Sao Paulo, Week 1, July 25-30, 2017

We left Utah on Tuesday, July 24, at 2:00 pm and we arrived (with a stop in Atlanta) in Sao Paulo the next morning at 8:40.  We had a pleasant enough flight (about 9 hours from Atlanta to Sao Paulo) even though our seats were directly next to the toilets! Yikes!

We were met by the two AMA's (Area Medical Advisors) and the AMHA (Area Mental Health Advisor), the Sharmahd's and Whitings, Sister Shirley Cox and the senior coordinators, the Passeys.  We were so happy to be here and yet we felt a little bit like we were in the twilight zone.  It's a surreal feeling to be so far away in a foreign land where so many people are speaking a foreign language.  Mike is doing well with the Portuguese and I'm grateful I had tutoring!!  We are praying for the gift of tongues.

We have a nice apartment on the 7th floor of the Lindoia building in the Vertentes Apartments.  We are a couple of blocks from everything;  the Temple, the chapel, our office, two large grocery stores, Walmart, a mall with a great food court (including McDonalds, Burger King, and Subway), and across the street from the bus stop.  Such a convenient location!  We have a beautiful view of downtown Sao Paulo out our window.  There are trees and flowers everywhere.  It is a lovely place to be.

I hesitate to post these next two pictures, but I just love that our bathrooms in our office have poopouri, dental floss and mouthwash!  How perfect is that? Everyone should have these things in their workplace bathroom.

Our first night we had dinner with several of the other senior couples at a pizza churrasco (meaning the waiters came around with different kinds of pizzas until you were stuffed and could barely move). It was delicious and I tried maracuja (passion fruit) pudding for the first time and loved it. I was so tired that I didn't remember to take a single picture of our first outing.

On Saturday, David Salisbury, one of the other senior missionaries took us on the bus to a feira close to our neighborhood, (a farmer's market).  We bought a lot of fresh produce, some nuts, and some delicious fresh cane sugar limeade.  It was a fun morning and a good chance to get acquainted with our area and all it offers.

For our anniversary, we went to dinner with Tom and Marjean Harris!  That's my sister-in-law Kathy's sister and her husband.  It's so awesome to have someone here that we already know and love.  They have been so amazing to us and we love and appreciate them so much! We ate at an authentic Churrasco and it was delicious!  Such a fun, happy night.  I'm grateful Mike and I got married 27 years ago.  I wouldn't trade those years for anything!

 
It has been a busy week learning our way around and trying to ease ourselves into our new assignments at the area office.  It's going to be an exciting and busy adventure and we are ready to hit the ground running.  I think we are finally caught up on our sleep enough that we can function.

Church today was awesome.  We had translators for those of us who wanted them, me and some of the other senior sisters.  The primary children sang and it brought tears to my eyes!  This is a beautiful place with beautiful people and we are going to do our best to do a good work while we are here.

Until I blog again.....