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.
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