Dear Family,
Well another week has passed. Wednesday makes one year since we left on our mission! I can't believe that it has been that long. The time that we were home still counts towards our 18 months as we continued to work from home the whole time. I'm kind of glad as I have been missing my family a lot lately. I've really done quite well, I think as far as being homesick, but once in awhile it really hits me. Still I haven't had too many tears, actually, hardly any until a few days ago when Emily texted me to tell me that she will be spending Christmas with Evan and McKenzie. That brought on the tears and I was at the office and I tried to not show that my eyes were all welled up with tears. Luckily, I'm kind of hidden behind my cubicle. :) I am really thankful to have such a wonderful family who looks after each other! That goes for my extended family as well (brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins). I love you all very much.
Last week we got to work on our Petrolina project. There are a lot of details to work out. On Wed. we had a conference call with the leaders up there and went over the basics of what was approved. Dad and Julio are going to fly up there in a few weeks to go over everything with everybody involved and in great detail. There isn't another project like this is the whole church and so it is going to be scrutinized very carefully by our office, the Area Presidency, and from headquarters in Salt Lake City and it will be monitored for the next two years, at least. I sure hope that it will be a success. We will be able to help get it started and then someone else will have to finish up with it.
We had an interesting experience at church today in our little branch. There wasn't any water in the building so they could only have Sacrament meeting. We've been there three times now and this is the second time that there hasn't been any water! Hopefully it won't happen so often in the future. Everyone was happy to see us again. Last week was Stake Conference so we stayed here and went to our Morumbi ward.
You all know that one of our challenges here on our mission is staying busy. It has been especially hard on Dad. There aren't too many things that he has suggested to Fernando that has been accepted and that has been very difficult for him. Well, today our lives got busier! We have both been asked to serve in the Young Men/Young Women presidencies! They are lacking leadership in those areas and the branch president is hoping that we can be an influence on the youth and their leaders to teach them how to live the gospel. It will be especially challenging for me because of the language but I think I am getting a little better at that. At least in my Duolingo I just made it to 20% fluent! (That is only after 1 1/2 years working on it almost everyday!)
Yesterday we had a fun day. We went to Ibirapera Park (like the Central Park of Sao Paulo) and went to "The Art of the Brick" display. It is art all made out of Legos. It was really fascinating! I have some pictures to share. The artist is American and used to be a lawyer but wasn't happy. He always wanted to be an artist and he loved playing with Legos so he switched professions and now he takes his display all over the world. If it ever comes to an area near any of you, you should go and see it. It was really neat. We also went to see the monument dedicated to the war between the state of Sao Paulo and the country of Brazil, similar to our Civil War but not as long or as deadly. It was very interesting.
I have been able to be a little busier at the office lately and that is nice. I also love teaching my English class. Last week I did my whole lesson on Halloween and I even wore a witches hat! You see a little bit of Halloween decorations down here now. By the way, Christmas decorations are going up like crazy now! Anyway, back to my class. I showed them a picture of Gary from the Zombie walk last year. They really liked that! I ended with showing them a video of the three witches from Macbeth and then we read that scene to give them reading and pronunciation practice. I watched lots of videos of that scene and most of them were pretty bad. I found one from the Royal Shakespeare Academy (England) that was superb! The witches were just plain creepy, not at all like the witch on the Wizard of Oz. You should watch it. Ian McClellan (in his younger days) plays Macbeth. He is Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings movies. It was fun and I think that my class likes me. I try to do a lot of speaking and pronunciation practice each week and one point of grammar or a spelling rule.
I hope that you all are doing well. I have some of your names on the prayer roll down here. Lynda and Don I sure hope that you can get your house sold soon. Your names are on the prayer roll and you are in my prayers. I love you all very much and pray for all each day, multiple times. Have a good week.
Love,
Mom/Paula
1. Lego cello
2. Man in chair
3, The swimmer
4. Man and woman holding hands. (and yours truly)
5. Dedicated to Gary!
1. Letting your inner self come out.
2. Jimi Hendrix (dedicated to Lynn)
3. Pele (dedicated to our soccer playing grandkids!)
4. Mona Lisa. It looks really cool from a distance.
5. Playing area. Some people never grow up. :)
6. Dedicated to Shelley :)
1. T-Rex made with over 80,000 Legos
2. Obelisk monument of the war
1. Mosaic inside the tomb/monument. There are three mosaics that liken the birth, crucifixion and resurrection of the Savior with the war. I know that seems weird, but somehow it all made sense.
2. 2nd mosaic
3. 3rd mosaic
4. The marble inside the tomb was from Italy. It was beautiful,
5. Looking down at kind of like their version of the unknown soldier.
6. A close up of the obelisk.
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