keep on truckin'

Big News! Our mission will be split, on July 1 there will be the Recife North and Recife South missions with two new presidents.
President and Sister Houseman did a beautiful job of presenting this to the missionaries at zone conferences. The Spirit was there as they told how this is possible due to the obedience and positive culture of the missionaries in the mission and how it will require us all to work harder and prepare.

This means we will gear up by getting more and more incoming missionaries until we have at last 250, all trained and sorted and in apartments in their areas ready to have two functional missions on day one. So much for having a break from these large groups of arrivals. And we really really hope we get some senior couples here plenty early to be trained. Durk's job especially is very complicated and he is still learning after ten months. Considering the president and his wife are already going full steam all day every day and their phones never quit, its going to be quite a job. They have asked the missionaries to try and be more self-reliant and I really hope their parents will be as well.

How to pick mangoes. (Though the porteiro said these really aren't even close to ripe yet.)

I know I mention restaurants too much, we don't get many other breaks from office-apartment-office-apartment-office-church (same bldg as office)-apartment. We tried a wonderful new restaurant the Haslams had been watching develop. They just opened up (a third or fourth location) very near us, only a twenty-minute walk (probably at least that long in an uber). Each location has its own character and "ours" includes an open but roofed bar/cafe area in the front corner of the property, an ice cream shop and pizza spot in the back corner, and a main restaurant that is very upscale and as usual has some pleasant outdoor seating. The food was delicious, we love finding things that actually have flavor. Like many restaurants here they make each dish for two or more people and anytime we started to reach for more from our platter they ran over and served us. Just a bit too much attention, I'd like to try telling them thank you but we'd really like to serve ourselves. They also say on the take-home box that they deliver, so I'm hoping that just maybe that means the wonderful dinners and not just the pizza from the back corner bldg? We will ask next time. We were going to go with the new temple missionaries (from Manti, have served before in another Brazilian temple) and the Haslams, but a doctor appt. for one took longer than expected. Which is really the rule here. Speaking of take-home, they charge you for it, they take your plate and fix it all pretty  in a container and bring it in a bag (and if you already have your bill they bring an amended one).
We had a lovely spread of vegetables including chuchu, so I looked it up and then bought one.

A chuchu, also known as chayote, mirliton squash, and other names. The inside is white with one flat pit.

 I had seen them often in markets and grocery stores and street carts and thought it was another fruit but it is a squash. I read that you have to peel it under running water because its sticky, that you have to wear gloves to peel it because its oily, and other various things. So we took it with us to our neighbors, the Benevides, and Cicera pulled out her peeler (interesting in itself, flat and folding) and showed us how to peel it in a big bowl of water. She said you cut it there too. It has one flat pit in the middle, is used in salads as well as savory cooked dishes, but is not eaten raw. (When you get lettuce tomato carrot salad it is often labeled Raw Salad). They said it doesn't have flavor, is like macaxeira which takes the flavor of your seasonings or whatever you cook it with. I used it in a vegetable soup and it just blended in with everything else.

The new Primary Pres. in the chair and the former one (six years!) on the floor near her. The former pres was also my pianist so I will have to do singing time without a pianist now. (They are used to a capella and sometimes I will play instead of lead and sometimes we sing along with electronics.) The bigger change is the new pres speaks no English...

The Primary program worked out, as they usually do. I did get goosebumps on the last song. The first time we tried to practice the entire presidency was unavailable so a counselor's husband (former bishop) took charge and it was him and me. And chaos. Then the date got changed so we had a little more preparation. We were lucky to have eight kids show up and they included the ones who really sing and know the songs. We had backup on the second verse of several songs- bishopric for one, seminary student or two, some family members, the office elders including Durk for the last one. The Relief Society provided a whole bag of treats for the kids as a thank you, you should have seen their eyes widen when they saw. We did have several kids arrive just before the closing prayer, they probably had a long walk from the favela and though they don't know the songs they might have enjoyed the program. But they got to share the treats :)

I keep seeing things that would make interesting paintings but the photos don't work well because of the high contrast, the sky was very blue here for one thing. Its a good reason for plein air painting which I've never done and isn't going to happen while I'm here. This is the side passageway around to the back of the building to reach where the bishop lives - front and back have all sorts of plants and are very pleasant areas.

I got to go be "chaperone" for a pair of sisters who had to come to the federal police at the airport with the office elders who do all the paperwork for registration for ID and then for CPF, lots of waiting. Its getting easier because visas are starting to come through good for two years which means hours and hours of work saved renewing everyone. But those of us who came before the change still have to go through all the hoops, we get to return there ourselves in a week or two. It was fun to talk to a fairly new sister who is doing well, its quite a challenge to get through the first few weeks when you can't understand much and the food is strange and the weather is hot, etc. This sister loves the food and is learning fast.

The large bunch of bananas was very dark green when purchased just last night! Yet one time Sister Chambers bought some that stayed very green for well over two weeks.

The next week at church, the kids from the favella brought their friends -- fifteen kids came in during the first speaker! The member's kids had told them they had to come, that the church is beautiful and has bathrooms like rich people's. Likely they heard about the treats too so I suppose its good that the primary pres. handed out some candy at the end? The missionaries were smart enough to text or call some of the leaders that they were bringing all those kids so Primary split for class. They actually did pretty well for singing time. I was blessed to find flipcharts that morning for the song I was going to teach and had a game they could do while singing so I could play the piano for a few run-throughs.

The English Connect classes continue but continue to shrink. We had to take a holiday when everything was closed and that always sets us back, We were told everything should close in December and January, but my 4-6 stalwarts say they want to keep coming - we will just have to meet upstairs in the church classrooms rather than institute. We will see how December goes before planning on January which is the big summer holiday from school. It might take a long time to get six months of actual classes in.
One of my occasional students is here taking a police course and we invited him and another, my most hard-working student, to Sunday dinner. Carlos is an English teacher actually, and likes coming to ask questions and practice and hear a native speaker. He has interesting questions about phrases and what is and isn't correct. It makes you realize how much of English makes no sense, especially spelling.
We were also having the missionaries over so Carlos got a message and a Book of Mormon and I hope he actually reads it, though he's more likely to try reading in English so we will get him one of those as well. We had Elder Harrison from Utah, Elder Rivera from Chile, and the two men from English class so it was quite a comfortable mix of English and Portuguese all through the meal. Maybe one of the only events ever where no one felt a need to take several selfies!

Brasil isn't the only place that has glitches, these were replacement ministerial certificates that someone found in a pile from long before and in the process they were "missent to Taiwan" Maybe because Taiwan and Brasil are so close? Sound alike?

Yet another Sunday with a mob of kids, mostly a new group, a bit too much punching each other and running about distracting from talks. It makes it pretty tiring dealing with them through Primary! And none of them have parents here so trying to start working on the new achievement program which is largely family-run is almost impossible. But I think maybe we can see how many of them actually come more than once or twice. The Primary president was talking about going with missionaries to visit their parents. I actually had a conversation with her that I think we both understood, mangled as my Portuguese was. There does not seem to be a Portuguese word equal to "mangled" :)

There are print-your-own pass-along cards now, and President was able to get the back redone into Portuguese and have some printed. By some I mean several thousands, but they have to be packaged into usable amounts. I did have some help making up groups of 20 each of seven designs. They have some with good questions to start a conversation about the plan of salvation. 

A new English student is a hairstylist, maybe if he keeps coming I can get his work address and have a better haircut that I won't have to come home and take the scissors to. He seemed to understand the idea of fringy/whispy when we talked in class. Its hard for him to come as it is quite a distance and he works all day every day. Many students come a long ways for school and work, largely because they are taking buses and walking, etc. It is not unusual to spend at least an hour or more on the bus to a job or class.

A lot of miscellany, hope anyone reading this is enjoying the Thanksgiving season - it does not exist here and Christmas decorating and singing Christmas songs in Church is in full swing.