Week #17, Sao Paulo, Brazil, November 13-19, 2017

It is the best time of the year!  It is true that this weekend is the official beginning of the Christmas season, but this week is Thanksgiving and it is my favorite because it's all about family, friends, food and being grateful. We are far away from our family but we still have much to be grateful for and we will have lots of delicious food with new friends around us.  We are truly blessed to have the family and friends that we have.  We don't have a perfect family but we sure like each one of them an awful lot and wouldn't trade a single one for all the treasures of the earth!!

We are grateful for our extended family as well.  We miss our parents who have gone on ahead of us, but they have left a great legacy of wonderful people for us to love.  We love our friends, both old and new!  We are amazed at how quickly you make really good friends on a mission.  We all have so much in common!  We are so grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ!  It is the foundation of our lives.  We have left our precious family and our comfort zones to be in His service full-time.  We feel so blessed to be able to do this.  We are so grateful for our family's support.

We had the amazing opportunity this week to travel to the coastal city of Santos to participate in the Mission President Seminar.  All 35 mission presidents here in Brazil and their wives were there to be instructed and trained by the area presidency and very special guests Elder and Sister Rasband. He is a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.  They invited us and the Barrett's, the other AMHA (Area Mental Health Advisor) as well as the two AMA's (Area Medical Advisors) and wives to attend so that we could get to know the presidents and their wives since they are the ones who refer their missionaries to us.  We stayed in a beautiful hotel for three nights and attended daily training sessions.  The food was amazing and very abundant.  We felt like we were on a cruise ship, eating non-stop buffets!

This picture is of us with the two mission president son's of Mike's mission president, Grant Bangerter.  From Left to right, Paulo and Jalayne Bangerter from the Salvador Sul Mission, us, Leesa and Howard Bangerter from the Sao Paulo Piracicaba Mission.  They are also very good friends of our good friends Cindi and Jeff Ingersoll.  It really is a small world in the church.

Elder Rasband and his wife, Melanie are very kind, loving, warm people.  They showed so much love to all of us. He blessed our families and left us feeling so loved and so appreciated. Here he is with all of us making the heart sign.

This is Sister Bateh from the Santos Mission.  We have come to really love and appreciate this darling sister.

Just some of the lovely fruit sculptures that adorned our meals!

They gave us a little time to explore Santos so we chose the beach and an orchid garden.  The orchid garden claimed to have free roaming monkeys and all sorts of birds and beautiful orchids but in reality there were no orchids and all the birds and monkeys were in cages except for one little monkey we saw climbing a tree.  It was still fun and we enjoyed being with our friends, the Whitings and Sharmahds.  We loved the beach!  We found a chair and an umbrella and just enjoyed relaxing.

There is a seven mile beach garden in Santos that is in the Guiness Book of World Records!

The view from our hotel room. 

I love hotel shower caps!  I know that's weird, but I do and I thought it was pretty cool that I got four of them and I didn't even ask for one!!

This seminar was totally the spiritual highlight of our mission so far.  I even got the opportunity to give the 10 minute AMHA presentation in the president wives break out session.  It was an amazing experience.

On Saturday, a few of us seniors took the bus and then the subway to the Republica Park where we did a little Christmas shopping at this wonderful outdoor market.  There is so much to see and do here.

In family news, we posted a while ago that Hannah and Chase are expecting their first baby on Easter.  They found out and announced that they are having a girl!!  We are thrilled for them!

Ryan and Ali's baby, Quinn, turned one this week!  She is a precious darling little girl!

Paul and Joni's daughter, Ellie, turned 8 a couple of weeks ago and she was baptized yesterday in Farmington, Utah.  Thanks to technology, we were able to be there via FaceTime.  It was amazing!  Hannah sang, "I like to look for Rainbows," and Eric accompanied her on the piano.  Joni and Paul's mom's gave the talk and it was a really special day.  Joni's brother, Ryan, baptized and confirmed her a member of the Church.  We really believed that Paul was looking down and smiling a lot from heaven!

This was a good week, no, a great week and we are feeling very blessed and so thankful for our many blessings.  Remember this great advice from one of our favorite Christmas movies, White Christmas, "When I get worried and I can't sleep, I count my blessings instead of sheep and I fall asleep counting my blessings."

Good night, God bless you and happy Thanksgiving to you all!