Seven Months Mark

Updated with the best part of the last week or two - a temple trip with Jessica Benevides and her parents,

A fast and blurry shot before starting the first Institute English Connect class. We had both levels together for the first one as their first lessons are 95% the same for the introduction and it takes a lot of explaining that needs to be in the native language. Next week I get the level 2's all by myself, eek! We had over 43 people there (and there are at least a dozen more on the list) and were really glad we had bought lots of books. The biggest problem is that they cost R$8 and no one ever ever has change, it is The Country Without Change.   bought some produce at the open market and instead of giving R$1 in change she gave me a bunch of nice-looking carrots. Teaching through Institute means  access to getting copies made, hooray! It's on the same floor as the office, we usually have taught upstairs in the ward classroom or high council room.

Advertising banner in the Institute building. Young people come from all over the city for classes here, so the hope is they will be happy to hang around for English. We thought people might leave early for their activity "Zumba and Batatas Fritas" but I guess they are so used to things starting late it wasn't a worry. (No, Zumba is not Portuguese for zombie, its the exercise - and french fries :)

 Sister Chambers is awesome at training the young missionaries to do their jobs better, when it comes to the recording side. She has to get the paper copies of the "fichas" or baptismal records, so she gives them cookies and it totally works. They are really getting good at remembering to bring them and they won't give them to anyone else because they want their cookie.

Elder Harrison created art for Sister Chambers (there are three office elders right now and they left her some fichas)

If they don't fill out the forms properly she threatens no cookie.

 More Awesome! This was like actual missionary work! We went to a family home evening activity at Sister Chambers' apartment with a sister who is being baptized this Saturday and another family (the two boys were more enthused most of the time than they look in the photo:). The Elders did a great job, we really felt the Spirit and shared thoughts about a video of Joseph Smith and the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ. It was interesting to hear Betania (the blonde) and Sister C talk about their background in the Catholic church and how learning the restored gospel made so much sense to them. Betania volunteers every week with cancer patients, and also spearheaded a project to make better diapers for babies in the hospital. They have free health care here which can be pretty basic and is avoided by those who can pay. The fabric they had for those babies (now I admit I got confused between diapers, towels, blankets) was very not-soft nor absorbent, So she bought a bolt of nice soft stuff and got her sewing friends to help her. She's going to be amazing in Relief Society.

 All the materials I work on gathering (I think I had 68 lists) are given out at the end of each day of zone conference. It turns into a big photo op session as the missionaries get a chance to see those they may have worked with previously. Two zones meet each day - three days and three locations (average around 60 people each day). They have training and music and lunch and more training, a big group photo, sing the mission song, get a treat if they have birthdays during the transfer period, some even get caught up on shots (which they do not like but no one fainted this time).

 Some typical street views

 Some streets and nooks and "pocket parks" are stuffed with little stands,this is a big one in a clear area but offers food, key-making, and other goods and services.

 The store insisted these dried cherry tomatoes have no sugar added. I know cherry tomatoes are sweet, but these have the look and texture of candied fruit, we are more than a little suspicious about the veracity of the no-sugar claim. But they are tasty!

Dia dos Pais is in August. Mother's day is the same as the US but Valentines and Father's Day are different. Our neighbors take good care of us and made sure Durk was recognized for the holiday. Jessica and Rebeka enjoy holiday prep, they made us all mustaches-on-a-stick. For once the dog didn't freak out too much on us, but then, she had her own dish of meat from the feijoada for Jose to mix in her rice (the dog loves rice).

On May 17th I took this shot of the way someone added branches to the pipes and boards and such used to mark potholes to help keep cars and pedestrians from breaking a leg:

 I was surprised that they seemed to be fixing it already just a couple of weeks later. But then it looked like this:

And has been getting worse, if anything.
 Perpetual Potholes are not a North American exclusive.
 
 Food experiment of the week,"Anthill cake"

 We found Zion! It's in the parking garage under Carrefour (the slightly upscale from Walmart store)

Pineapples are either small or long. Small R$1 and large $R2 (just under 50 cents)from the open market (where they tend to be very very ripe), definitely costs more at Walmart.

Jessica is one of the daughters next door and she is going to the temple this Friday for the first time and we have been invited along, looking forward to it.

She is in the Young Womens presidency and is a vegan so we have shared some meatless recipes. They use a very red palm oil here as a seasoning, haven't felt a desire to buy and try that one. We are going to make a Mexican meal for them and managed to find more salsa - the store says no one buys it because they don't know what it is so they always have it, maybe we need to check the sell-by dates.......Now if we can just find real avocados instead of those huge tasteless ones. Its much cheaper to buy produce at the open market or the stands, when we get the chance. Update: we found avocados and made some really good guacamole. All the salsa jars we bought were pretty much at their use-by date so we have shared generously with missionaries. The store will probably never carry it again.