Week #12 Sao Paulo, October 9-15, 2017

Some of the senior missionaries and I participate in a Portuguese class twice a week for an hour.  We have a delightful Brazilian teacher, Luciana and assistant, Celine, who teach us new things and make it lots of fun.  We have been working on a short movie about Moses for a few weeks now and this week we filmed it.  It's so very non-professional, but it was fun and we worked as a team to make it happen.

MarJean Harris as Moses' mother, and me as Miriam (Moses' sister)

Neil Whiting as the Pharoah

Our group singing the Moses verse of "Follow the Prophet"
Brett and Ruth Barrett, Carol Passey, Neil and Lori Whiting, Marilyn Anderson, Marjean Harris and Ellen Thomas

 Brazil had a national holiday this week on Thursday so a few of us couples took a three-day holiday trip to the beach town of Ubatuba.  We rented cars and rented a house that was a block away from the beach.  There were four couples and we each had our own bedroom and bathroom.  It was about a five-hour drive there and being a holiday it could have been double that, so we left early at 4 am to beat the traffic.  We arrived around 9 am, unpacked, walked around town and the beach a bit, had a wonderful lunch, rested, swam in the ocean, had ice cream, shopped a little bit, had a wonderful dinner, and relaxed!  We had tons of delicious snacks and both mornings we had smoothies for breakfast.  We chose wisely on all the restaurants!  We didn't have a bad meal!

Our vacay buddies; Tom and MarJean Harris, Steve and Willa Sharmahd, and Neil and Lori Whiting


Friday morning we scheduled an excursion to an island about 2 hours north of Ubatuba.  We had a great day.  The water was so beautiful and the weather was perfect.  The water at the island was a little chilly, but we still got in for a swim and it was so fun.  We love the ocean!  On the way to meet our boat, we got to see fisherman cleaning their morning catch.  The turkey vultures were enjoying their castoffs!

For dinner on Friday night, we ate at a crepe/burger place!  It sounds like a funny combo, but the food was so delicious.  I had a crepe with cheese, basil, tomatoes, walnuts, and garlic.  Mike decided to live life on the wild side and ordered dessert for dinner.  He got a waffle with fruit and ice cream.  I think the first bite was the best.  He kind of wished he'd gotten a crepe after he tasted mine!

On Saturday, we checked out of our rental house and drove to Campos Do Jordao where we toured some beautiful gardens and then visited an authentic German Village where we had a delicious lunch before returning to Sao Paulo.

It was a fun holiday weekend!  Back to the office tomorrow.  We sure love all the great work we are doing here with the missionaries and for the church in general. 


This is the key to happiness for me!  Our missionary plaque quotes the scripture from the Book of Mormon, Alma 37:6, "...by small and simple things are great things brought to pass..."  Being on a mission isn't a profound, big world changing thing, but everyone working together doing our small part does bring about great things!  Keep doing your little part whatever that is to bring joy and light to others along your path.  That's what will bring you joy.