the World Cup! Soccer is their passion. In fact, everything (our office and all the shops!) shut down at 1:00 for the 3:00 games. I walked home at about 4:00 the other day and it was so quiet outside.… until Brazil scored a goal and then the roar of excitement, I´m sure, could be heard in Mexico! I had no trouble knowing when they scored, so I didn´t even have to watch the game! The previous game was at 9:00 am. Everyone came to the office at 8:00 and then at 9 they brought out the TVs, food, hats, shirts, balls and noisemakers! What a party! It was cute to watch their excitement! We hope they continue to win!

Hugs to all! We send our love to all!

Elder Papa and Sister Gma

“Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway” – John Wayne

Papa decked out for the World Cup

4th of July lunch

Senior Saturday adventure: Pinacoteca Museum, symphony, beautiful views and a lot of walking

The symphony at the Municipal Theater

Financial area (Brazilian Stock Market) where Papa worked 40 years ago. He'd eat lunch in the building I'm pointing at.

Just us!