“In the leafy treetops the birds sing good morning.” That song must have been written about here! Starting around 5 in the morning I can hear
many different warbles, chirps and whistles surrounding our apartment though I
have yet to see any of these vocalists.
Everyone seems to be off to work each
morning by 7 to 7:30 and they seem to stay up quite late at night. We have had several evening appointments that
end with a meal that starts at 8 or 9 pm.
We arrived here on Thursday. Our
first visitors that afternoon were Branch President Elias and his wife,
Evaldette. They came into town about 20
kilometers from their farm to the bank and to meet us. I understood very little
of the very fast speaking conversation but the abraços & sorrisos (hugs
& smiles) are the same in any language.
That evening missionaries invited to us to accompany them to meet with
some investigators in the home of Daniel Oishi and his wife, Dionorah nair Bahls de Mello. Their sister-in-law,
Susannah, and niece, Maria Eduarda, who is Duda are investigators that the young Elders are teaching. I took my Proclamation on the
Family and we used it to introduce ourselves and bear testimony. I connected
with Dionorah as I told about Rachel’s death and she mentioned her mother had
died two years ago. Then at 8:30 they brought out food and we were astounded at
the amount of food the Elders could eat.
We met the land-ladies on Friday as
we tried to set up internet service and find out how we paid our bills
here. Friday evening we attended a
family home evening sponsored by the Elders at the church. I had been asked to make 4 dozen cookies to
bring. I had most of the ingredients for
oatmeal cookies so I began the adventure of cooking one cookie sheet at a time in
my tiny oven. Mind you I only have one cookie sheet so the cooling, washing the
pan, and re-loading made this process quite long. I had been given some kitchen
spices in a care package from Elder and Sister Biehn and purchased some things
with Sister Cordon so I had to figure out which brown powder was cinnamon,
which bag contained oats etc. I was
grateful to have my own measuring cups and spoons so I did not have to convert
the measurements.
Many young adults and mutual age kids
along with families with young children came to Noite da Familia. After the
missionaries had me lead a song, John prayed, the Elders gave a lesson and played
a game, then everyone visited, played ping pong in the courtyard and had a good
time eating sandwiches, cookies, and pop. The missionaries said we were celebrities
since so many people in the area loved The Carters and they came to check us
out.
Saturday we cleaned our apartment and then translated in the aisles of the grocery store as
we shopped. We found a hardware store were John could buy tools and met the
owner. (Nice guy! --- future member?) We had to buy converters for any of our electrical appliances that we brought with us from home.
Ooma works (the name of our voice over IP-- it works through the internet and is our phone service to talk to loved ones at home): We have been able to
Skype with Shaliese and have talked to Deborah on the phone as
John was setting up our phone system. We
usually have a good internet connection here in the morning but seem to lose
our service in the evening which is unfortunate since that is when most of our
family members would be available. [We
are currently 3 hours earlier than those on Mountain Daylight Time.]
Sunday was a busy day! ..... more later.
Sunday was a busy day! ..... more later.
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