Ministering in the Dark (with dogs)

wohoo, twice now I've fielded calls from missionaries (that speak only Portuguese) and managed to deal with it. They probably laughed at how garbled, but I understood what they needed and they understood that I could take care of it.

I've thought these were quite interesting-looking eggs, finally got a photo one day in WalMart.
The shells look very rough.

codorna means quail!

The couple in front are the Haslams, this is their fourth mission to Brazil. The first three were "member-leader support" out in small towns. They planned to do a temple mission in the US but there were waiting lists of seniors for the temples they considered, so they decided to come where they are needed. They work at the temple every day. and he is always finding referrals everywhere they go when they shop, ride, travel.
The photo is from Dom Black's, which was supposed to be stiff competition for Mardero's superb hamburgers but none of us thought they were even close. But it was very pleasant outside and much quieter for visiting with each other. They had a chickpea burger that wasn't impressive. Madero's rolls are very fresh and have chewy crust, these were like cheap commercial "French" rolls and we saw them bringing in crates of them for the next day. or week?

It was a banner week for mail! I got two letters in one day, and a few days later got this amazing pop-up card from a calligraphy friend. I'm afraid the return mail won't be as good, sending mail here is just a bit complicated. EVERYTHING here is a bit complicated. You can't just buy a stamp and put it in the mail. You have to go get in line for a number and then wait for your number to come up and then let them weigh it and then buy postage - assuming you are up to the hike to the post office and can get away during business hours. And then you can only hope it actually arrives at the desired place, sometimes it happens.

 President Linhares, the self-reliance specialist, came to our English 1 class this week. We had a very small group, got a few apologies later on Whatsapp (everyone here uses it to communicate, I am learning how). He had Durk visit his office and enter people into the official record whether they have kept coming or not, and of course the sign-up doesn't have a lot of those that have popped in lately. They talked about the English course the missionaries can work on. They get a book at the MTC and we have further ones for them to use. They have a 30-minute language study time in their daily schedule and those who work on it often get pretty good. They can take a test to show how well they have done and get help with further education after their mission. There are people here qualified for the Perpetual Education Fund but they don't take advantage of it. The government has started providing college education free but many of the teachers are pressured to pass everyone even if they know nothing, because if they don't show the students doing well they don't get money. So you see many students all over the place, hard to know how much they are accomplishing. I think the unemployment must be fairly high because we keep hearing of people going several hours journey to apply for jobs.

For his birthday, President Houseman was presented with a balloon mosquito. Long story behind him calling the missionaries his mosquitoes (anyone who doesn't know, he is an entomologist and often uses insect analogies).

SO, on Sunday Norma (don't pronounce the R and put just a bit of "h" there and you'll be pretty close) told me we would go visit two of our sisters the next day after I finished at the office "before jantar" (which is dinner, its still common to eat the big dinner midday and a late supper or jantar). She knew where to find me since she knows our neighbor. So she surprised us by being right on time (not very Brazilian of her) and we started our hike. A night hike, since it gets dark pretty early. I had been told the apartment bldg was right across from the Catholic University but it must be across from the very far back side of it. I really really wish we had Mission Impossible spy glasses that took photos when we blink right, we'd have some pretty interesting ones. I plan to think of a good reason to take some photos of visiting the next time, but we were warned not to have phones and ipads out at night. We had a rash of robberies last week, two sister lost their watches and everything.

Usually you just see a piece of 2x4 stuck in a hole to warn drivers, this was more elegant.

Anyway, we walked about half an hour on even rougher "sidewalks" than usual (poles and columns and trees are just in the middle of the walk), some very busy streets where you are about a foot from the buses to some very quiet slightly scary lanes, and finally, thankfully not at the place with huge deep barking from behind the wall, got to the "Junior Building" where Norma yelled up to the third floor for Severina to come down and let us in. Eventually she did, with her key to the padlock on the gate/door. We went up some very tight circular stairs to her place. Her chihuahua gave up trying to eat us and we had a lovely visit. Norma and I were able to have a fairly decent conversation as we walked but once at the house I was mostly lost and smiled a lot. Severina has a son in Utah with his wife and kids, trying to get a job as a airline mechanic I think. It is not unusual for people to be learning English so they can talk to their grandchildren in the States.

Evening light,the netting is to keep the kids from falling off the fourth floor. The big tree on the left is starting to have baby mangoes to watch, In a week they went from grape tomato size to scrawny apricot.

Turns out our other visit was next door with the big dog. So this time Norma clapped her hands to let them know we were there, the woman came out (with another smaller yappy dog) and eventually put the smaller dog inside but left the big one and did not invite us in. Norma introduced us over the wall - apparently I am "Merow" - and said we would check on her from time to time. So we hiked on back and Norma had a fair ways further home but said she walks a lot and it wasn't far at all to her. I had no idea where I was most of the time, but it was an adventure. Next time I'd like to be prepared to give/share something. It got too hectic at the office to look up a scripture and translation and print. Our other two have phones (of course, Severina said she had no phone but there were two on the table??) so the plan is to make appointments.

Its fun to have different juices, you don't know which will be at the store any particular day

We had an elder so excited by a package today, candy and Bisquick - I have to say I have made some biscuits and some pancakes from local ingredients, and eaten some local candy, and I can't imagine spending the kind of money it took for him to get those things here from the States. But I'm not a hungry tall elder, and I admit the pancakes were not the same as at home.