Week #22, Sao Paulo, December 18-23,2017

This is one of my favorite scriptures of all time. It gets me through a lot of hard times and hard things. When the Savior is the center of our lives we can do all things that are required of us! I have enjoyed this holiday season by trying to do something each day to light the world for someone else. There is true joy in serving others. We have also been on the receiving end of kind and loving service. Sometimes it looks like we are on vacation but we are not. We get to do some fun things but most of our days are spent in doing our jobs here. Mike works really hard advising the young missionaries with mental health issues and I do a variety of things to support him and to help out in the office. This past week was one of the times we got to have a vacation.

Twas the week before Christmas and all through the Area Office, the senior couples were taking off for a trip to the beach.  Seven couples that is.  We took off on Monday for Caraguatatuba, and spent three days in a beautiful rental home right on the beach.  Just as a disclaimer, we work very hard and we decided that we needed to do something to help us to not be too sad being so far away at Christmastime.  It was a perfect paradise except for the sand flea bites that so many suffered from but it didn't replace the longing for home and family at this time of year.  We know we are doing good here.  We know this is just a short season in our life and we are helping a lot of people, but we do miss so many things about Christmas at home.  That being said, here are the pictures of our beach stay!!

This was the view from our bedroom! 

I had my first fresh coconut water right off a tree in the yard.

We did a lot of reading, crocheting, swimming, visiting and eating.

This is the beach right outside our gate.

Here is part of our group enjoying our peaceful, beautiful surroundings. The couples that came with us were Ray and Marilyn Anderson,  Brett and Ruth Barrett, Russ and Shamaine Anderson, Kim and Carol Passey, Neil and Lori Whiting and Steven and Willa Sharmahd.

We ate at the Mar e Terra Restaurant a couple of times because it was so delicious! The top is a shrimp and cheese dish cooked in a pumpkin. There are no words to describe this! The bottom is chicken parmigiana! They don’t scrimp on the cheese here—no one was complaining.

This was another restaurant (not as good but the ambiance was perfect) right on the beach.

This picture wasn’t edited. The lighting was perfect with the sun just going down and the restaurant lights on the beach just going on. Awwww-mazing!

This was our breakfast on our last day. Elder Passey made us hashbrown skillets and it was delicious! Goodbye beautiful beach life!

We got back to work on Friday and got caught up on things. Saturday we got to have the Elders (Elder Sanchez and Elder Eggers) over for lunch. We miss the young missionaries so much in this mission since we are in the area office and not actually out working with them. It was so fun having them over for our summer “picnic” on Christmas Eve eve. We had Philly cheesesteak sandwiches, potato salad, Doritos, and watermelon. Lots of American food for our American missionaries! They loved it and so did we.

Today was our Christmas Eve Sacrament Meeting and tonight we will have a special dinner with some of our friends here. It’s fun to meet new people in a new country but still do some of the things that are familiar and traditional.

Merry Christmas! We love you and miss you and wish you the best and brightest blessings now and always.