Serious Celebrating and Six Sister Missionaries

Monday, May 5^th we invited Daniel OIshi, the Mehls and Faccios over for hamburgers without telling them it was John’s birthday. John barbecued hamburger, I made buns, he baked potato fries, and we served them with carrot casserole and fruit salad. 

Waiting for hamburgers - May 5th

Fruit salad is easy with leite condensado with lime juice as sweet sauce.

We had been visited earlier in the day by the sister missionaries who stopped in to wish him “Parabéns” and to sing to him. 

Birthday cupcake from the Sister Missionaries for Elder McKinney

The week was pretty normal until Saturday the 10th. The sisters stopped by and brought me a Mother’s Day mug and a hug.  {We also enjoyed having them over on Sunday to Skype their moms. We were grateful to be able to speak with a few of our children too!} 

Fatih, Hope, and Charity Mug for Sister McKinney

 Elder McKinney had an interview at the church that afternoon and I had a piano lesson. We were surprised to find President Fernandes at the church conducting interviews with the Sister missionaries. He then left to do the same in Guarapuava. 

Birthday's are alright!

Marcia's cakes

That evening we were able to participate in a Family Home Evening/Birthday Party for Adenilson at Maria’s home. Marcia, Eva, Maria, and their children were joined by all 6 Prudentópolis missionaries, and Antonio & Eric in the cozy, small, front room as we had a lesson, sang, played a game, and were served cake and punch. 

“despedida” or farewell for Thalyta

We then joined the Mehl family in celebrating the “despedida” or farewell for Thalyta. She will be entering the CTM in São Paulo on May 21st. She has many family members and friends who are non-members of our church. She has been a terrific example for them. 

Grandmother's from all over the world have a lot of love. 

Thoughts written to help prevent
overflowing emotions. 

We gathered at her grandmother’s home and mixed with friends and family.  Renato fed us all from the barbecue which was then passed around just like rodízios at home. 

Renato is a great cook - that is a serious grill.

We had a zone conference on the 13^th then prepared our normal lessons for seminary, Sunday School, Priesthood, Primary etc. We cleaned the church on Friday in preparation for a baptism and RS activity the next day. We had a sad phone call earlier that morning. We have been getting to know the fellow who we hire to take the branch to the temple, to district conferences, and youth conference, etc. He was killed in a planned and proudly advertised murder.  He had been shot while resting in the bus, waiting for the university night students to return home to Prudentópolis. We hurriedly changed our morning plans and attended the funeral. Here they bury within 24 hours of a death. The mulher (unmarried woman that he lived with) was justly distraught. It has been a hard thing for many of the members who were his friend. We were able to mourn with those who mourn as we knew some of the other bus drivers who were his partners and friends. Afterward, we stopped at the cemetery next to the funeral home to see if we could possible help document some of the graves. Many of them are like family crypts__ some marked and some not. The young man who works there said he would talk to the city since it is the municipal cemetery and see if they would allow us to do so. He said he had tried several years ago when he was hired to document what he could but just had not been able to find the time. As far as he knows, there are no records for most of the burials there. 

Happy Day for Moacir  & the Sisters - This young priest
has been able to perform several baptisms & will be
prepared when he leaves on his mission this year.

Normally, I try not to put total names on line for safety reasons but I have to type the last name of our newest member. Michalczyszyn. There was some joking about some not wanting to baptize him because of the difficulty of pronouncing his last name. In reality there was some practice pronunciation done before both the baptism and the confirmation. He brought several non-members of his family with him to the baptism.  Elder McKinney noted that one of his aunts sang every word to one of the hymns. He used that as a teaching example in seminary about how our hymn book was initially started by Emma Smith from doctrinally correct hymns from other religions. Then he showed one of the newer hymns written by an apostle. 

Everyone is waiting to see what Paulo will say!

Can you tell the undying love segment wasn't
really punishment and everyone wanted photos.

As with many of the new sets of missionaries, the youth always convince them that we don't have enough activities.  Starting at 5 pm on Saturday the 17^th we had a spiritual thought before the sister missionaries conducted some LDS oriented games. Two teams guessed Book of Mormon related topics in a “Jeopardy” type setting. At one point after knowing the answer to a question, one young man yelled, “Yeah! Seminary!”  One of the funnest parts of the game involved the husband having to declare their un-dying love for their spouses. There were also some consequences for wrong answers mostly administered by family members on the opposing team. 

Little brother got to smear big brother.

It looks like this group missed the cream on the face.

There were salgados and bolos in the middle of that group and not much was left.

Afterward, there were other games under the patio and as always “Salgados” or salty things (they are in reality meat or cheese filled pasta) and “bolos” or cakes. I tried a new recipe, making an apple cake with carmel frosting, that was a real novelty and disappeared fast. Others had coconut, chocolate, and yellow cakes – most with sprinkles on top. 

Everyone had a good time. It was a great social. I just wish we would see all of these people the next morning in church. However, in a major step for our branch, most of the leaders of organizations were in ward council at 7:30 the next morning. 

The group photo for Sister Mehl to take with her.

On the home front we are excited for Jeremy and Karissa to have finished another year of law school.  He has a job with a law firm specializing in intellectual property this summer and Karrisa will be studying for the bar.  It is scheduled on July 29^th. We are so proud of her and her tenaciousness in completing her schooling while being a mother and wife.  We are grateful that her dad was able to be at graduation and that Dan, Shaliese & Mike, Deb & Jay, and Phill were able to support them for their special day. 

Hammer nail (saw) and saw

                    I spent a couple of days recently learning about home construction here in Prudentopolis. One of our members (Daniel) works in the construction industry and is normally out of town on large projects but recently he had 30 days of vacation and spent the time adding a second level to their home and he let me (reluctantly) come and help. Let me say right off that he did not build the first level of the home nor the stairway that we used to carry the materials up to the construction. 

These stairs were not built by Daniel and they remind me of the illustrations
in the books A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS am hoping he will somehow correct
the problem but I am not sure they see it as a problem.

When I entered the project he already had the “tijolos” (clay construction bricks) up to square and was ready to add the trusses and cover it. So my job was to carry whatever needed carrying up the stairs and his son and nephew mixed mortar and handed him whatever he needed. I already said the tijolos were up to square but after he set in place the bottom chord of the truss he built up the wall on one end to support the rafters. The roof all slopes in one direction. Once the wall was in place we carried the 2 x 4’s up and he placed the rafters. Let me say a word about the wood used in construction here. HEAVY. They do not dry the wood since the humidity is so high it will never dry and crack so 2 x 4’s are actually 2 x 4 and filled with sap. The wood used for construction is from a type of pine called the araucária. Pronounced a-ra-u-cadia. I don’t know enough about marking the vowels to give pronunciation so I will just say that the a’s have the sound of our a in car, the u is the double o sound in shoot, and the I is a long e. The r at the end does not really have the d sound but it is as close as I could come. Since I had heard that this particular tree was protected in the state of Paraná, I asked how it was possible that he purchased this wood. He just shrugged his shoulders and smiled. Okay so now I have carried the wood that is 3 or four times heavier than the wood we use and I get up on the scaffolding to help set them in place. I was a bit leery of the scaffolding at first because it was all built by hand and some of the supports were 1 x 2’s. the planks were 1 x whatever width was nearest at hand for the builder. But when I stood on it I was amazed. There was no give in the wood at all and some of the planks spanned 5 to 6 feet or more. Once I got used to the idea that it would not collapse I moved about freely and when I stood in the center of the largest span the wood beneath me did not even bow. It was stronger than any wood I have encountered. Our day ended when the rafters were in place and we took the next day off while the mortar set.

Wednesday was the day to close off the roof. The roofing material consisted of 2 x 2’s running perpendicular to the trusses at about 4 foot spacing and 4 x 8 sheets of concrete roofing material that is corrugated giving the look of Spanish style roof tiles. The word I would use to describe this material is, HEAVY. It was carried by myself and Gabriel, his son, up the stairs and then I would hoist it over my head while Gabriel lifted from one end and Daniel and his friend took it and placed it. It is attached with a ¼ inch x 5” lag screw that is simply driven through the concrete sheet and screwed into the 2 x 2. The next sheet then overlaps the first and the screw is driven through both sheets. Of course on each row of roofing sheets there was one odd length and the sheets needed to be cut in half. I was not allowed to use the tools necessary for cutting the sheets so one of the 2 on the roof would descend from the roof, mark the cut using a pencil and a board. Then holes would be made at about ½ inch spacing along the line using a hammer and nail and the sheet would be broken along the line of holes.

I thought it would be interesting for those who had worked in construction to give a list of the tools used on this project. Crosscut hand saw, hammer, nail (not just for attaching 2 pieces of wood together), trowel, plumb line, 6 inch square, buckets (multiple use, carrying water and sand to make mortar, lifting the mortar to the mortar trough, mortar trough is hand made of wood and later dis-assembled, (it is also heavy). All in all I was very impressed. Much of the construction here in Prudentópolis is poorly done but Daniel is very meticulous about his work and uses quality material. I am sure in his job he has many of the tools that we use that make construction easier and faster, but these are unnecessary to achieve the quality of workmanship that he desires. It was a good 2 days working with he and his family and learning about them and construction in Brazil.

I was debating whether to display my photographic skills or not.
I am sure Shaliese is cringing now. This is Gabriel on the right and
Elton on the left and I am sure everyone will recognize sister McKinney
in the doorway. The holes in the wall were left this way to build the
scaffolding and tijolos will be placed there. The entire wall
will be plastered so they are not too careful with mortar. 

This is a project between our apartment and the church. There
will probably be a store on the ground floor and apartments above.
The timber on the second floor supports the concrete in the floor
above until it cures or until they are ready to poor the next level.

Temple-Tour-Tournament

We were able to travel to the temple with 18 members from our branch and others from the district. We leave at 3 a.m. and return about 10 p.m. making for a long day.  The Curitiba Temple is a beautiful building and being able to attend quarterly while we are here has been one of the highlights of our mission. Think about the ceremony in another language. It has been a literal language learning experience for me. We attended the first session and for the third time served as witnesses. We then traveled to attend the Mission Tour at the Portão Chapel.  We were able to sit by Moises, President’s son, and meet the President’s father as we snuck into the back of the chapel. It was good to hear from and feel the spirit of Elder Ribeiro and his wife.  He taught several lessons by using the chalk board– drawing the home in his story and other things that illustrated what he was saying. We were able to visit with the Ribeiros at our table during lunch.  They have a young family and she is not always able to travel with him so we were really blessed for her to come and speak to us.  They currently have a son on a mission.

If you look closely -- the green team is a bit younger and thinner than
the red team.

The crowd is important - especially when you are a girl friend.
She was one of the few brave enough to talk to me. 

The team gathered for awards and photos.

Prudentopolis "A" team - third overall

Prudentopolis "B" team  

Prudentopolis "B" receiving medals.

Team Captain receives award for the team

Best Goalie in Tournament

Our branch was invited to participate in the first annual Futsal tournament for the Guarapuava District. We had so many youth that we formed two teams, acquired buses, water bottles, apples and some salgados for our dinner time and went to participate. The team members were then dispensed to the homes of local members to shower and returned to the branch for the dance afterward. We showed Prince Caspian to those waiting for the soccer players to return to the church.  It was a good activity. I am surprised at how many of the members in the district we recognize. It turned out that we had only two men play on our two teams and our “A” team (with no men) took third place.  The two teams that had more tournament points consisted of men from the Bonsucesso Branch with a couple of youth.   There were a few injuries but less than I would expect from playing on concrete. We were able to take some investigators with us as part of our 33 on the bus. It was again just after midnight when we returned everyone to their homes and got a few hours’ sleep before our 7:30 a.m. leadership meeting the next day.

We were able to work on genealogy in our home via the internet with several other members. We promised one of the Sisters if she would submit names to the temple that then they, the persons on the other side of the veil, would be able to help her with temple work for her family. She sent the name of her deceased father with one of the brothers in the branch.  When she bore her testimony this week, she told how she was able to then find the names of both sets of Grandparents on his marriage license. She had never seen or noticed them there before. She has already started having impressions or help with the work.

One of our biggest problems in helping members with family history research is the lack of experience on the computer.  One sister has faithfully come for help but spent most of her time having problems remembering her user name and password and then after finally entering FamilySearch.org - losing the internet connection to do the work. When they have to travel in by bus from another city – you can see why things might be a little frustrating as it involves time and money for them. However, this past week we were successful in getting into the system and entering data, leaving the system, and being able to reenter without my hands helping her.  I am excited that at least two members here are now able to access their accounts and enter data for themselves and their families on their own.

One of the youth has also actually logged on and entered data. His biggest problem is in not knowing anything about his ancestors – to the point of not even knowing his grandmother’s name. We learned today that a great grandmother passed away in the interior and we will need to help enter data while it is on the minds of the family.

The primary activity yesterday was in our apartment. The kids came to learn how to make cookies. Chocolate chip had been especially requested. Since they don’t have chocolate chips here you have to be creative in cutting up chocolate bars or using confetti like chocolate pieces.  Our presidency was involved and the sisters kept saying “I have never used that before” about the different ingredients. The youth made their own copies of the recipe using a variety of my gel pens to copy it. They then took turns helping by washing their hands, measuring and adding ingredients, rolling the balls, then removing the hot cookies from the pans. They also enjoyed the cookies with milk. We sang “I Am a Child of God” and I was pleased that they remembered most of the words to all 4 verses.

 As we prepare sharing times and I help with the older class in Primary, I am thinking about our grandchildren learning the same lessons in various parts of the United States and I am glad to know that they have all been taught to read scriptures and attend their meetings. It will be fun to share Old Testament Stories when we return.

As the weather gets colder we get different types of
visitors in our apartment. 

Elder McKinney was called on to install a de-humidifier in the Sister’s apartment yesterday. [Current Sisters are: Lemos; Santos; Flor; & Hermes.] It was not what we thought it would be when they called to ask his help. Instead of a machine that takes water from the air, it was a drying machine (mounted on the wall with hangers to put clothes on inside of it) to help the clothing to dry in our very humid air.  I am sure my blogs last winter here bemoan the fact that it can take three days for clothes to dry. It is starting to be a bit cooler here –at least in the morning and evenings – and the humidity becomes more of a factor daily. In the mornings especially it reads 100%, looks like heavy fog, and feels like tiny raindrops that you walk through.  For us, April showers do bring May flowers but it just means that the heat is no longer frying them.   

We are assessing priorities to use our time to maximum effect for three more months. Elder will celebrate his birthday tomorrow with a hamburger barbecue for the members of the presidency, their family members, and a couple of investigators. 

We loved General Conference!

On March 29^th after returning home for the night we were blessed to log into “Face Time” and, via our son’s i-phone, we were able to listen to our youngest daughter’s personal performance on the saxophone at BYU. We were so glad for the support other family members gave her.  We understand that at the same time two of our grandchildren were in their school play performing as Odysseus and a member of the Trojan army.

We were also fortunate to see a short film of one granddaughter opening birthday gifts and one that was born while we have been away already walking. We always love to get the pictures from home that let us know everyone is well and growing.   We were surprised when we got pictures of Brooklyn so quickly.

We pass this tire dealer daily on our way to teach seminary
 - it is on the corner just south of our apartment.

The glare is from our really good street light system.
Doesn't this remind you of Jack's Tires in A.F? 

Then, still later on Saturday the 29th, what a privilege to be able to participate as a member of the church with women all over the world in the General Woman’s meeting and then prepare to hear it again in Portuguese on Sunday with the sisters. For the 1^st time here, we held a special luncheon after our regular Sacrament Meeting and then started the Women’s Broadcast for 20 sisters in our very own chapel.  After a few mechanical glitches we were able to see it all.

Young people waiting at the church for the Elders to show a film. We had just finished seminary and were waiting
with them. Our last group of Elders didn't understand how important it was to be on time. 

The little gal with attitude often attends our primary. Her brother is a new member and we hope she will be some day.

These new converts are part of a local drum line. We have been to see them practice several times.

The following day our Elders were transferred out. Two days later we were treated to the late night arrival of 4 Sister missionaries. With the help of two young members we were able to get them and all their luggage to their new apartment. Two of them are straight from the CTM in São Paulo where they had been for 12 days and then 3 days of training in Curitiba. All four are native Brazilians and are beautiful inside and out.  When we have had them to lunch, they showed us on the map where they came from and we realize how big the country is. They all come from states north of here but are from widespread areas. We do however know some Elders we have served with from some of these areas and wonder if there is not a little bit of cupid involved in getting some of the these strong faithful members together in everlasting families that are so needed here in this country.  Of these four, only 1 has both parents in the home where they were raised. Many of the Elders are also the only members in their family or are from homes were their parents have separated.

The Zone leader came from Guarapuava to orient the sisters since everyone had been newly transferred in. We were able to help them with lists of members in their respective areas and show them where people lived using the map of the city.  We were also treated to a surprise Zone Conference on our P-day the following Monday, when the two Assistants to the President came out and did some training in Guarapuava.  Elder Oaks is one of them and has had some powerful experiences that he can share with us all.

We loved all the sessions of conference and are grateful to have been able to show at least one session to over 50 members here. Many choose to stay for the Sunday sessions.  Very few take advantage of all 5 but we are grateful that increased numbers of men have been able to see priesthood session since we have started broadcast in our building.  On Sundays, the conference broadcasts here run from 9-11 (priesthood session) 1-3 and 5-7. It is a long day since many stay for the whole time because of the distance they have to walk.

We are in the midst of planning for Easter Sunday while the stores have been advertising their own version of Páscoa with large expensive chocolate eggs for sale for several months now.  

This is what we see as we go shopping at Dal Santos - our neighborhood grocery store.

This display of Easter bunnies and baskets would lead you to believe the celebration is similar here to the U.S.

All of these canopies have large, expensive, chocolate Easter eggs.

"Páscoa" is the word used for Easter here. You can see it on the advertisement on the canopy.

In planning for a hymn/scripture sacrament meeting we find that not many of our favorite Easter hymns are available in Portuguese.  Thus we will be using songs from the Children’s Songbook and the Liahona to teach about the life, atonement, and resurrection of the Savior.  We are personally grateful for our testimonies of the resurrection and what it means for us in the loss of our loved ones in the last few years. It would be hard to mark their special day without knowing that we will see them again and that they are busy doing good where they are.

On a personal note: I lost another filling so we went to visit the dentist. After this third visit he seems like a friend and he received a pamphlet on the family as we left his office this time.  

We continue to prepare for all sessions of seminary and are disappointed when the youth don’t show up – even though we learn a lot.  We finally have one who is actively memorizing the scripture mastery scriptures. That is progress here.

We have been able to work with several families to produce and print names for the upcoming trip to the temple. Two young people have worked on FamilySearch.org to prepare their four generation charts for their missions.   We wish we had enough influence to motivate the others since we know what they are missing.

Tuesday, April 15^th we were yet again surprised. We had hurried to the meat store to pick up hamburger for our weekly luncheon with the sisters. We stopped at the branch building to continue downloading the General Conference sessions. All of a sudden there were the two Elders from Irati telling us we had a district meeting that day and was Elder Rocha there yet. Surprise again!  Instead of the 4 sisters for lunch we ended up with 6 additional Elders to feed.  It is a good thing we bought enough meat for two batches of taco soup. Since they all seem to love hot rolls, we made everyone  full and happy after I scrambled to make enough food for 12. I guess surprises keep us on our toes.

Our four new sisters and Elders from Irati & Guarapuava.  Our new District Leader is Elder Wurdell.

They ate in my office turned dining room.

We only have 7 chairs so these Elders get the low seats. 

Elder's handy man skills come in handy for fixing the broken hinges on our particle board cupboards, fixing the string trimmer that we use to mow the branch building lawn (the lawn mower doesn't function), fixing our closet (which is also particle board), patching a leak in the water system at the church, fixing doors at the church, putting a lock on the baptismal font, and putting a patch on the baptismal font.  To bad he can't fix the water heater to the font. Our next baptism will be a cold one since we haven't heard anything from the maintenance group here for over three months. However, the swimming pool type font we have is better than using the old baptize in the river method. We are grateful for our talents!

Some touching thoughts from the women’s conference:

I invite you not only to love each other more but to love each other better.

You have been sent to earth in the generation of time because of who you are and what you are prepared to do.

I am a disciple of Jesus Christ.

Keep covenants!

We are daughters in his kingdom, precious, faithful, loved – We are daughters of our God. 

March Madness 2014

Guarapuava Zone Sisters - Feb 2014

We finished off our February with a surprise Zone Conference with President Fernandes who treated our district to lunch since we travel so far and have the greater cost in time as well as money when we attend. Our Zone at 24 is the largest it has been since we arrived. 

Feb 2014 - We have a large zone -- 2 zone meetings

President Fernandes treated us to lunch before the
afternoon zone conference at the end of February.

We were excited to receive our Christmas package
four months after it was mailed but intact!

Zone leaders are extreme left and right -- Elders Gonzales
& Elder F. Silva. They both also serve as trainers. 

It has been kind of crazy here for the last month.....but no basketball brackets involved. Since our last post we have had preparations for, attendance at, and return and report stages of the 2014 District Youth Conference. Then the next weekend the youth gathered for another district youth dance.

They can't take pictures without hand signs. Four of 
these kids were members for less than two months.

Our part of the preparations involved getting out information about and the lists of things needed for attendance at the "Acampamento dos Jovens do Distrito Guarapuava 2014"; collecting signed permission slips; shopping for appropriate clothing for new members; checking that they all had scriptures; chartering a van to travel to and from the conference and then the actual pickup and delivery of the youth to Guarapuava. We traveled with them on Saturday, March 1st to the Bonsucesso Branch Chapel.

There is only one youth not pictured of the 13 we took.
We have more youth than any other
branch in the district!

Unloading and retreating to the shade.
Because it is sunny
or because they are shy?

They started with a much needed ice-breaking activity. For many of our youth not only was this a first youth conference.... it was the first time they had socialized with other youth as members of the church since several were baptized within the last month. They then divided into two groups or companies, met their leaders and set goals. The companies chose names. Presidente Guilherme spoke to them. His talk was titled "Come to Christ, be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness". They then had a brief snack, the counselors gave a brief thought and they were off to bed. The young women stayed in the basement of a member's home for the three nights of the conference. The young men all stayed in a home that was vacant and for sale and was rented by the district for them to stay in. None of them got much sleep.

Utimately the young man in front of President Guilherme, a member
of several weeks, won the name a scripture character game.

A thimble of water in the face (for a wrong or duplicate answer)
stressed out several competitors

The answers were hard to hear and it was a quiet group trying to hear.

Sister in the background taught about scrap booking ancestors pictures.

Sunday started at 6:30 a.m. after what many of the youth described to us as a sleepless night. We had to ask since they all looked pretty tired when we returned in the evening to check on them. Our morning in Prudentópolis had included our regular block meetings, interviews, etc. Then we traveled with Mehls in their car to check on the kids. The youth had greatly increased the numbers in attendance at the Bonsucesso Branch that morning then had a Preach My Gospel  presentation by Presidente Lustoza and Presidente Claudiomiro.  We arrived in time to to see the presentation about História da Familia by Irmã Lina and Irmã Viviane showed her scrapbook of family ancestor photos. Then they had several group games. One of our newly baptized members won the game naming people from the scriptures. We never figured out the purpose of the tug of war in Sunday clothes.

Tug o War - Pulling together?

Monday Elder McKinney and I had planned to travel by bus to hear Presidente Fernandes speak at a fireside for the youth. Instead we ended up being the fireside as he had cancelled. We had our Proclamation on the Family Power Point which Elder McKinney adapted to present to the youth. We had cut up 23 different portions of the proclamation and I visited with different youth during their break and asked them to help us by reading them. As they sat in the cultural hall and looked at the pictures of our family and ancestors projected on the wall the youth essentially presented the proclamation while Elder McKinney added points about responsibilities of parents and youth in forming eternal families. As we returned home on the bus they were to have family home evening games.

This game started as a large circle of people - each making
their own animal motion which had to be duplicated for
them to reproduce and add another person to stay
in the circle.

Zeko, who normally seems shy, was one of the last three
contenders in the circle. 

Tuesday, March 3rd we returned in our chartered van to attend the baile (dance) and return home with our youth. I was totally surprised by the cultural hall turned disco when we arrived. The kids all seemed to have a good time and all participated. We returned home just after midnight with a group that had a hard time saying goodbye to a group of new friends.

These 2 little girls
had fun.

We were surprised at the disco atmosphere.

Accordions were popular along with other instruments.

Sisters?

The good bye didn't last long as we learned that March 15th the Guarapuava Branch was hosting a costume dance. We again chartered the bus and returned with the kids and other interested family members including children. I wish we could show the video Elder McKinney took of the Michael Jackson type footwork of some of our youth. 

This family included Batman, Wonder Woman and Robin

They held a costume award ceremony at the end of the dance.

We did have other standard activities. We just finished Week 5 of Seminary and have had good attendance at the three different groups. I am finally getting to see the films my children saw that match the music that was so often playing in our home. Elder McKinney and Brother Oishi have tried to make home teaching visits in many of the homes by the end of February and are hoping that others will participate in March. Home and Visiting Teaching are still a major weakness in this branch and the topic of our Ward Council discussions. 

Our friends - the Faccios

It is always good to visit with Oishis

We were lucky to have supper one evening with the Oishis at the Faccio home. We need the talents of these two as members. Hopefully it will be soon.  

We have encouraged the members to be ready to take family names to the temple on our next scheduled trip on April 19th. 

I have one very faithful piano student who comes multiple times a week. We have been disappointed by the ingenious excuses for not coming regularly but several of the others. 

What would you do to get a baptism sketch during March Zone Meeting.

Elder D. Silva is willing to take the hot sauce---an works hard all week here.

We continued to feed our district on Tuesdays but lost one pair Monday the 17th as they were sent to open a closed district. We had pancake breakfast with these two American Elders before sending them on their way.  So our Tuesday lunch was simpler as we only prepared for the 2 Elders in town this week.


We took some time on P-day to get acquainted with the new http://curitibasul.com website. We have been without regular communication with the mission office since the e-mails were not coming out on time and the phones were changed in an effort to save expense. We are no longer able to use our phone to text members -- which saves them a lot of money and us a lot of time in notifying them about ward council, temple trips, etc. We also cannot call them if they don't have the same prefix as we do which eliminates about 1/2 of the members. We don't feel like we have been nearly as effective.  It is much more costly for us to pay a taxi to get to the far flung members and hope they will be home when we need to communicate with them.  We have had to rely on using members to text messages and the Elders to pass along other information. However, the new website has a calendar which will help us keep abreast the mission news and meetings which will really be of help to us as the younger Elders missed passing on a few messages to us about zone meetings etc. in the past. 

On the home front Jay, Bowen, Shaliese, Evelyn, and Rachel celebrated birthdays and Jeremy & Karissa were married 15 years ago tomorrow. Shaliese and Mike blessed Brooklyn Emmy on March 16th. We hope everyone is happy and healthy,

Elder and Sister McKinney