It Has Been Hot!!!!

We held six temple preparation lessons, in our home, in the evening, to prepare Sister Mehl for her endowment on Feb 1st. Then we were lucky enough to participate in her endowment session. She came through the door to the Celestial Room smiling. We really enjoyed our time at the Curitiba Temple. We shared a bus with Guarapuava this trip.  We also were able to purchase Preach My Gospel manuals for all the youth that participate in the class on Sundays after our regular meetings. We also purchased more scriptures for new members and Temple magazines to help us motivate them to keep progressing. The distribution center is a very busy place during our temple trips.

Caloroso - Calor - Quente   These words were repeated by everyone we saw for weeks as we all sweltered together. We were feeling exceptionally hot and did not remember it being so last year. We were invited to Mehls for dinner on a Wednesday evening and in talking to them they agreed that this has been an exceptionally hot year. The first thing the missionaries ask for when they walk in our door is water.

We took a trip to see the chácara of a friend of a friend to try and find a place to hold our district Youth Conference since our district presidency did not have time to do so and was way too late in planning to get any of the known good ones in Guarapuava. This farm had some small homes for rent but the presidency decided to have our youth from ‘out of town’ come to Guarapuava and stay in the homes of the members there. Then during the day they will meet in the branch building for activities. They had even considered renting hotel rooms but decided against it. Youth Conference will be during Carnival here in Brasil.

I had a real misconception of what a Chácara was. I had been told it could mean it was a small shack.  I just didn’t equate that concept with it being a farm of one size or another since everyone was always going away for the weekend to their chácara in the interior. The pictures remind me of the old Mutual Dell. We enjoyed our visit having never been previously invited to visit one. We enjoyed some very good conversation with our hosts who are really intelligent people and gave us a ride on the way to and from the farm since we are always without transportation. These owners are really special people who run a business in town and have a couple keep up the farm for them.  Then, they take clients for classes or “get aways” on the farm where it is quiet and peaceful.

We have had three more baptisms since we last wrote. Elder McKinney presides, then we supply music and the printed programs, fluffy white towels, and the washing up of baptismal clothing for each of the baptismal services. We have also had some really musically talented Elders in the area and have had several special musical numbers during this transfer. 

We had an Elder’s Quintet singing parts to “Lead Kindly Light” in sacrament meeting last Sunday because we knew that a couple of the good voices would be transferred the next day. It is a rare opportunity for the members to hear the song using harmony. I still don’t feel like I have one member that can lead on the beat for a whole song. They have learned the hand motion from the back of the hymn book but don’t understand that the beats begin again for each new measure.  I really despaired when one of the most musically talented missionaries told me he had just taught people to stand in front and write their name in cursive because it did not really matter anyway.

Elder Hogge held 2 district meetings here in Prudentópolis on Tuesdays: 28 January & Feb 4^th. That means 6 elders for lunch since Tuesdays are our day to serve the Elders lunch. Problems: (1) we don’t have enough chairs for 8 to sit (2) we only have silverware for 6 (3) it is hard for me to prepare the meal while I am in district meeting – This is an interesting problem because even preparing or pre-preparing takes me a lot longer here because of the lack of equipment and the juggling of stovetop or oven to serve things hot.  We got away with serving watermelon for dessert several times since it can be pre-cubed and cooled in the fridge.

Zone Meeting - There are even more Elders on my left but I couldn't get a clear shot. 

We have also had 2 zone meetings since our last post. Feb 11^th was the last zone meeting with Elder Long as our zone leader since he is headed home. We knew that several others would be transferred and not be seen again. Elder and Sister Davis really did a great service for the 6 Elders that now live in the apartment they found.  There are 5 sisters in Bonsucesso . The two zone leaders also serve as trainers and so there are 4 Elders in Guarapuava branch. With the 2 Elders from Irati and the 6 of us in Prudentópolis, we have a pretty big zone right now.  President Fernandes held a special priesthood meeting for all the priesthood holders in the district telling them he wants Guarapuava to be a stake before he leaves and he is sending the missionaries to make it happen.  We were excited to have an attendance of 72 people in our branch last Sunday.

School has started up again so Seminary is also beginning again. This time our schedule is not as easy.  Most of the kids want to meet either on Saturday or Sunday to report their home study for the week but we have two interested in Tuesday – Friday evenings after work from 7-8 p.m. So, there will be lots of seminary days to serve the 16 students here.  We’ll have to see how that works out.

Brother Oishi has become interested in being trained as a family history consultant, knowing that we will not be here for long. We have set aside time on Friday mornings to meet at the church and use the computer to help him learn what is available for the members here.  He and Elder McKinney are determined to get Home Teaching going and have set out as companions to visit everyone until the priesthood holders here can be motivated to split up the work.

Best News ever:  Brooklyn Emmy Sermon was born on February 4^th. We are so grateful that mom and our newest grandbaby are healthy. Now we just pray for them to get sleep. Not long after, we also heard we would be having a Brady granddaughter in July.  We hope both mothers are feeling better.

Prudentópolis Distrito - Jan & Fev 2014
Our bus leaves at 6:15 a.m. so we are always waiting at the gate for someone to let us into Zone Meeting in Guarapuava!

February 2014 – Prudentopolis District

Ëlder John L McKinney & Irmã Jan McKinney

Ëlder Dayslan Rodrigues da Silva & Ëlder Ian James Forsyth stayed

Elder Cesar & Ëlder Jason Hogge  were transferred

New this week:  Ëlder Jonah Lavar Skousen & Ëlder Mauicio dos Santos Rocha

In Irati: Ëlder Paulo Victor Reboucas Cavalcante & Elder Chase (who was transferred)  New this week: Ëlder Skyler Young

This cat always looked like it owned the farm.

New Year New Chuveiro

Before I get into the story of the new shower I should report on our latest baptisms. The photo on the right here shows a member group with Adenilson, who was baptized on Saturday the 11th and confirmed on Sunday the 12th. Adenilson is the one with the Book of Mormon and Elder da Silva on his right is the Elder who taught and baptized him. (His first in the Mission, he has been out a few weeks now).

Adenilson is the brother of our Relief Society President and has moved to Prudentopolis recently. He met the Elders on the street one day and told them he was ready to be baptized. upon talking with him they found that he had attended church with his sister several times before even Sister McKinney and I arrived and had been taught by the Elders at the time. The Elders re-taught him the lessons and he was baptized the same week.

On the left is Adenilson and the young man (Cesar) who was baptized the same day with the four Elders serving here. Cesar was baptized by Elder Cesar (not his real name) and is the brother of one of the young women who was baptized at the end of the year. An explanation of Elder Cesar's name is probably in order. Cesar is in fact one of his names but not his surname. In our zone, we have Elder Silva (zone leader and Elder da Silva who is in our district. There are other Elder Silvas in the mission and each has a different variation of the name. There is Elder Silva, da Silva, F. Silva etc. Well Elder Cesar is also Elder Silva but decided to use one of his given names rather than be thrown in with all the other Silvas. Silva in Brazil is something like Smith multiplied by one or 2 thousand.

Shower:

Now to my shower (chuveiro) story. A shower in Brazil is in reality water dripping out of the wall through a heating coil. The shower shown here is the same as the one we had in both bathrooms. The one in the master bath burned out so I proceeded to replace it. In doing so I had to see the wiring 

scheme so I pulled the wires of the one in the guest bath. You can see the wires I have pulled form the wall. You may think it is not a good idea to have electrical connection in the shower like this and I won't argue with you there. So now I was ready to install our new shower head in the master bath.

You can see that the new one is much sleeker in design than the old one but the picture on the right is not yet complete. You can see the coils that heat the water and it is ready now to receive the tank and shower head. The coils you see will be encased in a tank where the water will collect to be heated. There is a closer view of the coils below.

I should tell you that I put this thing on 5 times to get it right. The first time I got the mount wrong, the second time I noticed it wasn't heating the water and I had to remove a gasket from the wall mount. I swear the instructions said nothing of a pressure reducing gasket, the third time the heating coil came unplugged as I was putting on the last piece, the fourth because the shower was not level and the fifth was not the charm because it still doesn't heat as well as our old one but I am leaving it as is because I think it is just not as good a unit. But finally you get to see the finished product. If you think it looks a little like the starship enterprise, sister McKinney and I agree with you.

Side view of the Enterprise

The underbelly of the Enterprise

2013 Feliz Natal!

To wrap up 2013 I wanted to document some of our end of the year activities and add some odds and ends that have not fit in previous blogs. 

Presidente and Sister Mazzagardi surrounded by half of the Brazil Curitiba South Mission.
We are the ones that live farthest away! 

Our white Christmas began when we had a baptism for Elisiane e Franciele on the 21^st of December. They are two beautiful young women. Daniel was grateful to be able to perform the baptism.

Prudentópolis members and friends - 21 December 2013 baptism! That's a lot of white shirts.

Our Christmas choir and scripture reading was very well received. President Elias and Sister Mehl were our readers for the scriptures in Luke and Matthew about the birth of our Savior, his early trip to the temple, and the visit of the shepherds and later the wise men. The concluding remarks by Elder McKinney about the signs spoken of in the scriptures leading the wise men to know where and when to look for Christ and how that ties in with our ability and obligation to know the signs of our times in preparing for the second coming, were spoken in a room where you could hear a pin drop.

Of course that was not the end of the day for President McKinney as there were still interviews, tithing settlement etc. When we finally did arrive at home, we took a deep breath, and as we rested for a minute, we realized that we had a brand new year coming and that there was one last opportune 5^th Sunday to use for teaching everyone together.  So, we started preparing again.

I was looking for stores that celebrated the true meaning of Christmas. There were a few nativity scenes.

Meanwhile, since we had a mid-transfer, transfer of Elders, we had 4 Elders here just in time for Christmas. We had them all to dinner for Christmas Eve, and then the two new Elders came back on Christmas day to making phone calls to their families. That was an experience. The Brazilian Elder really knew how to get around on the internet as he talked to different branches of his family. 

We chose to make hamburgers, baked fries, cubed watermelon
and chocolate ribbon pie to celebrate Christmas Eve with all
four Elders serving in our branch. Two are in their first transfer.

We were very fortunate to speak with all of our children and grandchildren either on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. We even got to watch James’ children get up and open gifts.  We were able to get the inside story on how James and Chelsea made the kitchen set for the younger girls.

We hired a taxi one day to visit all the members in the farthest areas of our branch. We chose to take a plate of cookies or zucchini bread and wish them Happy Holidays. Most seemed quite surprised, others were teary eyed, and all grateful. Since many of our members live in part member homes, it gives us a chance to visit with other family members and learn about them.

Toys in downtown park.

We have a neighbor down the street that is an older woman with an extended family of 8 children and many grands and greats.  She has always been interested in me and why I do not communicate as well as she would like.  She invited us over to see her beautiful Christmas tree and showed us her garden.  She made me feel right at home. She was growing corn, squash, beans, etc. and had grape vines growing across the eves of the house. Her Christmas tree was a young araucária from her back yard and decorated with beads, balls, and tinsel with a beautiful nativity scene below.  One son and one daughter dropped by while we were there.  The son had co-written a book about Prudentópolis and another about Irati (Elder McKinney purchased one!)

Local soccer quadra - there are a lot of McKinney's that would like to play here

This is looking from our quadra into the patio at the branch.

The 5^th Sunday presentation, translated from the December 2013 Ensign (not in the Liahona in either language) Making a Living, Making a Life By Elder Lynn G. Robbins Of the Seventy, was given to all the adults and youth present. Our Elder’s Quorum President was very excited about President McKinney sharing the concepts of making the world a better place with our service while making a livelihood here on earth. He used examples from different motivations in the work place and their results. Hopefully the youth will listen and understand while they still have time to prepare to care for a family of their own. 

I use the folder on the left to teach music in primary. This is their plastic
sleeves.  All of the paper here is 8.5 x 12 (not 11).  The yellow folder is called
a "pasta de plástica" Note the two punch set up. Behind is the plastic box I
use to keep things dry when we are walking in the rain.

The following week we prepared lesson manuals, yearly schedules, and packets for the teachers in all the organizations. Then, just after New Year’s Day, we received two Christmas Cards.

Our friend, BenHur, at the local post office!

We spent a pleasant lunch with the Mehls on Sunday. They are still waiting for the mission call. It seems to have been delayed by the holidays and we hope it will arrive this week. Meanwhile this is the listing in the church directory:

Missionários  Designados - Prudentópolis Branch de Guarapuava

Ëlder Cesar Martines da Silva

Ëlder Cristobal Ignacio Matamala Henriquez

Ëlder Dayslan Rodrigues da Silva

Irmã Jan McKinney

Ëlder Jason Hogge

Ëlder John McKinney

This clock shop is where I replaced my batteries for my watch and Elder McKinney bought a new watch. 

Typical door knob.
This is on our front doorl

Note: the toilet has no water tank. The toilet paper holder is
unique.

Bathroom door knob.

armário de roupas or clothes closet -
there is nothing attached to the
wall or built into the wall

This is an old and new water tank. This is how we get water pressure
on our homes here. That is why the toilet doesn't have a tank.

December 2013 - more celebration

The week after our branch Christmas party, the missionaries instigated an activity were everyone was to bring their favorite dessert and come have dance instruction.  Fortunately for us, one beautiful, young woman, investigator is engaged to a member of the church from Guarapuava.  They are both teachers and he has taught dance for 11 years. They gladly demonstrated and helped out for several hours before we all stopped to enjoy dessert. 

Welcome!

The dessert table is next to the Elders and other non-dancers

These two couples moved down the line practicing.

Lines on both sides watch the instruction

 An exciting development is that President McKinney got to help one sister in our branch fill out mission papers.  They have been submitted and the on-line status is that she has been assigned. So, we are all waiting to find out where and when.

Meanwhile, our branch members have been rehearsing Christmas Songs each Sunday for several weeks in preparation for our Christmas Sacrament Meeting Choir. Since the Church does not have Bible rights here in Brasil, I could not copy and paste the Christmas story from Luke and Matthew.  So, I spent some time typing up a script from the scriptures and we have passed it out to Readers to site the scripture story of the nativity between songs.  There are far fewer Christmas songs in both the Hymnal and the Children’s Songbook here but the members are not acquainted with most of the ones that they do have in the books.  Last year they only sang Christmas songs on the Sunday before Christmas. So President McKinney had to explain over the pulpit why we were singing Christmas songs the whole month for Sacrament Meetings. One gentleman said, we don’t know all the American Christmas songs like Silent Night.  I had to explain to him that it was a very famous German hymn.  I have also had one of the piano students working on Christmas hymns. 

We had a week were we kept commenting on the warm milk we were drinking for our meals.  It finally dawned on us as the food began to spoil faster than normal that there was something wrong with our really antiquated refrigerator.  When we had the repairmen out he described it as a dinosaur and recommended it would cost less and we would have better results if we were to just buy a new one -- so we did.  (the process was a little bit longer than that since we needed permission from the mission president) Now we not only have cold food in a much smaller refrigerator but we can sleep at night because we no long have the constant noise of the old motor kicking on and off every few minutes.  We are curious to see if it pays for itself with the more energy-efficient use of electricity.

Missionary photos on bells & stars
decorate this tree.

 We also had two special trips into Curitiba. First, on December 12^th we met with the ½ of our mission that had to travel quite a ways by bus to attend. We had lunch in a restaurant near the mission office and then in the afternoon President and Sister Mazzagardi spoke to us as part of the mission tour. We had been instructed to clean our apartments, make sure we were well-groomed, and read the story of Abraham preparing for his 3 visitors in the scriptures before attending. Upon their arrival they asked each missionary to walk by and tell their name and the state they came from as they shook hands.  When I said, Sister McKinney, Utah…. He stopped me and said, “What city?”  I replied American Fork and started to explain where it was and he stopped me and said he knew American Fork.  He later spoke to us during a break.  He had lived in the States for about 6 ½ years as part of his work and spoke fluent English.  They both gave great talks. Our busload slept as much as we could through our late night drive home.

The following Tuesday, Elder McKinney and I returned to 

Elder McKinney made this
especially
for his left-handed wife.

Curitiba to stay at the mission home and help prepare for the Mission Christmas conference the next day. It was so fun to visit with the Fernandes Family and work alongside of them in preparation.  They had worked so hard and made many special preparations to make the missionaries happy. The ornaments for the tree were bells with the Elder’s pictures and the stars were the Sister missionaries.  The special booklet of recipes, traditions and memories submitted by the missionaries was printed and bound at their home.  Our copy is the first one Elder McKinney made – especially for me because I’m left handed. Right!  I was able to spend the day baking cookies.  Two of the recipes were totally new to me and will now be in my family cook book: soft ginger snaps and pumpkin cookies with cream cheese frosting.  Of course, we made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I had help, from the daughters and the empregada of the house, off and on until we finally went to be about midnight.

Just one of many "groups" that gathered for pictures.

Our zone, like all the others, was assigned to sing a hymn. We had Lá na Judéia, Onde Cristo Nasceu. Elder Long, one of our zone leaders, is a gifted pianist and was able to improvise on the tune and play some gorgeous accompaniment as we sang a verse together to the original tune, then the Sisters the second verse and Elders the third to his accompaniment. On the fourth verse we finished resoundingly together and felt very good about the outcome of our practices.  One really great thing was that Elder McKinney encourage some of the Elders to sing bass with him and we had sisters singing alto as well as soprano so there was harmony.  It does not happen often here.

We had talks, training, music, good food, passing out of gifts, and a long bus ride home. We are getting to know the bus driver well.

The sister from Guarapuava Zone wanted a picture with us.

Can you see me smiling at the 8 year old who is using my camera to take this picture? 

Thanksgiving 2013 & more Holiday Stuff

Elder McKinney - Thanksgiving Dinner  served on the traditional Thanksgiving
Table Cloth. The rolls and mashed potatoes are about the only traditional items.

We were the only Americans in the area on November 28th. So, even though I tried to teach the children about gratitude during primary, we were the only ones celebrating and giving thanks on that day.  Elder McKinney purchased and barbecued our first real steak and even made the broccoli-cauliflower salad he really likes.  With some mashed potatoes, corn, and rolls, we really enjoyed our dinner and hoped that all our you enjoyed your families and remembering the things you are thankful for.

We have so many blessings. We are grateful to be here and serving in the Prudentópolis Branch.

We used the 1st Sunday in a joint second hour meeting of RS, Mutual, and Priesthood to present the new "Minha Família" genealogy booklets out to the members. Elder McKinney had received a letter from the area presidency asking for them to be presented on the last week in November but we didn't receive them until 2 days before.  He made the presentation using his own booklet with his family line and the pictures we printed of each of his ancestors.  I was able to keep all of the primary children.  We had an introduction to the Christmas season by viewing the children's films of the Angel Gabriel speaking to Mary & Joseph, then speaking to the shepherds, the nativity, the Wisemen meeting with Herod and later the Christ child, presenting the child at the temple, then finally the warning to Joseph to flee with the family to Egypt.  The children were fascinated. We also talked about the prophecies of Christ's birth and colored a picture page of five of the ancient prophets and their scripture reference about the coming of Christ.

The presidency signed the booklets - Merry Christmas 2013

The Elders helped ups pass out the invitations.

At ward council meeting we also planned to have our Christmas Party.  Renato suggested we give the families "3 Simple Ways to Become a Happier Family" pamphlets. So, the presidency signed them and give them instead of Christmas cards. Our celebration was attended by 60 people on the upper level of Mr. Gordon's pizza which he graciously let us decorate and use solely for us.  We sang Christmas songs, ate, watched Mundo Feliz  on the big screen TV, and visited for several hours.  Mr. Gordon's serves about 160 different types of pizza that you have never even heard of in the states.  Everyone could order what they wanted and we all finished with the three different types of chocolate-dessert pizza.

Most of the kids sat on this table. The folder is the menu.

The adults are on this end while the youth gathered
down the line.

Those kids are soooo cute! 

Visiting after it is all over.

The following week we had to catch the 6:00 a.m. bus to Guarapuava for our Zone Meeting. This is what we saw on the street as we walked our mile to the bus stop.

The tree is recycled pop bottles.

We love the new sidewalk--it was all torn
up last year when we arrived.

The São João Catholic Church is on the rua named after it. Note the palms

Araucaria trees and palms in the darkness of the church square - Why do they decorate for cold climates when theirs
is much more authentic to the real day of Christ's birth?

More about our holiday preparation in the next blog!