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. 

Saturday is a Special Day

Saturday was a day for eternal blessings.  September 22, 2012 we were able to attend the Mount Timpanogos Temple where our family and friends gathered for an endowment session to do Rachel’s work.  We were joined by Jeremy and Karissa, Andrew & Cami, James & Chelsea, Shaliese & Mike, Phillip, Deborah & Jay – all of our immediate family but Daniel.  Mom and Dad Smith along with my siblings, Jill & Don Gubler, Ryan Smith, Jeri Burr, and JaeLeen Smith were also there.  What a surprise to surprise to find siblings from Georgia and South Carolina in the temple in Utah.  Patty & DeMar Young were there from the McKinney side of the family and served as witnesses.  On top of this wonderful turnout there were a number of friends and old roommates of Rachel’s in attendance.  Diane Clarke Nielsen, Sonya Reynolds (?), Cheri, Mary, and others I cannot name were all waiting to celebrate this special day for Rachel. Mary brought us a “Families Are Forever” embroidery that Rachel had given her when her parents died and returned it saying, “This is Rachel’s testimony.” We finally departed after many hugs.  Shaliese was the proxy for this ordinance.  Deborah had been proxy for the initiatory the previous week as John, Jan, Deb, and Jay performed multiple ordinances to provide family names for as many participants as possible.  We brought the sealing cards with us to Brasil to complete them in the Curitiba temple.

Later, Saturday afternoon, we had a barbecue that included all 8 of our grandchildren.  We celebrated Myles 9^th birthday and enjoyed each other’s company.  These beautiful, happy, healthy grandchildren are such a blessing.  We were very fortunate to be able to assemble so many of our family members together for a special day. Later, John and I finally worked on P-day stuff which involved packing and purchasing all the last minute items that couples from Brazil informed us were needed.  It was crazy.  I was suffering from a nasty cold shared by our district leader at the MTC.  The house did not get cleaned and much was left unpacked.  I hope Cami and Andrew can forgive us for leaving them such a mess.  We were really sorry that we were not able to attend Lindsay & Chris’s picnic in the park.  We just ran out of time.

The Brigham City temple dedication was broadcast into the American Fork East Stake Center.  That viewing was our Sunday meeting.  I was still loading programs on the replacement computer sent the week before. (Did I mention my computer crashed the previous month?  I had just finished reloading all programs when Dell informed me they did not have a replacement fan and would be sending me out a new computer instead. So I started over again!)  I was very blessed to have back up discs of so much information available but it took several days to get everything down loaded and I still left discs packed away un-copied.  President Ivins had blessed both John & I the help of our ancestors as we served our mission.  I was grateful to have access to stories, pictures, and connections to so many of these ancestors restored to my computer.  I had made a 43 page booklet of family pictures with the Proclamation on the Family in Portuguese to use on our mission.  Shaliese was wonderful as she took time to print and cut these pages to size for me.  Maybe the lives of these ancestors will touch the heart of someone here in Brazil and encourage them to study their ancestors.