Lunch with Eva Oliveira

Eva Aparecida Pereira de Oliveira, children & missionaries 

We were again invited to a member’s home to meet them.  Eva Aparecida Pereira de Oliveira invited us to her lunch for the Elders. The members here take turns making lunch (which is the big meal of the day) for the elders.  From the schedule on the RS wall it looks like this rotation happens about every 2 weeks.  Eva has 6 children.  As we ate and talked we learned that she was the 1^st member baptized here in Prudentopolis.  She was curious when she saw the missionaries walking by and eventually stopped them and talked with them.  Separately her husband, Julio Jordão de Oliveira, had a dream about two young men coming to visit them.  He is now working away on a farm because there is no work here for him but we met him on the 1^st Sunday we were here.  Ezequiel Pereira Oliveira is their 15 year old son and is active at church, wearing a suit and worthy to pass the sacrament. He is also more than willing to go on visits with the missionaries.  Most of these families are willing to pass out Books of Mormon to friends and acquaintances. 

We attended a funeral for a member’s father Tuesday, October 9th. Nevair Erdmann’s father had died around midnight.  The service was held the same day.  The Lutheran church where the service was held was bright blue outside and a peaceful paler blue inside.  It was packed full to the back were John and I stood. Our walk took a little longer than anticipated and we were 5 minutes late.  The pastor gave a talk mostly from the scriptures and it was technically doctrinally correct, he then played the piano, prayed, and read the obituary. Only one other person participated, a grandchild. The group then loaded up in cars and followed the casket to the cemetery.

We were able to give Neva and her granddaughter, who was un-consolable, a hug. Neva is the only member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in her family. Her mother had died and her father remarried so there is a second wife and step-siblings.  One gentleman stopped and purposely shook John’s hand.  We think it might have been her step-brother who has at times asked about the church and been friendly with the Elders. We saw only one other member of the church in attendance at the funeral to support Sister Neva. Things really happen fast here. We only heard about it because a member had stopped by earlier in the day and told us about the death and funeral. 

Wednesday, we stopped by the house to meet with her and take a salad and dessert. A grandson took it in and put it in the refrigerator but we did not catch her at home.  The missionaries had an appointment during the funeral time yesterday.  They met us at Neiva’s and as their appointments had also fallen through, they came to our apartment for dinner and to finish off the sorbet they had left in our fridge.  They were on their way to Curitiba, a 4½ hour bus ride, so that Elder Hartley could attend the temple there before he returns home next week. 

There are a few other observations to add to this week’s list.  John and I stopped at the local version of the IFA to see what we could buy to cover our window openings.  It does get very hot here.  The windows have no screens. Everything is wide open.  We bought some green mesh and John has rigged some pretty colorful screens for our windows.

The garbage collection is also different here.  There is a small basket on the fence or wall in front of the houses in town.  You take your garbage sacks out and set them in these baskets.  As far as we can tell, about three days a week someone comes by and picks up this garbage.  Most of the sacks are about grocery sack size which makes sense because with no air conditioning, wet things could get stinky pretty fast.