Monday, 16, 22:58 hours

It’s been a long time since I’ve taken a cold shower because I wanted to.

Yesterday morning Dave and I woke up early to be at a 9:00 am sacrament meeting at the same church where we had been going for our training. After the sacrament was passed we rushed back to the hotel and finished packing, and then spent a little time talking w/ Stephanie, Mike, Danielle, Ryan, Dan and Rachel while we uploaded the video on the blogg. Dave, Danielle, Stephanie, Mike and I then ran through the blizzard like snow to get lunch at the Heritage Center. By the time we got back (12;45 pm) our shuttle had arrived and was waiting for us. We understood it was a 1:00 pm shuttle, but he claimed it wasn’t. Oh well, so he took us to the airport and we checked in and then waited for a good hour and a half before our flight to Chicago took off.

We arrived in the C terminal in Chicago 2 and 1/2 hours early for our flight to São Paulo. Amazingly, the gate we were needing was right across the hall. Unfortunately, I forgot my teacher’s manual (Portuguese version, which I learned today they don’t even have it in here in Brazil it’s so new) on the plane and so we went back looking for it, and then they sent us to the lost and found, but there we learned the lost stuff wouldn’t show up until the next day… which didn’t matter to me. So we just went back, got a quick dinner at a burger grill place, and then got on board for our 10 hour flight to São Paulo.

On the flight I sat next to a nice man, Ugo, who was from Rio de Janeiro. His name and where he’s from was enough to give us a lot to talk about. He was a fun, older man. I also got to know the older lady behind me who’s also from Rio because I took her heavy carry on and found space for it. Ha… she was thankful, needless to say.

The flight was LONG. But the little screen on the back of the seat in front of each person was nice. We could either watch a virtual simulator tracking the plane across the earth and giving speed and altitude details, or watch one of nine movies in English, Spanish, or Portuguese. I watched Cinderella Man… great movie!

Ten hours later we arrived in São Paulo. The thick hot air reminded me of trying to drink a super thick milkshake through a straw. It’s kind of suffocating. It was fun to enter the airport and be able to watch TV and be a normal tourist for once, since I wasn’t a missionary. Just a totally different experience. Everything spoken on the intercom there is bilingual. After a few more hours of layover there we got onboard our flight to Porto Alegre, a 1 hour and 15 minute flight.



Once there we got our bags and waited in the front lobby area, not too sure if our ride had forgotten us or not. Ten minutes later our worries were relieved and a worker at the SRE (serviço de recursos de emprego – Employment Resource Center), Pierre, picked us up. He took us to our hotel, called the Grande Hotel ( http://www.masterhoteis.com.br/). It’s nice. Has air conditioning and is comfortable for us. Free internet and breakfast.

Pierre then took us to the SRE center, which is right next to the hotel, and we got to meet the older missionary couple, Elder and Sister Burror (? I’ll double check on the spelling tomorrow) from South Jordan, Utah. There we got to meet everyone and then they surprised Pierre with a birthday cake and ice cream because his birthday was on last Friday. That was fun and gave a good opportunity for us all to talk and get to know each other.

I quickly decided I’d use the computers to send Mom and quick, “I’m okay” email to comfort the nerves.

One of the funniest parts of the evening was calling and meeting up w/ my mission friend, companion in Colatina, Jefferson Genro. He was very excited to hear from me and we set a time to meet up.

The missionary couple invited us to their apartment, which is also near by, and we went up to the 14th floor, where they stay, and went out on the balcony to see their awesome view of the city.

To get cleaned up before we went out, we quickly ran home and I took a shower and got changed. At 8:15 pm we met Jefferson in front of the near by McDonalds and it was so fun to see him. He walked w/ us around downtown until we finally found a nice little restaurant where we got all the buffet food we wanted and one big piece of meat that they were barbequing (like Toocano’s in Provo. The meat was like Toocano’s, not the restaurant.) for R$5,80 (that’s like $2.25). After dinner Jefferson hung out w/ us back at the hotel for a bit, and then we went home. We are dead tired. Even though it’s only 6:25 pm Utah time, it’s 11:25 here, and we’ve been traveling all day.

Tomorrow we’re going to participate in the first workshop of the week. Here they teach the 12 hour workshop from 8:30 am – 12:30 pm, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. So I still need to read and then need to get to bed.

Oh, and Scott. The problem I was afraid of happened. They say I can connect to broadband Internet in my room, but I can’t get it to work. Do I have a broadband connection cable? Any ideas?