a Good Laugh

Camels in Brasil! or Dromedaries, anyway.  Wishing it wasn't four hours travel and out of our mission. But then I did read that they are having trouble keeping it going because of the bureaucracy messing up tourism.

New bishopric for the Ala Recife, Bishop Rocha in the center,
(stake pres on the far left, stake counselor (and autosuficiencia specialist for the area) on the far right)

Thursday Elder Merrell got a message that he would have some training the next day about a new simplified process that would make it possible to run the entire office with one couple or companionship. We got a good laugh about it. Apparently it makes things easier when purchasing stuff. Seeing as how Durk spends maybe an average of a minute per month on purchasing -if you count the one purchase of a toner cartridge, that sounds like a huge change, right? He did say if they just gave every missionary an unlimited amount of money it would save him a huge amount of time because he wouldn't have to always adjust everyone's mesada (amount put on their card every two weeks) based on their travel needs for meetings and other variables. As for the rest of us, Sister Chambers works very hard full-time and often overtime to get all the referrals and baptisms properly entered, always this includes many phone calls because forms are not complete or correct or readable, something needs checking.

Pres. and two elders at a very typical city apartment during interview/inspection trip

The Executive secretary spends many hours on visa and legal registration paperwork for everyone, including trips to the federal police at the airport, getting documents notarized and photos exactly right, etc. plus making travel arrangements for all the outgoing missionaries and their baggage, travel for zone conferences, and he deals with keeping the president's schedule organized with about 180 scheduled interviews every transfer (6 weeks) and he makes medical appointments for missionaries. The housing secretary deals with about 80 apartments and their contracts, equipage and maintenance. So you can easily see that simplifying some buying would let us get rid of at least three workers, right? Durk says he will take up golf for the days he won't be needed.

Had another good hike for ministering visits, managed to do it all before dark which was nice. Now that it is "winter" it is often fairly pleasant, especially in the shade. (Did I already mention that I actually wore a 3/4 sleeve top twice already and we sometimes don't even turn on the air conditioner?)

Maria Dolores on the left, Norma on the right. We didn't stay long as Maria was distracted with her daughter visiting and they were watching a TV show about a three-year-old chain smoker, looked like in Japan.

Severina (on the left) is usually smiling, I don't think she felt ready to have a photo, sorry! She and Norma had a great talk and now and then Norma told her I understood (no) or she gave me a summary aside to make sure I got it (still no), but that's OK, they enjoyed the visit and the chihuahua decided to tolerate us.

 I told our sweet sisters I needed to show my long-time visiting companion from back home who I was visiting.

So...... the continuing saga of Sister Chambers with no water in her kitchen: after about seven weeks, they started trying to do something and found that the problem with the pipes is in an apartment owned by someone in Arcoverde who has not been in town so they can't do anything until they get hold of him. Interesting that they only find that out seven weeks after the pipe blew out. I guess the fix-it guy's foot is better enough to start looking into it? Sister Chambers has been writing them letters so they came and said they would connect the pipes from her laundry room into the kitchen so she would have water (just her, the rest of the building continues without kitchen water). We assume this will require knocking holes in walls. Sister Chambers says where her relatives are in the south it is a little better, but they still work rather inefficiently - to build something you have to find someone to do the foundation. Then after it is done, you find someone to do the walls, then after they are done you find someone to do the next part, etc. etc. No "construction companies" as such.
Update! the letters worked! They came and connected the water from the laundry room to her kitchen, the rest of the building is still out of luck.

View of Recife with Angel Moroni on top of Temple, unattributed from FB, apologies to photographer. The blue post near the center is the Carrefour sign, one of the big grocery stores. You can see why traffic patterns are complicated there, it takes sort of a double circling (folded figure 8?) around to actually get to the temple entrance from the main road only feet away.

The EnglishConnect level one group decided we should not meet during July because it is the holidays with many schools notin session (they say Brazilians are "made of salt and sugar", everything is "if it doesn't rain" and this time of year, it often does). I hope maybe we can push for a good start at actually doing homework and study when we get back up, and have books for those without them (assuming the store gets in learner books not just teacher manuals) but we really really wish they would get them available in Portuguese! There is a downloadable one in Spanish now....
We're guessing other classes have also dwindled or died, since they are talking about having us do a class for people from stakes all over the city -- right after (or before) institute class on Saturday, which has a good turnout.

apartment inspection tour

 

 Super quiet days in the office with the elders gone on a road trip with Housemans for housing inspections along with interviews. They made a route map and timed it and figured it all out for three days of driving with many stops.
Not much of interest so another week gets tacked on here:
One of the first people we got to know here had to move for a job, there is a lot of unemployment in Recife. She told me her name was Jill and spelled the English version, it turns out to actually be Gilzeneide.i

Gil in the center, Simone on the right
(Gospel Doctrine teacher and instigator of the activity this was taken at, a sort of FHE to help newer members learn to use Come Follow Me as well as a sample FHE with treats and game)

l

Our adventure for the week was a scavenger hunt to try and find a piece of Plexiglas I could use to make  light table for calligraphy projects.

We did a little dodging of rain on the scavenger hunt

We did some research and planned a route to take in an art supply store and big home improvement center. Durk was able to download a map which was really helpful.

Maybe we could move into this lovely abode, you can tell by the air conditioner on top that it is pretty high-class.

view from the same spot but looking toward the right instead of straight ahead, maybe you can get some idea of how spotty things are in this city, tall bldgs next to all sorts of older places.

To make a rather long story (and long walk) short, we had a hard time even finding anyone to agree it existed and everyone said Atacado would have it (nope) but after several tries we did buy a tempered glass shelf I think I can rig up to work.

Sunday included a baptism after Primary

the Primary presidency and me, with Rebeca

what missionary work looks like in northeast Brasil