Saturday, February 4, 2017

From Mom

Dear Family,

How are you all doing?  I always feel badly when I hear that some of you have been or are sick.  I always pray for my family every day, actually, multiple times each day!  I love you all more than you could ever know.  I miss you all very much.  We don't have too much time left.  There are definitely some things that I will NOT miss about Brazil, i.e., the zillions of motorcycles that weave in and out of traffic and honk constantly, the humidity, the pollution, etc.  There are definitely some things that I WILL miss about Brazil, i.e., the people, the beauty of this country, the fruit, the zillions of things to do here in the city!  It has been good.  We are going to work hard to the end and do the best we can,

We have made a lot of good friends down here, both Brazilians and the other missionaries. One of our favorite couples, the Harris',  moved to St. George before they came down here so we will get to see them when we go visit Diane and Chris.  They are a lot of fun.  Shelley had fun with them while she was here.

A week and a half ago I went downtown to a 7-story fabric store.  Actually the building is 12 stories and about 7 of them are full of material.  I found some really nice white material so that I can make me two blouses when I get home.  I just can't find anything that fits me well so I am going to start sewing again.  I bought 2 meters of each and it is 60" wide and it cost around $6 or $7!  I couldn't help it and I went back last week and bought some more stuff!  The store is on a street called 25th of March and on any given day there might be over 1 millions shoppers on it!  It is crazy but fun!  I might even go back one more time.

Dad went back with me, plus several of the other missionaries, last week and then we walked over to a very famous building in the city called the Mercado Municipal.  It is basically one gigantic produce section of a grocery store, plus restaurants.  They have lots of very different looking kinds of fruit down here.  It is very colorful when it is all displayed.  We haven't tried all of it but we need to get brave and try more.  I'm just not quite sure how to eat some of it.

Our work is just kind of the same.  Dad translates missionary recommendations and has been working to get everything ordered for our Petrolina project.  I can't believe how long it takes for some of these things!  I teach an advanced English class on Wed. afternoons and then I am teaching a sister from our Morumbi ward one on one.  I also am helping with the family history department.  The church has a record of every ward and stake in the church and how many people are submitting names for temple ordinances.  I have looked up our own home ward plus Mom's ward and some others to see how they compare to the wards in Brazil.  I think the church is really trying to push family history all over the world.  Anyway, I help make the Brazil report.  I do the Fast Offering report each month but that doesn't take too much time.  We also work in the temple one day a week and that helps.  Some weeks I get pretty busy when all of the reports have to be ready at the same time, but I'd much rather have too much to do than not have enough.

I am going to suggest an activity for our senior missionaries down here to go to one of the cemeteries down here and photograph the headstones and then transcribe them.  Cemeteries are very interesting places to visit down here.  They are very different from ours back home.  There are several of the missionaries who are very interested in family history so that might be something they would enjoy doing with us.  Anything we can do to keep busy is good for us.

Well I'd better go.  I sure love you all very much.  The pictures I sent are of the fabric store and of the street.  It was not as busy when I took this picture.

Have a good week.

Love,
Mom/Paula



Here are a few more pictures.
1.  A view of the Mercado Municipal
2.  Another view of the Mercado
3.  Interesting artwork-all made of toast!
4,  A close up of the bread art.













No comments:

Post a Comment