Too Many Dogs

I wouldn't want to say anything negative about Brazil, but I know more families who have four or more dogs than I do families that don't have a dog. There are no leash laws. The police would just laugh if I complained about barking dogs. Most people have fences, and the dogs are fierce when barking at me through the fences. There are many "abandonado" on the street, or let loose to run. Fortunately, they haven't given us any problems on the street. This nine dog parade (we didn't get them all in one photo) was early on a Sunday morning, and they mostly had the street to themselves. They traveled from one side of town to the other, then turned around and went back.

Yesterday, Sunday morning, I blew the circuit breaker in our apartment. Bob was using the shower that has an electrical heating element in the shower head (1500 watts), then I turned on the electric space heater(1200 watts) because I was freezing after my shower, and then I started using my hairdryer (900 watts). It was too much, and the power went out at 6:45 a.m. on a Sunday morning, too early to wake our neighbor who is kind of in charge of the building. The rest of Bob's shower was in cold water, poor guy. We ate cold cereal, and went to church. After church, we couldn't find anyone in the apartment building to help us turn the electricity back on. Yesterday was Father's day here in Brazil, and no one was home. We left a note on the neighbor's door, and lived without electricity and heat. BRR. We huddled in our bed, reading until it got dark about 6 p.m. We lit some candles and read a little more, and at 7 p.m., our neighbors came home and flipped the circuit breaker in some locked box somewhere in the building. I am so grateful for electricity! I missed my computer, the internet, my computer Vonnage telephone and light and heat!

Trip to Porto Alegre from Torres

The wind is very breezy here in Torres this time of year! We are
wearing long underwear, and layered clothing in our unheated apartment, and coats and hats and
gloves when we go out doors. The sun is shining today, and I am doing
laundry. Do laundry while the sun shines!

We had a Zone Conference in Porto Alegre this last week, which meant
getting up at 5 a.m. and taking a 7 a.m., 3 hour bus ride from Torres.
After we arrived, we went downtown, to the Centro. There is a big
building kind of like a huge famers market indoors with many different
little shops, or bancos selling everything: fruit, meat, fish, dish
cloths and tablecloths, ice cream (flavors like passion fruit, and
green corn as well as chocolate and strawberry), different kinds and
flavors of mate, the tea-like drink they love here, and the special
cups and sippers used to drink it, a shop for items for spiritualism
worship, a pet shop, restaurants, and the one we like best which has
nuts, and grains and olives. We bought lots of nuts--cashews, walnuts
from Chile, pecans, peanuts, Brazil nuts (which the Brazilians don't
realize we call Brazil nuts.) We went to an import specialty shop and
bought a small jar of Peter Pan crunchy peanut butter for about $9
US--$R15. We got some dried figs and dried prunes and dates. We love
the fruit stand, and this time we saw that they had bing cherries!
They were imported from the United States. We asked how much they
cost--$R59 per kilo, which is roughly maybe $18 a pound, I guess. Dad
bought 2 cherries for $R1.25, about 80 cents. We found a place to wash
them, and savored every taste! He wanted to buy more, but I told him
he could wait until next summer.

After our shopping, we had lunch with a missionary couple, the Watts,
who are assigned to the Porto Alegre South mission, and work in the
church employment center downtown. We took a taxi to the mission
office. I got a haircut at the salon near our old apartment, and a
manicure and pedicure from Deise (pronounced Daisy), our dear friend
who was baptized shortly before we left Porto Alegre. We went to the
Porto Alegre Temple, and then got a brand new, inexerienced taxi
driver to take us back to the mission home. He had no clue where he
was going. We stopped 2 times for directions from other taxi drivers.
(There are 5,000 taxis in Porto Alegre!) After the meter said almost
double of what it should have, I was getting mad, and had to make
myself hum "I'm Trying to be Like Jesus". We arrived, tired, at the
mission president's home, where they met us with warm hearts, good
food, good conversation and laughter, and good beds!

We had a great conference,(it helps when you can understand what
people are saying) and were encouraged to be good to our companions
(they still won't give us Brazilian companions!) Because Torres is
the farthest area from Porto Alegre, after the conference, the
president drove us and the Torres elders to the bus station, where the
elders got the last tickets on the next bus, but we waited 2 hours
outside in the chilly air, and finally got home after 10 p.m. But as I
looked out the bus windows at the city lights of Porto Alegre, then
the dark countryside and lakes we passed on the way home, I felt happy
and peaceful. Dad and I spread my poncho over our legs and we talked
quietly about many things on the way home. And then it was good to
come back to Torres, and to be back in our apartment.

Our time in Brazil is passing by, much like this scene out the bus window.  So much to see, absorb, learn, remember, experience in this beautiful place.

Blog, blog, blog

For a long time I have hesitated to start writing a new posting on this blog, thinking I have to write a masterpiece, and so I write nothing at all. I think I will instead try to write short ideas more often.  Like how cold it is here in Brazil right now. I sure miss June in Utah. My mind and body think it is November. There is no central heating in most homes in Brazil, and we only have a small space heater.  We bundle up when we are home, and are cold most of the time. The indoor temperature usually registers about 61 degrees F. Outdoors about 45 degrees at night, and maybe gets up to 65 sometimes in the afternoon. The beach is empty and beautiful. I love the ocean and the sand, even when the temperature is cold and the wind is blowing.

Early Morning Seminary Class

If anyone is still bothering to check this blog, you have noticed that I haven't written anything since the beginning of February. Sorry. My life has been revolving around teaching an early morning seminary class on the Old Testament--in Portuguese. Every morning five or six young teenagers would come to our apartment at 5:45 a.m. for an hour. I tried to teach them something about the Old Testament. I am so grateful that Bob was right there, helping me, especially when I was trying to explain circumcision. I would study several hours a day just to teach a one hour class the next day. We had a whiteboard easel and flip charts so I could write the main points for the class in Portuguese the night before. And Eliza sent me the student manual and the teacher's manual in English which saved me. They match perfectly, so I could read in English what I wanted to say, and write it in Portuguese.

We had a lot of fun learning things like how big the ark was--300 cubits long, up to 500 feet long, depending on how long your cubit is! We went out in the street at 6 a.m. and took measurements! We played games to help us memorize certain scriptures. My last day to teach was last Friday, and I am surprised at how sad I am to be finished.

We are being transferred on May 1 and moving 200 km. away to the ocean resort city of Torres, a city that is crowded in the summer, and practically deserted in the winter--the upcoming months. Even though I loved my seminary students very much, and even though I really learned a lot while teaching seminary, I was happy to learn that they already have a seminary teacher in Torres. And it has been very nice to sleep past 5 a.m.

Early Morning Seminary