Friday, February 24, 2006
So I heard this crazy story and it really made me think; what would I do in a situation like this? I want to share the same story w/ you. Just be prepared, the story is kind of hard to follow at first, at least it took me to while to really understand how it went. But the story is true, and is worth the read:
A 30 year-old Brazilian was arriving home with his girlfriend at 8 pm that same evening when out of nowhere the South African man emerged and managed to rattle out in Portuguese, “I need to speak with an English teacher, please.” The Brazilian was startled, but soon realized that the South African could not speak any more Portuguese than that. The Brazilian had compassion on the man and decided to help him. For fear he was a bandit, the Brazilian left all his valuables at his house and then he led the South African fifteen minutes to the nearest English school that was still open. Apparently, they were both a little untrusting, as when they walked through dark streets, the South African increased his stride and began speaking with everyone that passed, begging for help, in English.
Upon arriving at the English school, the two men encountered an English-teaching Brazilian who helped translate and together they figured out that:
o The South African, who had been studying in Europe, had been traveling from Europe to Brazil to visit a friend and participate in a “Congress” at his Presbyterian church. He had been traveling for the past 12 days, but had been put on wrong buses, had the worst luck and had lost all of his money. He did, however, have a bus ticket to part of his destination, but that was about all the English teacher could understand. The two Brazilians said they felt like someone at the local “Mormon Church” would be able to help the lost South African man.
The American teacher, nervous and suspicious, finished listening to the Brazilian’s story, and then tried to get more information from the clearly shaken up South African man. With success, the American learned he did have money, but hadn’t succeeded in getting it exchanged. Oddly enough, the bus ticket he possessed was bought in a city three hours away when he ran into two American, Mormon missionaries. The ticket was for R$100,00 and he explained that he had the donor’s bank number and was planning on repaying the money. On another piece of paper he had written down he needed R$28,00 to purchase the last leg of his trip, and another R$20,00 to pay for the locker he was using to store his luggage at the airport.
This confused the American; for ten minutes they conversed, trying to understand what the South African man needed.
The two Brazilians and American finally realized he needed $48,00. The American at first said the “Mormons” had already helped quite a bit with his tickets, and R$5,00 more was all he could offer.
The Brazilian man then offered to give him a ride to the airport to get his baggage, and then a ride to the bus station where he wanted to sleep for the night before getting his bus in the morning. The American translated; the South African rejected the idea – he did not want to sleep at the bus terminal with his luggage, for fear of it being stolen. The Brazilian then offered to give him a ride to the bus terminal, 25 minutes away; the South African agreed.
At this time, the English-speaking teacher felt her service was complete and that she should go home. To help with translation, the Brazilian asked the American to accompany him and the South African; the American felt nervous, but upon judging the character of the individuals, decided to help.
The four of them walked to the edge of downtown, accompanying the English teacher to her home, and than returned to the Brazilian man’s house, got his car and girlfriend, and drove to the bus terminal 25 minutes away.
During this whole experience, the South African spoke much about God and how thankful he was for the good heart and help of the two Brazilians and the American. His gratitude was clear as he made the American translate, over and over, “Jesus will bless you. Thank you. Jesus will bless you.”
Upon leaving the man at the bus terminal, the American reached in his pocket and donated another R$20,00 to the man’s cause; the Brazilian and his girlfriend pulled together another R$28,00. And after his many thanks, the man was gone, with nothing more than the hope and charity of the Brazilians and American involved in his journey.
___
Quite the story, wouldn’t you say? What would you do in such a situation? I learned the details from the story first-hand, as I was the “American teacher” in the story. This experience just happened tonight!
I was at the ERS office at church this evening, helping Aldo and his son learn how to use email (Dave and I had just made Aldo a gmail account this afternoon). Out of nowhere appeared Keller - the English-teaching Brazilian woman, Adriano - the Brazilian man, and Andrews - the lost South African man. At first I was VERY suspicious, as during my mission we ran across many people with wild stories, just trying to get our money. But the more I spoke with this man, the more I believed his story. There were many points in his story that I didn’t quite understand, but we didn’t exactly have an easy time communicating; he was very stressed out and spoke very slow with an accent.
When Adriano asked me to drive w/ him to the airport and the bus terminal I got kind of freaked out; I thought of the weird kidnappings I’d heard and read about in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro and wondered if these three people could really be scamming me? As a missionary I developed what I consider a good sense of character and I trusted Adriano and Keller – I still questioned the intent of the South African.
After kicking everyone out of the soccer court out back and locking up the church, I ran to the hotel down the block to let David know that I was going to be driving to the Island (Florianópolis) with Adriano and Andrews – ha, when I told David the story I couldn’t help but realize how crazy it sounded. When I hung up I said, “Well, if I don’t come back in two hours, at least you’ll have an interesting story for the police.” Dave had the good idea of getting Adriano’s cell phone number, just to keep in touch, which I did.
So, like I explained in the story, the four of us walked through downtown São José to accompany Keller home – Carnaval festivities were already starting, lots of people were in the streets, and its well known that crime is more frequent during the days of Carnaval.
As we walked, with out inquiring, Andrews shared with me what he knew about the Mormon church – Joseph Smith’s vision, New York, missionaries – and then he made me translate to Keller and Adriano an invitation for them to come to our church. They smiled, and accepted, each giving me their phone numbers for later contacts.
Upon arriving to Keller’s home, his parents are girlfriend greeted him with relief; they, too, had been waiting anxiously, not knowing what had become of Andriano and his charitable deed. Fernanda, Adriano’s girlfriend, accompanied us to the bus terminal, as they had other errands they had to run before returning home. I accompanied them on one quick errand, stopping by one of their friend’s house, and then they drove me back to the hotel in São José.
The entire way we talked about how weird this situation was, and debated about whether Andrews was telling the truth or not. There are two things that I question:
- 1. Why his European money didn’t exchange?
- 2. I think I should have gone to the ticket counter at the bus station and asked about his ‘ticket’ and the how he could best get to the city he was looking for. But the terminal was bustling with people because of Carnaval and we almost didn’t find a place to drop him off.
Before sharing your comments that you think he was a scammer, send me your questions and maybe I left out some important information. J
Anyway… before 8:00 pm, I was still having quite an eventful day. At 2:00 pm we scheduled to meet Aldo at the office to record the mock-interviews for him (which we didn’t figure out) and we made some finishing touches to his fliers and made him a gmail account, and taught him how to check his email. He’s in his early thirties, and I think this was his first time using a computer, I promise. He really enjoyed it, and I really hope this help gets his business going. He shared with us how his family is really struggling; lack of food, work, and money. I took the time to explain the importance of Fast Offerings and why we have them, and I encouraged him to talk to the Quorum President or the Bishop. I hope he does, his family needs it.
At 7:30 pm Dave and I met the newly called Senior Missionaries who we will be training to take our place when we leave! That was exciting for us because it means that our organization and hard work won’t go to waste. They are a fun couple from Argentina and speak Portañol (Portuguese and Spanish mixed). I imagine I’ll get some great Spanish lessons.
Today I also made follow-up calls to the people in Joinville; Pablo got a job! He is an English teacher! Makes sense, since he served in the Provo Mission.
All right, well Dave and I have to be packed at the chapel by 9:20 am. The bus for the Single Adults conference is going to pick us up, and than off we go for four days! I think this blog is long enough to keep you busy for the next for days.
Happy Carnaval!!
Friday, February 24, 2006
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Thursday, February 23, 2006
I’d like to specially thank the manager of Pattin Pizza for their considerable charity; after this evening’s CASP course I bought a pizza from the Young Men’s campout-fundraiser. The only problem is – we don’t have an oven. It was about 11 pm as we strolled into our hotel lobby and I asked one of our friends (worker) at the front desk if it were possible for them to cook our pizza. His reply was kind of disturbing, “well you have a microwave don’t you?” A microwave to cook a large pizza? I don’t think so.
My next idea was to ask the nice people at the pizzeria across the street, Pattin Pizza. As Dave waited with the pizza on the other side of the street, I walked in and waited patiently to speak with the manager, who at the time was working the cash register. I think he recognized me from eating there the night before, and as we talked I explained how we were living in the hotel across the street without an oven, and that we had bought a pizza to support a youth group from church; I then asked if they could bake our pizza and he agreed without hesitation. I then stepped outside and called Dave. Oddly, our pizza was bigger than their oven, so they cut it in half and after 5 minutes, it was baked, sliced, and ready to eat. To show my appreciation, I bought an overpriced can of Guaraná.
Of the five CASP courses I’ve taught in Brazil, this week’s was the best for the following reasons: they were all eager to learn, we started and ended the week with the same number of participants – 10 (though a man named Rodrigo had to quit, but another man named Rodrigo joined), they did their homework assignments, they make contacts after the first day, most showed up to class tonight dressed as if they were really going to an interview (we didn’t even ask them to, they just knew today was the mock-interview day), and they preformed the best during the mock-interview. Congrats Kobrasol participants!!
Here are some pictures of the group:
From left to right: Lurdes, Paulo, Vanessa, Iasmin, Helamã, Sônia, Luana, David, Luciana , Rodrigo, Geoffrey, Aldo
Oh, and contrary to popular belief, most of the time Dave and I are not dressed in a shirt and tie, that is only while teaching the course (which is about 12 hours a week). I will try to post some pictures of us in normal clothes at the beach or just site seeing.
CASEI 2006 , here we come! (CASEI - Conferência dos Adultos Solteiros das Estacas Integradas.) Dave and I decided to participate in the Five-Stake Conference for the Single Adults this weekend; Carnaval starts this weekend and goes until Wednesday (Ash Wednesday – the start of Lent), and if we weren’t going on the getaway conference, I’m not sure what we’d do. But it should be pretty fun… here is a site to learn more about it – it has links to pictures and stuff like that - http://www.casei2006.cjb.net/
I’d like to specially thank the manager of Pattin Pizza for their considerable charity; after this evening’s CASP course I bought a pizza from the Young Men’s campout-fundraiser. The only problem is – we don’t have an oven. It was about 11 pm as we strolled into our hotel lobby and I asked one of our friends (worker) at the front desk if it were possible for them to cook our pizza. His reply was kind of disturbing, “well you have a microwave don’t you?” A microwave to cook a large pizza? I don’t think so.
My next idea was to ask the nice people at the pizzeria across the street, Pattin Pizza. As Dave waited with the pizza on the other side of the street, I walked in and waited patiently to speak with the manager, who at the time was working the cash register. I think he recognized me from eating there the night before, and as we talked I explained how we were living in the hotel across the street without an oven, and that we had bought a pizza to support a youth group from church; I then asked if they could bake our pizza and he agreed without hesitation. I then stepped outside and called Dave. Oddly, our pizza was bigger than their oven, so they cut it in half and after 5 minutes, it was baked, sliced, and ready to eat. To show my appreciation, I bought an overpriced can of Guaraná.
Of the five CASP courses I’ve taught in Brazil, this week’s was the best for the following reasons: they were all eager to learn, we started and ended the week with the same number of participants – 10 (though a man named Rodrigo had to quit, but another man named Rodrigo joined), they did their homework assignments, they make contacts after the first day, most showed up to class tonight dressed as if they were really going to an interview (we didn’t even ask them to, they just knew today was the mock-interview day), and they preformed the best during the mock-interview. Congrats Kobrasol participants!!
Here are some pictures of the group:
From left to right: Lurdes, Paulo, Vanessa, Iasmin, Helamã, Sônia, Luana, David, Luciana , Rodrigo, Geoffrey, Aldo
Oh, and contrary to popular belief, most of the time Dave and I are not dressed in a shirt and tie, that is only while teaching the course (which is about 12 hours a week). I will try to post some pictures of us in normal clothes at the beach or just site seeing.
CASEI 2006 , here we come! (CASEI - Conferência dos Adultos Solteiros das Estacas Integradas.) Dave and I decided to participate in the Five-Stake Conference for the Single Adults this weekend; Carnaval starts this weekend and goes until Wednesday (Ash Wednesday – the start of Lent), and if we weren’t going on the getaway conference, I’m not sure what we’d do. But it should be pretty fun… here is a site to learn more about it – it has links to pictures and stuff like that - http://www.casei2006.cjb.net/
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
It was about 10:30 last night and David was wrapping up the CASP course; I quickly stepped out of the room to converse with Aldo’s 12-year-old son. Aldo and his wife are two of our 11 participants, and their son has been participating in the Young Men’s pizza making/selling fund-raiser this week at the church as well. (Aldo and his son are also the two people with whom I played soccer at the church a few weeks ago; we’ve become good friends.)
As we laughed and joked, I shared how I hadn’t eaten anything all day (the buffet pizza we ate the night before had filled me up); the boy replied, “me neither.” I then said I’d only drunken some juice; the boy replied, “I haven’t drunken anything.” Naively, I smiled and asked, well why not? His head bowed in shame, and I immediately new – it was very likely he didn’t have any food at home; I quickly changed the subject, not giving him time to answer, or giving the silence more time to get awkward.
It’s easy to forget the daily troubles many Brazilians face; on the mission I was reminded of these struggles daily, but during our internship we have been living a more sheltered lifestyle.
Other than the hard downpour at 6:50, causing more than half of out class to arrive more than 20 minutes late, the course went great!
This group seems more timid than most; we practiced entering and leaving an interview and most of them struggled. Practice is a good idea, I suppose.
I was especially proud of Senhora Lourdes who shared with the class who after the first day of CASP she went to the post office (where she wants to work) and asked to speak with the manager. Most everyone succeeded in making at least two contacts after the first day of class!
After class, Aldo asked me to type up some fliers for his painting and remodeling business; I was more than happy to accept.
Earilier in the day I was glued to the TV watching the Barcelona v. Chelsea soccer match on ESPN. Wow, UEFA soccer is intensely fast! What an exciting game, and win for Barcelona. One of the main reasons the game was showing on Brazilian TV is that the main star for Barcelona, Ronaldinho Gaúcho, is Brazilian.
Keeping up w/ my reading for my BYU courses always keeps me plenty busy as well.
It was about 10:30 last night and David was wrapping up the CASP course; I quickly stepped out of the room to converse with Aldo’s 12-year-old son. Aldo and his wife are two of our 11 participants, and their son has been participating in the Young Men’s pizza making/selling fund-raiser this week at the church as well. (Aldo and his son are also the two people with whom I played soccer at the church a few weeks ago; we’ve become good friends.)
As we laughed and joked, I shared how I hadn’t eaten anything all day (the buffet pizza we ate the night before had filled me up); the boy replied, “me neither.” I then said I’d only drunken some juice; the boy replied, “I haven’t drunken anything.” Naively, I smiled and asked, well why not? His head bowed in shame, and I immediately new – it was very likely he didn’t have any food at home; I quickly changed the subject, not giving him time to answer, or giving the silence more time to get awkward.
It’s easy to forget the daily troubles many Brazilians face; on the mission I was reminded of these struggles daily, but during our internship we have been living a more sheltered lifestyle.
Other than the hard downpour at 6:50, causing more than half of out class to arrive more than 20 minutes late, the course went great!
This group seems more timid than most; we practiced entering and leaving an interview and most of them struggled. Practice is a good idea, I suppose.
I was especially proud of Senhora Lourdes who shared with the class who after the first day of CASP she went to the post office (where she wants to work) and asked to speak with the manager. Most everyone succeeded in making at least two contacts after the first day of class!
After class, Aldo asked me to type up some fliers for his painting and remodeling business; I was more than happy to accept.
Earilier in the day I was glued to the TV watching the Barcelona v. Chelsea soccer match on ESPN. Wow, UEFA soccer is intensely fast! What an exciting game, and win for Barcelona. One of the main reasons the game was showing on Brazilian TV is that the main star for Barcelona, Ronaldinho Gaúcho, is Brazilian.
Keeping up w/ my reading for my BYU courses always keeps me plenty busy as well.
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
The High Priest’s room was filled this evening as David and I taught another course of CASP at the Kobrasol chapel. Twelve desks arced the classroom, and only fifteen minutes after the advertised start time of 7 pm, ten of those desks were filled; seven adults, three teenagers, and all eager to participate.
Being our third course in as many weeks, tonight went very smooth; in only three hours (when we had planned for four) we got through half of the course with each of the participants beaming with enthusiasm and bubbling from our practice activities. This is really the best group we’ve taught until now. Maybe part of the reason is each of them is looking for work and has thus come with open and willing minds.
We have tomorrow and Thursday scheduled to finish the course.
After lunch at the usual home-style restaurant down the street, David and I took the bus (the wrong bus, that cost R$3,00 instead of R$1,75) to the Historical Center of São José; once there, we stumbled upon a theatre and took a quick look around.
As I took pictures inside, another man walked in and gave me a weird look; he reappeared with his own camera, tripod, and assistant. Upon further conversations, Marcelo (the guy) told me he was a City’s photographer taking picture for some new brochures they were making. I took advantage of his knowledge and asked where some other nearby historical sites was and he directed us a few places.
First we admired the church facing town-square; nice rooster, eh?
We then visited a nearby spring where slaves would scrub clothes. Slavery was legal in Brazil until May 13, 1888.
Just up the stream, approximately 100 yards away are some modern-day signs of what was done by the slaves some 120 years ago.
The local museum was our next stop, but photographs were prohibited in there; but during our visit, Marcelo (the photographer) showed up to take pictures and when I told him they wouldn’t let me take any, he asked to exchange email addresses so he could send me copies of what he shot. I was surprised; that was awfully nice of him to offer.
A 1945, German film projector used in a leper-only hospital was one of the items that caught my attention. I hope they’ve disinfected it… ? I noted many other interesting artifacts, most of which were imported from the United States or Europe.
Speaking of exchange, the dollar is at a five year low; 1 Real is only worth $2.12. Just to get a sense, I remember during my mission only two years ago that 1 Real was almost worth $4.
The High Priest’s room was filled this evening as David and I taught another course of CASP at the Kobrasol chapel. Twelve desks arced the classroom, and only fifteen minutes after the advertised start time of 7 pm, ten of those desks were filled; seven adults, three teenagers, and all eager to participate.
Being our third course in as many weeks, tonight went very smooth; in only three hours (when we had planned for four) we got through half of the course with each of the participants beaming with enthusiasm and bubbling from our practice activities. This is really the best group we’ve taught until now. Maybe part of the reason is each of them is looking for work and has thus come with open and willing minds.
We have tomorrow and Thursday scheduled to finish the course.
After lunch at the usual home-style restaurant down the street, David and I took the bus (the wrong bus, that cost R$3,00 instead of R$1,75) to the Historical Center of São José; once there, we stumbled upon a theatre and took a quick look around.
As I took pictures inside, another man walked in and gave me a weird look; he reappeared with his own camera, tripod, and assistant. Upon further conversations, Marcelo (the guy) told me he was a City’s photographer taking picture for some new brochures they were making. I took advantage of his knowledge and asked where some other nearby historical sites was and he directed us a few places.
First we admired the church facing town-square; nice rooster, eh?
We then visited a nearby spring where slaves would scrub clothes. Slavery was legal in Brazil until May 13, 1888.
Just up the stream, approximately 100 yards away are some modern-day signs of what was done by the slaves some 120 years ago.
The local museum was our next stop, but photographs were prohibited in there; but during our visit, Marcelo (the photographer) showed up to take pictures and when I told him they wouldn’t let me take any, he asked to exchange email addresses so he could send me copies of what he shot. I was surprised; that was awfully nice of him to offer.
A 1945, German film projector used in a leper-only hospital was one of the items that caught my attention. I hope they’ve disinfected it… ? I noted many other interesting artifacts, most of which were imported from the United States or Europe.
Speaking of exchange, the dollar is at a five year low; 1 Real is only worth $2.12. Just to get a sense, I remember during my mission only two years ago that 1 Real was almost worth $4.
Monday, February 20, 2006
Monday, February 20, 2006
THE GAME OF LIFE – tonight Dave made a pretty sweet homemade version of a ‘Game of Life.’ It was a game that he and a companion on his mission created, and today he spent most of the day drawing and coloring to make the same game for tonight’s family home evening. The family of Rubens and Valdmiria invited us over again to have FHE with them, this time we were only in charge of the message – but Dave went above and beyond and made quite the game/message. They really enjoyed it.
It was fun getting to know their kids on a more personal basis, too. I mostly hung out w/ Thiago, a 16 year old, but also got to know the others (Rubens the younger, and Rodrigo – who just got home from his mission a few weeks ago). I also helped out quite a bit w/ Valdmiria cleaning the dishes and making pastels.
She told me how her family was pretty instrumental in establishing the church in some of the more rural cities of Santa Catarina. For many years, her and her husband were the district leaders and told me about all their sacrifices with their 4 children. What I found interesting is that she clearly missed those days, even though they were more challenging. She said the lessons they learned as a family and the way they grew together and in the gospel made all their sacrifices worth it.
The rest of the day was spent studying or walking around town in and out of the shops while it was raining.
U2 is performing in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro tonight! (for those who care)
THE GAME OF LIFE – tonight Dave made a pretty sweet homemade version of a ‘Game of Life.’ It was a game that he and a companion on his mission created, and today he spent most of the day drawing and coloring to make the same game for tonight’s family home evening. The family of Rubens and Valdmiria invited us over again to have FHE with them, this time we were only in charge of the message – but Dave went above and beyond and made quite the game/message. They really enjoyed it.
It was fun getting to know their kids on a more personal basis, too. I mostly hung out w/ Thiago, a 16 year old, but also got to know the others (Rubens the younger, and Rodrigo – who just got home from his mission a few weeks ago). I also helped out quite a bit w/ Valdmiria cleaning the dishes and making pastels.
She told me how her family was pretty instrumental in establishing the church in some of the more rural cities of Santa Catarina. For many years, her and her husband were the district leaders and told me about all their sacrifices with their 4 children. What I found interesting is that she clearly missed those days, even though they were more challenging. She said the lessons they learned as a family and the way they grew together and in the gospel made all their sacrifices worth it.
The rest of the day was spent studying or walking around town in and out of the shops while it was raining.
U2 is performing in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro tonight! (for those who care)
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Last Sunday I got to do a web conference with Scott and see his new baby girl. Here’s a look:
With aim, webcams, skype, msn, I feel like I’m still just a few hours away from my family. Sundays are my day I sit for hours talking (mostly skype) with family and friends. David can attest to that… I hope I don’t disturb his sleep. Oops.
Last night I got an interesting, random call on skype from a gay, brazilian man living in boston. I guess he saw on my skype ID it said I was living in brazil and just called me. When I answered his call I answered in Portuguese, thinking it would throw him off, but I didn’t realize he spoke Portuguese… so that didn’t work. When the conversation turned to religion (which of course it did since that’s the main reason why I’ve been in Brazil through out the past 3 years) it got pretty interesting, as I’m sure you can imagine. But luckily that wasn’t that highlight of my day.
This evening Pedro Pimentel and I did some home teaching visits. Pedro and his family are new to the church and thus he hasn’t had much experience with home teaching; he did a great job, though he was quite nervous. We visited the family of Claudio, his wife and 19-year-old daughter. They had a pretty neat story of ‘faith and trials’ relating to their temple marriage that went along perfectly with this month’s Liahona message.
Before our visits David and I were at the chapel from 6 pm to 7:45 pm watching the replay of last weeks worldwide training video about families. It was a packed house with leaders from all over the Stake; I think most people thought the training was live, and they even tried to play it off as live, but the “play” and “stop” projected on the wall kind of gave it away; that, and seeing on lds.org that the conference was given last week.
Church meetings were normal, nothing too exciting or different.
Lunch consisted of roman noodle and a ham & cheese sandwich I made during breakfast, put in our fridge, and microwaved after church. Oh, and a banana.
To practice my Spanish, Sunday has been my day to watch the General Conference DVD in Spanish. Está bien.
Last Sunday I got to do a web conference with Scott and see his new baby girl. Here’s a look:
With aim, webcams, skype, msn, I feel like I’m still just a few hours away from my family. Sundays are my day I sit for hours talking (mostly skype) with family and friends. David can attest to that… I hope I don’t disturb his sleep. Oops.
Last night I got an interesting, random call on skype from a gay, brazilian man living in boston. I guess he saw on my skype ID it said I was living in brazil and just called me. When I answered his call I answered in Portuguese, thinking it would throw him off, but I didn’t realize he spoke Portuguese… so that didn’t work. When the conversation turned to religion (which of course it did since that’s the main reason why I’ve been in Brazil through out the past 3 years) it got pretty interesting, as I’m sure you can imagine. But luckily that wasn’t that highlight of my day.
This evening Pedro Pimentel and I did some home teaching visits. Pedro and his family are new to the church and thus he hasn’t had much experience with home teaching; he did a great job, though he was quite nervous. We visited the family of Claudio, his wife and 19-year-old daughter. They had a pretty neat story of ‘faith and trials’ relating to their temple marriage that went along perfectly with this month’s Liahona message.
Before our visits David and I were at the chapel from 6 pm to 7:45 pm watching the replay of last weeks worldwide training video about families. It was a packed house with leaders from all over the Stake; I think most people thought the training was live, and they even tried to play it off as live, but the “play” and “stop” projected on the wall kind of gave it away; that, and seeing on lds.org that the conference was given last week.
Church meetings were normal, nothing too exciting or different.
Lunch consisted of roman noodle and a ham & cheese sandwich I made during breakfast, put in our fridge, and microwaved after church. Oh, and a banana.
To practice my Spanish, Sunday has been my day to watch the General Conference DVD in Spanish. Está bien.
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Power Statements!
What’s a power statement, you ask? It’s when you’re trying to sell yourself (like during an interview) and to answer a question you share (1.) … shoot, let me go look at my English book, I can’t think of the word in English for ‘habilidade’. Okay, got it… the word is SKILL. So you first share a skill that you have, and then (2.) briefly describe an EXAMPLE when you used that skill, and (3.) finish the statement off with a RESULT of your skill and how it can benefit your future employer.
We finished the CASP workshop in Palhoça today. At 6:15 pm there were only Bishop Robson and a new participant, Alexandre, present. So, we started anyway, since we were already starting late; another hour into the course Richard game, sweating in. An appointment he had on the island (Florianópolis) ran late, so we caught him up on everything he had missed. About that same time, the bishop’s 15-year-old son, Péricles joined us as well, along with a few of his friends.
Here is a picture:
Left to right: Alexandre, Me, Robson, Richard, David, Péricles, two other youth that participated for part of the day, and the bishop's daughter.
We managed to finish the course by 11 pm; making it so we didn’t have to make the trek back there this afternoon. Being that this group was 3/4 adults and 3/4 already had jobs, Dave and I had to teach a little differently to keep their attention. Robson is a meat vendor and has goals of managing and even teaching in the future; Richard is a musician who also models for commercials and advertisements; Alexandre is a physical education teacher and trainer at a gym. But they did a great job!
The rest of the day was spent sleeping in, studying and traveling. Speaking of which, we really appreciated Bishop Robson for his sacrifice the past two nights, giving us a ride from Palhoça to Kobrasol. It’s not anymore than a 10 minute drive, but I believe it was still a sacrifice for him and his family; I heard them commenting on their lack of gas.
I think Dave was sad we couldn’t make it back in time for the dance at church; I on the other hand was quite all right J. But maybe next time…
Power Statements!
What’s a power statement, you ask? It’s when you’re trying to sell yourself (like during an interview) and to answer a question you share (1.) … shoot, let me go look at my English book, I can’t think of the word in English for ‘habilidade’. Okay, got it… the word is SKILL. So you first share a skill that you have, and then (2.) briefly describe an EXAMPLE when you used that skill, and (3.) finish the statement off with a RESULT of your skill and how it can benefit your future employer.
We finished the CASP workshop in Palhoça today. At 6:15 pm there were only Bishop Robson and a new participant, Alexandre, present. So, we started anyway, since we were already starting late; another hour into the course Richard game, sweating in. An appointment he had on the island (Florianópolis) ran late, so we caught him up on everything he had missed. About that same time, the bishop’s 15-year-old son, Péricles joined us as well, along with a few of his friends.
Here is a picture:
Left to right: Alexandre, Me, Robson, Richard, David, Péricles, two other youth that participated for part of the day, and the bishop's daughter.
We managed to finish the course by 11 pm; making it so we didn’t have to make the trek back there this afternoon. Being that this group was 3/4 adults and 3/4 already had jobs, Dave and I had to teach a little differently to keep their attention. Robson is a meat vendor and has goals of managing and even teaching in the future; Richard is a musician who also models for commercials and advertisements; Alexandre is a physical education teacher and trainer at a gym. But they did a great job!
The rest of the day was spent sleeping in, studying and traveling. Speaking of which, we really appreciated Bishop Robson for his sacrifice the past two nights, giving us a ride from Palhoça to Kobrasol. It’s not anymore than a 10 minute drive, but I believe it was still a sacrifice for him and his family; I heard them commenting on their lack of gas.
I think Dave was sad we couldn’t make it back in time for the dance at church; I on the other hand was quite all right J. But maybe next time…
Friday, February 17, 2006
Friday, February 18, 2006
Bishop Robson, his fifteen year old son, and two other adults were our only participants in Palhoça this evening. Palhoça is a city 20 or so km from São José, and when we first began asking local leaders which area needed us to visit the most, they kept telling us to go to Palhoça; so it was one of the first cities we scheduled with when we first arrived.
To the bishop’s disappointment, and ours almost nobody came; but that didn’t mean the course was a bust. In fact, the small number of participants meant we could focus on each of them individually and we could get through the course a bit faster.
Gleici and Richard are the two other participants; Gleici is a student studying to be a physiotherapist, while Richard (her boyfriend) is a musician who just moved to the area a few weeks ago. It was a great group, and they participated well.
The rest of the day was spent trying to study or watching the winter Olympics. We also worked a bit at the SRE center and made a few phone calls about job vacancies in the area, and sent emails to the bishops of the Florianópolis and São José stakes with this information.
Oh, so I emailed one of the local professional soccer teams, Avaí, and offered to take photos for their website. I got a reply email asking me to call them, and yesterday during our conversation they invited me to take pictures of a game on the 1st of March, and they also want me to take general pictures of the stadium and things like that. No, they’re not going to pay me, but they will provide transportation (which I negotiated for) and so at least I won’t be paying anything, and it should be a great experience.
Bishop Robson, his fifteen year old son, and two other adults were our only participants in Palhoça this evening. Palhoça is a city 20 or so km from São José, and when we first began asking local leaders which area needed us to visit the most, they kept telling us to go to Palhoça; so it was one of the first cities we scheduled with when we first arrived.
To the bishop’s disappointment, and ours almost nobody came; but that didn’t mean the course was a bust. In fact, the small number of participants meant we could focus on each of them individually and we could get through the course a bit faster.
Gleici and Richard are the two other participants; Gleici is a student studying to be a physiotherapist, while Richard (her boyfriend) is a musician who just moved to the area a few weeks ago. It was a great group, and they participated well.
The rest of the day was spent trying to study or watching the winter Olympics. We also worked a bit at the SRE center and made a few phone calls about job vacancies in the area, and sent emails to the bishops of the Florianópolis and São José stakes with this information.
Oh, so I emailed one of the local professional soccer teams, Avaí, and offered to take photos for their website. I got a reply email asking me to call them, and yesterday during our conversation they invited me to take pictures of a game on the 1st of March, and they also want me to take general pictures of the stadium and things like that. No, they’re not going to pay me, but they will provide transportation (which I negotiated for) and so at least I won’t be paying anything, and it should be a great experience.
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Ana Giórgia got a job!!
She was one of the first participants to arrive Friday night; sat, quietly in the back row, almost sad; she told us how she was a history teacher and had been teaching until the beginning of the year when she was laid off.
Adults are those who need our course more than anyone; they are also those who pay more attention and can give more to the class with their experience and knowledge. But also, adults are the hard because some of the activities we do seem childish. In Joinville, of the 20 or so participants, 8 or 9 were adults.
This afternoon I started making follow-up calls to the participants of the Joinville CASP; they were so happy to know we cared enough to call and see how things were going. Granted, some of the people hadn’t practiced or made any contacts looking for work, but many of them had, including Ana Giórgia.
She answered the phone sounding half asleep, which at first made me feel sorry for calling. But when she heard it was us, from the CASP course, she perked up. She began telling me how she had put her new knowledge into immediate use and this past Monday she made some phone calls and scheduled a few interviews. She said she was able to apply everything learned in the course, especially the parts about ‘filters’ and her power-statements. After her Tuesday interviews she was offered three different teaching positions! She started working right away, and has been teaching 8 classes of history at one of the schools! Ha… she was almost complaining of having too much work.
So this is her story in my words, but hopefully she will write me an email this weekend with all the details from her success story. I’m so happy for her and her family!
Hearing her success just makes everything worth it.
In the evening today, Dave and I went to the island (Florianópolis) and visited a job agency to find out about job positions in the area so we can be more educated and helpful to those who come to us looking for work.
We then went to the Institute, thinking there would be a class at 6:30 pm, but we were informed the Thursday classes wouldn’t start for a few more weeks. We took advantage of being there and played some foosball, Brazilian pool, and ping-pong. And we met some of the other nice people there.
That about sums it up.
Ana Giórgia got a job!!
She was one of the first participants to arrive Friday night; sat, quietly in the back row, almost sad; she told us how she was a history teacher and had been teaching until the beginning of the year when she was laid off.
Adults are those who need our course more than anyone; they are also those who pay more attention and can give more to the class with their experience and knowledge. But also, adults are the hard because some of the activities we do seem childish. In Joinville, of the 20 or so participants, 8 or 9 were adults.
This afternoon I started making follow-up calls to the participants of the Joinville CASP; they were so happy to know we cared enough to call and see how things were going. Granted, some of the people hadn’t practiced or made any contacts looking for work, but many of them had, including Ana Giórgia.
She answered the phone sounding half asleep, which at first made me feel sorry for calling. But when she heard it was us, from the CASP course, she perked up. She began telling me how she had put her new knowledge into immediate use and this past Monday she made some phone calls and scheduled a few interviews. She said she was able to apply everything learned in the course, especially the parts about ‘filters’ and her power-statements. After her Tuesday interviews she was offered three different teaching positions! She started working right away, and has been teaching 8 classes of history at one of the schools! Ha… she was almost complaining of having too much work.
So this is her story in my words, but hopefully she will write me an email this weekend with all the details from her success story. I’m so happy for her and her family!
Hearing her success just makes everything worth it.
In the evening today, Dave and I went to the island (Florianópolis) and visited a job agency to find out about job positions in the area so we can be more educated and helpful to those who come to us looking for work.
We then went to the Institute, thinking there would be a class at 6:30 pm, but we were informed the Thursday classes wouldn’t start for a few more weeks. We took advantage of being there and played some foosball, Brazilian pool, and ping-pong. And we met some of the other nice people there.
That about sums it up.
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
What’s long, blue, hallow, see-through at some angles, and takes over two hours to go 35 km? The Florianópolis bus system, of course.
By 2 pm David and I headed off to the beach, hoping to go to the Joaquina beach. From the bus stop in front of our hotel we went to the terminal in Floripa, from there we went to the terminal in Lagoa da Conceição, and after waiting and waiting for the Joaquina bus to show, we took the bus to Praia Mole instead (the beach we went to our first time).
A blanket of clouds covered the afternoon rays. The high tide made for smaller waves (it seemed) but still fun to play in.
Our biggest ‘oops’ came when we first arrived. We wanted to go to a different beach, so we walked down the coast to the beach along side Praia Mole. Ha… well, as we were approaching the beach we saw a big sign “nude beach”. Dave was quick to point it out, just in case I hadn’t seen it. Needless to say, we hadn’t brought our birthday-suits, and decided to stay in our bathing-suits.
Today I took it easy because I was still feeling sick from the night before. Right before I went to bed I took some medicine on an empty stomach. Forty-five minutes later I was on my knees, hugging the bathroom stall – throwing up. I felt fine afterwards, but it made for a queezy feeling the rest of the day at the beach and after.
What’s long, blue, hallow, see-through at some angles, and takes over two hours to go 35 km? The Florianópolis bus system, of course.
By 2 pm David and I headed off to the beach, hoping to go to the Joaquina beach. From the bus stop in front of our hotel we went to the terminal in Floripa, from there we went to the terminal in Lagoa da Conceição, and after waiting and waiting for the Joaquina bus to show, we took the bus to Praia Mole instead (the beach we went to our first time).
A blanket of clouds covered the afternoon rays. The high tide made for smaller waves (it seemed) but still fun to play in.
Our biggest ‘oops’ came when we first arrived. We wanted to go to a different beach, so we walked down the coast to the beach along side Praia Mole. Ha… well, as we were approaching the beach we saw a big sign “nude beach”. Dave was quick to point it out, just in case I hadn’t seen it. Needless to say, we hadn’t brought our birthday-suits, and decided to stay in our bathing-suits.
Today I took it easy because I was still feeling sick from the night before. Right before I went to bed I took some medicine on an empty stomach. Forty-five minutes later I was on my knees, hugging the bathroom stall – throwing up. I felt fine afterwards, but it made for a queezy feeling the rest of the day at the beach and after.
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Valentine’s Day in Brazil isn’t until June, and even then it’s called “Significant Other’s Day” (or literally translated, Boyfriend/girlfriend Day). I was talking with a friend from home and she helped me realize that Valentine’s Day is much more than that, in the U.S. It’s a day to share your love with everyone, not just your boyfriend/girlfriend. Or in other words, Valentine’s Day gets everyone to spend their money, while the other is only for those who are dating or married.
Though it wasn’t Valentine’s Day here, that doesn’t mean love wasn’t in the air. On my way home from the day’s activities I saw quite a funny scene: at the corner of two cross streets was a teenage couple pretty into their make-out session. Only two park benches away was a homeless man sleeping (bless his soul). Maybe you just had to be there.
The real excitement for today came about 3:00 pm when Humberto, our director from Porto Alegre came to visit us at the SRE. It was a nice visit, a short visit.
Humberto was a little short on time, so he invited us to take a taxi with him to the airport in Florianópolis where he treated us to a good lunch and some dessert.
By 6 pm we took a taxi back to São José, and on the way the taxi driver dropped me off at ‘Ella Hair Company’, a saloon where a member of the church, Eliane, invited us to get our haircut. It was my first time getting cut at a true hair saloon, and quite a nice experience.
As soon as I got home I got into a shirt and tie and went to visit my home teaching companion, Pedro Pimentel. We didn’t have any visits marked, so I just hung out with his family and got to know them. Awesome family; less than a year ago Pedro and Elizeth got married and them and a few of their children were baptized. At home, live three kids, a 13-year-old son, and two little girls, both adorable. Just for fun I showed them a few ‘magic’ tricks that all missionaries learn.
Jenna, Pedro told me that about 10 years ago their house used was where the missionaries lived. It is a house a few blocks in front of the São José chapel, in the fundos of the yard - there are a few houses in the yard. Do you remember where you lived?
Valentine’s Day in Brazil isn’t until June, and even then it’s called “Significant Other’s Day” (or literally translated, Boyfriend/girlfriend Day). I was talking with a friend from home and she helped me realize that Valentine’s Day is much more than that, in the U.S. It’s a day to share your love with everyone, not just your boyfriend/girlfriend. Or in other words, Valentine’s Day gets everyone to spend their money, while the other is only for those who are dating or married.
Though it wasn’t Valentine’s Day here, that doesn’t mean love wasn’t in the air. On my way home from the day’s activities I saw quite a funny scene: at the corner of two cross streets was a teenage couple pretty into their make-out session. Only two park benches away was a homeless man sleeping (bless his soul). Maybe you just had to be there.
The real excitement for today came about 3:00 pm when Humberto, our director from Porto Alegre came to visit us at the SRE. It was a nice visit, a short visit.
Humberto was a little short on time, so he invited us to take a taxi with him to the airport in Florianópolis where he treated us to a good lunch and some dessert.
By 6 pm we took a taxi back to São José, and on the way the taxi driver dropped me off at ‘Ella Hair Company’, a saloon where a member of the church, Eliane, invited us to get our haircut. It was my first time getting cut at a true hair saloon, and quite a nice experience.
As soon as I got home I got into a shirt and tie and went to visit my home teaching companion, Pedro Pimentel. We didn’t have any visits marked, so I just hung out with his family and got to know them. Awesome family; less than a year ago Pedro and Elizeth got married and them and a few of their children were baptized. At home, live three kids, a 13-year-old son, and two little girls, both adorable. Just for fun I showed them a few ‘magic’ tricks that all missionaries learn.
Jenna, Pedro told me that about 10 years ago their house used was where the missionaries lived. It is a house a few blocks in front of the São José chapel, in the fundos of the yard - there are a few houses in the yard. Do you remember where you lived?
Monday, February 13, 2006
Skate or Die, dude. (Brent, do you remember that Nintendo game?)
Juan Tomur Silveira, 17; Guilherme Felipe Portes, 15; and Rodrigo Pectro de Souza, 21 put on a personal skate show along the coast of São José as I had a good time and photographed.
Here are some of the cooler pics:
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8EaNnLNs5Zsc4¬ag=1
Earlier in the day I went to run a few errands and brought along my camera. Stopped by the bank to get some money, got some lunch at McDonalds, and then decided to continue walking down one of the main avenues, President Kennedy. Towards the end of the avenue is a nice walking path along the beach, a playground, and a skate park. When I got there only two little kids were playing around on the skate park, but as I was leaving, Guilherme arrived and was eager to get his two friends so I could shoot them skating. A half out later, they arrived, and the pictures are the results.
Juan was eager to get the pictures, so he invited me back to his house so I could load the pictures directly on to his computer. Over the few hours photographing them we had become friends and I trusted them – I didn’t feel any danger going to Juan’s apartment; the other two came along, too. It took a while to figure out how to get my pics onto his computer (I couldn’t find a program to load the pics), but we finally got it working. Unfortunately, when the pictures loaded onto his computer, they erased from my card… ha, so now I had to put the pictures I wanted back on my jump-drive.
Before I ran my errands, I stopped by the SRE and made some important phone calls and organized a few things. We have been receiving calls from a few companies letting us know they have job openings, so we have to take that information and pass it on to the local leaders.
Skate or Die, dude. (Brent, do you remember that Nintendo game?)
Juan Tomur Silveira, 17; Guilherme Felipe Portes, 15; and Rodrigo Pectro de Souza, 21 put on a personal skate show along the coast of São José as I had a good time and photographed.
Here are some of the cooler pics:
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8EaNnLNs5Zsc4¬ag=1
Earlier in the day I went to run a few errands and brought along my camera. Stopped by the bank to get some money, got some lunch at McDonalds, and then decided to continue walking down one of the main avenues, President Kennedy. Towards the end of the avenue is a nice walking path along the beach, a playground, and a skate park. When I got there only two little kids were playing around on the skate park, but as I was leaving, Guilherme arrived and was eager to get his two friends so I could shoot them skating. A half out later, they arrived, and the pictures are the results.
Juan was eager to get the pictures, so he invited me back to his house so I could load the pictures directly on to his computer. Over the few hours photographing them we had become friends and I trusted them – I didn’t feel any danger going to Juan’s apartment; the other two came along, too. It took a while to figure out how to get my pics onto his computer (I couldn’t find a program to load the pics), but we finally got it working. Unfortunately, when the pictures loaded onto his computer, they erased from my card… ha, so now I had to put the pictures I wanted back on my jump-drive.
Before I ran my errands, I stopped by the SRE and made some important phone calls and organized a few things. We have been receiving calls from a few companies letting us know they have job openings, so we have to take that information and pass it on to the local leaders.
Sunday, February 12, 2006
In mid-afternoon, from our 6th floor window, I noticed a strong rainbow shining across the São José sky. To get on party-deck on the roof one needs to be accompanied by a hotel employee; after a quick phone call, he was on his way up, and I took the stairs to the top floor.
A ladder caught my attention as I crossed the deck; actually, it was 3 ladders strung together. “Hey, can I climb that too?” I jokingly asked the hotel employee, who was about my age. “Sure.” I kind of bit my tongue, “um, have you ever done it?” He smiled, “No.”
So… I climbed. Here is the picture that resulted.
Earlier in the day David and I went to the Florianópolis Stake Conference in the Centro de Convenções on the island. Elder Arnold of the Seventy and Area President of Brazil – South presided over and spoke at the conference.
The rest of the day Dave and I just took it easy and caught up on some lost sleep.
Since we got in so late, we didn’t have time to buy any groceries – not much in our apartment, so Sunday’s meals consisted of Ramen noodle. Emmmm, yum.
In mid-afternoon, from our 6th floor window, I noticed a strong rainbow shining across the São José sky. To get on party-deck on the roof one needs to be accompanied by a hotel employee; after a quick phone call, he was on his way up, and I took the stairs to the top floor.
A ladder caught my attention as I crossed the deck; actually, it was 3 ladders strung together. “Hey, can I climb that too?” I jokingly asked the hotel employee, who was about my age. “Sure.” I kind of bit my tongue, “um, have you ever done it?” He smiled, “No.”
So… I climbed. Here is the picture that resulted.
Earlier in the day David and I went to the Florianópolis Stake Conference in the Centro de Convenções on the island. Elder Arnold of the Seventy and Area President of Brazil – South presided over and spoke at the conference.
The rest of the day Dave and I just took it easy and caught up on some lost sleep.
Since we got in so late, we didn’t have time to buy any groceries – not much in our apartment, so Sunday’s meals consisted of Ramen noodle. Emmmm, yum.
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Saturday, February 11, 2006
“Our main goal is to get a team good enough to be apart of the NFL and play exhibition games with them.”
He’s about 6 foot 4 and well over 250 pounds. In the picture of the group he’s the dark man in the front row with the black jersey. Kuka is his nickname, while Robson is his real name. As we were getting lunch today I asked Kuka if he liked football, mainly just commenting on the football jersey he was wearing. Above was part of his response. I guess he plays for a local team and they are really into it and are trying to get a league going in the area.
To be honest, his response shocked me; I had never met anyone who actually liked American Football, needless to say plays it.
Lunch was a much-needed break between our 10 hours of teaching. Getting six hours of sleep wasn’t so bad; the hard part was teaching after only so little rest. I was up, showered, and ready to leave by 7:50 am. The rain had let up; we chose to walk to the chapel. It was a little further than I had thought J. When we saw it was 8:10 and we still weren’t there, Dave ran ahead (he had the keys to the church) to let people in, and I stopped by the bakery to get two little (personal sized you could say) French breads with butter, and two one-and-a-half-liter bottles of water.
Class was to begin by 8:30, but by Brazilian time that means … well, later. We started at 8:45 with most of the class already present. Everyone but one returned, and we even gained two new participants.
Our goal was to teach the course with us talking 20% of the time, and them talking and practicing 80%. I think we did pretty well. They got pretty into their activities and it was fun individually helping each participant, learning a little about their lives, gaining their trust and sharing our advice when we could.
Here's a picture of them during one of the activities.
By noon, Irmão Manoel and another sister (I presume it was his wife) had prepared a banquet of food for all of us – spaghetti and salad and soda; it was a nice treat and a well-deserved break for our class.
We tried to finish the class by 4, but we ended taking longer than expected with the filming of the mock-interviews. At the end of the course we do a mock-interview with each participant and ask two questions; filming helps us as teachers see how well we got across to them and how well they understood what was taught. Overall, I was impressed with the results and am really proud of this group. Yes, there are some frustrations in teaching, but I think they did a great job and if they continue practicing they’ll all do great in the real world. By 5:30 pm we were done w/ the course and everyone filed out.
For the next half hour Dave and I moved all the tables and equipment back to their respected places, and then took a few pictures in front of the chapel.
Here’s a translation of what the plaque says:
THE FIRST CHAPEL OF THE CHURCH IN SOUTH AMERICA
On the 25th of October 1931, President Karl Bruno Reinhold Stoof, of the South America Mission, coming from Buenos Aires, dedicated this chapel.
98 people were present.
At the time, the Joinville Branch had 46 baptized members since the first missionaries came in 1927.
The bishop from the ward was nice enough to give us a ride to the bus terminal and there we waited for a few hours for the 8:40 pm bus to Florianópolis. Spy Kids wasn’t exactly the most exciting entertainment, so most of my time was spent sleeping and listening to my ipod.
By 11 we were in Florípa and waiting, some more, for another bus to the neighborhood of Korbrasol, in São José. We were in bed by 1:30 am, after dropping everything off at the church, getting ready for bed, and finally sleeping.
“Our main goal is to get a team good enough to be apart of the NFL and play exhibition games with them.”
He’s about 6 foot 4 and well over 250 pounds. In the picture of the group he’s the dark man in the front row with the black jersey. Kuka is his nickname, while Robson is his real name. As we were getting lunch today I asked Kuka if he liked football, mainly just commenting on the football jersey he was wearing. Above was part of his response. I guess he plays for a local team and they are really into it and are trying to get a league going in the area.
To be honest, his response shocked me; I had never met anyone who actually liked American Football, needless to say plays it.
Lunch was a much-needed break between our 10 hours of teaching. Getting six hours of sleep wasn’t so bad; the hard part was teaching after only so little rest. I was up, showered, and ready to leave by 7:50 am. The rain had let up; we chose to walk to the chapel. It was a little further than I had thought J. When we saw it was 8:10 and we still weren’t there, Dave ran ahead (he had the keys to the church) to let people in, and I stopped by the bakery to get two little (personal sized you could say) French breads with butter, and two one-and-a-half-liter bottles of water.
Class was to begin by 8:30, but by Brazilian time that means … well, later. We started at 8:45 with most of the class already present. Everyone but one returned, and we even gained two new participants.
Our goal was to teach the course with us talking 20% of the time, and them talking and practicing 80%. I think we did pretty well. They got pretty into their activities and it was fun individually helping each participant, learning a little about their lives, gaining their trust and sharing our advice when we could.
Here's a picture of them during one of the activities.
By noon, Irmão Manoel and another sister (I presume it was his wife) had prepared a banquet of food for all of us – spaghetti and salad and soda; it was a nice treat and a well-deserved break for our class.
We tried to finish the class by 4, but we ended taking longer than expected with the filming of the mock-interviews. At the end of the course we do a mock-interview with each participant and ask two questions; filming helps us as teachers see how well we got across to them and how well they understood what was taught. Overall, I was impressed with the results and am really proud of this group. Yes, there are some frustrations in teaching, but I think they did a great job and if they continue practicing they’ll all do great in the real world. By 5:30 pm we were done w/ the course and everyone filed out.
For the next half hour Dave and I moved all the tables and equipment back to their respected places, and then took a few pictures in front of the chapel.
Here’s a translation of what the plaque says:
THE FIRST CHAPEL OF THE CHURCH IN SOUTH AMERICA
On the 25th of October 1931, President Karl Bruno Reinhold Stoof, of the South America Mission, coming from Buenos Aires, dedicated this chapel.
98 people were present.
At the time, the Joinville Branch had 46 baptized members since the first missionaries came in 1927.
The bishop from the ward was nice enough to give us a ride to the bus terminal and there we waited for a few hours for the 8:40 pm bus to Florianópolis. Spy Kids wasn’t exactly the most exciting entertainment, so most of my time was spent sleeping and listening to my ipod.
By 11 we were in Florípa and waiting, some more, for another bus to the neighborhood of Korbrasol, in São José. We were in bed by 1:30 am, after dropping everything off at the church, getting ready for bed, and finally sleeping.
Friday, February 10, 2006
There’s something about the trials in life that make me smile. I don’t think it’s because I like: fracturing my back, breaking my foot or falling into septic tanks (among other things), but I figure I must either be a little crazy, or have a decent understanding how trials can make me a better person; thus I smile. Or it’s merely because smiles and laughter are my body’s way of coping instead of crying. Either way…
Walking the few kilometers from the chapel of Kobrasol to the Lazer Copy Xerox store -in the rain, with a suitcase full of teaching equipment and only one umbrella between Dave and I - brought back some good memories of the mission, and a smile.
In preparation for the 50 participants in Joinville, Dave and I made 50 copies of our CASP student manual; we only had 20 to start out with, and wanted to make sure everyone got a copy. Irmão Plínio is the second counselor of the São José Stake, and the owner of Lazer Copy, so he was more than willing to help. And because of the heavy rain, he gave us a lift to the bus terminal a few blocks away, and helped us arrange our tickets to Joinville.
On a side note – that’s probably only interesting to my father – while waiting for the noon-bus, a Caterpillar Service vehicle (VW Golf) pulled up with parts to ship on our bus to Joinville. I really wanted to strike up a conversation, but as I imagined how it would sound – “So, you work at Caterpillar? Neat, I did, too, and so does my father. Yup, way up there in the U.S. at the headquarters. Welp, see ya.” – I decided against it.
The highway to Joinville I believe is Highway 1, and accompanies the Atlantic for most of the three and a half out trek. Gorgeous view, by the way. Wouldn’t mind owning a beach house anywhere along there – peaceful, beautiful, very nice.
Here is a map, courtesy of Google Earth, showing where we are living (São José), Florianópolis, Porto Alegre, Joinville, and then other major cities in Brazil – São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
On the way we received a phone call from our director in Porto Alegre. He politely informed me that I was an idiot and hadn’t attached some information in the email I had sent him a few days before, like I thought I had. I started to panic; I didn’t bring my computer to Joinville, now how am I going to send him the information he needed? Then I remembered; I’m not sure why, but on Thursday, after sending the empty email, I copied the file onto my jump-drive. What a blessing! I told them I’d shoot them an email as soon as we got to the hotel.
“It’s been raining none stop for the past few days,” said our taxi driver from the bus station in Joinville to the Mercury Prinz hotel, just a few blocks away.
By 5 we had gotten settled in our room, I had paid the extra R$10,00 to use the internet and send the file to Humberto and we were off to the chapel to set up for our class at 7:30 pm. Again, since it was pouring, we took a taxi – and again, because they’re jerks, he drove in circles ripping us off. When we got out I tried to give him a tip, but he didn’t accept it, probably because he felt bad for ripping us off. His driving in circles would cause problems for us later in the night.
Uncharacteristically loud, thumping music welcomed us to the Joinville chapel – tonight was not only a night for the Career Workshop, but they were preparing for an all-Ward Dance; just our luck.
The Joinville Stake Employment Specialist, Manoel, welcomed us as we arrived. He showed us to the High Council’s room (the only with air conditioning) and told us that 40 people had confirmed their participation, but probably less would make it (that’s how it was in Porto Alegre also). We then began preparing the chairs and looking for tables – that was harder than it sounds. Because of the dance, at first we didn’t think we’d find any tables, but after rummaging around through each room and even in the attic (they have 3 class rooms in a type of attic above the stage, pretty cool actually) we came up with enough tables, big and small, to make a big U around the room. Our plan was to have participants sit on both the outside, and the inside of the U – those on the inside still facing towards the front of the room.
By 7:15 we had about five participants; by 7:30 we had roughly 15. When we started the class at 7:40, 22 or so people had arrived.
To teach the 12-hour course, we were scheduled to begin with 2 1/2 hours Friday night, and finish up Saturday morning and afternoon.
We had a great group of participants! Most everyone paid attention and the activities went well. We ended the night teaching the “Me in 30-Seconds” and challenging them to practice it over the night before the next morning’s class.
Most participants were members of the Joinville Stake, and those who were having their first impression of the church I think really enjoyed everyone’s company and that atmosphere we had – though the American accents of Dave and I took a while for them to get used to it seemed.
I know this is a well-known fact, but Mormon-world is a small place. Let me give you three quick examples why:
1. Pablo, one of the participants in the course, is a return missionary from the Provo, Utah mission. He was a companion of Craig Guincho who lived in the Portuguese house with me over the summer term at BYU.
a. Pablo taught David’s BYU Portuguese teacher the gospel and David was at her baptism.
2. Élida Ripole is a friend of Pablo and while talking with them I discovered she is a return missionary from the Rio de Janeiro North mission; she got home while I was in the MTC in São Paulo at the beginning of 2003, so we never crossed paths in Rio.
a. Élida’s mother thought that maybe my sister Jenna had served with her daughter. Jenna served her mission in Joinville 10 years ago, about the same time Élida’s sister served as a ‘part-time’ missionary with an American Sister, her mother thought it may have been ‘Sister McAllister’.
3. While learning Forró (more details to come) I spotted Elder Portela, my third companion from the mission. He is from Curitiba (2 1/2 hours away) but came down for work and to ‘get to know’ a girl (he was specific to say they weren’t dating, yet). Boy was he surprised to see me!
So that’s what I mean by, Mormon-world is a small place.
For those who don’t know, David, my friend and partner here, is quite the dancer. He’s been on a few teams at BYU (Folkdance and Ballroom) and wanted to give the Brazilian dance a try. And than there’s me: I think I was injected with a DANCE vaccine as a kid, because there is seriously a chemical reaction that takes place in my body where I usually end up, well, rejecting the atmosphere. In other words, I’m not much of a dancer. Trust me, I’ve given it a try a few times (boy have I tried), but I’m just chemically not made to dance. With that said, after noticing Dave was taking a long time to come back, I wondered to the cultural hall to see him dancing Forró with some girl. I meandered over to the food tables and was disappointed to notice everything was gone. Then, within 30 seconds I was being called by one of the sisters (mothers) in the room. “Geoff,” (she remembered my name) “come dance with Élida.” I stammered back a reply, “But irmã, I don’t know how.” Ha… that didn’t work, of course. “Oh she’ll teach you,” was her response. So I found my way to the dance floor and Élida was nice and patient enough to show me how to dance Forró. It was actually pretty fun, and easy.
While we were dancing was when I looked up and saw my companion from the mission, Elder Portela. You can actually see him in the background of this picture. The arrow is pointing to him.
Obviously the dancing was interrupted by our reunion and it was fun catching up. I’m pretty sure he forgot my name, which was fine because I couldn’t remember his for the life of me. Ha… but after a few minutes we figured it out.
It wasn’t much later that Dave and I left and headed back to our hotel… or so we thought.
Like I said, the taxi driver drove in unnecessary circles, and that messed me up when we left the church. I thought we were supposed to walk one direction, and after 10 minutes walking that way we stopped at a pizza restaurant to order to be delivered and as we looked at a map, explaining where we were staying, I noticed we had been walking the opposite direction!
By 12:30 am we made it to the hotel. From there I called the same pizza parlor and they delivered – probably the tastiest pizza I’ve had in Brazil.
By the way, the hotel was probably one of the nicest I’ve ever stayed in. Unfortunately, everything else cost money – breakfast, internet. (pictures can be found at http://www.accorhotels.com.br/guiahoteis/mercure/hotel_main.asp?cd_hotel=269 )
Watched Legally Blonde on TV while we ate pizza, then went to bed.
There’s something about the trials in life that make me smile. I don’t think it’s because I like: fracturing my back, breaking my foot or falling into septic tanks (among other things), but I figure I must either be a little crazy, or have a decent understanding how trials can make me a better person; thus I smile. Or it’s merely because smiles and laughter are my body’s way of coping instead of crying. Either way…
Walking the few kilometers from the chapel of Kobrasol to the Lazer Copy Xerox store -in the rain, with a suitcase full of teaching equipment and only one umbrella between Dave and I - brought back some good memories of the mission, and a smile.
In preparation for the 50 participants in Joinville, Dave and I made 50 copies of our CASP student manual; we only had 20 to start out with, and wanted to make sure everyone got a copy. Irmão Plínio is the second counselor of the São José Stake, and the owner of Lazer Copy, so he was more than willing to help. And because of the heavy rain, he gave us a lift to the bus terminal a few blocks away, and helped us arrange our tickets to Joinville.
On a side note – that’s probably only interesting to my father – while waiting for the noon-bus, a Caterpillar Service vehicle (VW Golf) pulled up with parts to ship on our bus to Joinville. I really wanted to strike up a conversation, but as I imagined how it would sound – “So, you work at Caterpillar? Neat, I did, too, and so does my father. Yup, way up there in the U.S. at the headquarters. Welp, see ya.” – I decided against it.
The highway to Joinville I believe is Highway 1, and accompanies the Atlantic for most of the three and a half out trek. Gorgeous view, by the way. Wouldn’t mind owning a beach house anywhere along there – peaceful, beautiful, very nice.
Here is a map, courtesy of Google Earth, showing where we are living (São José), Florianópolis, Porto Alegre, Joinville, and then other major cities in Brazil – São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
On the way we received a phone call from our director in Porto Alegre. He politely informed me that I was an idiot and hadn’t attached some information in the email I had sent him a few days before, like I thought I had. I started to panic; I didn’t bring my computer to Joinville, now how am I going to send him the information he needed? Then I remembered; I’m not sure why, but on Thursday, after sending the empty email, I copied the file onto my jump-drive. What a blessing! I told them I’d shoot them an email as soon as we got to the hotel.
“It’s been raining none stop for the past few days,” said our taxi driver from the bus station in Joinville to the Mercury Prinz hotel, just a few blocks away.
By 5 we had gotten settled in our room, I had paid the extra R$10,00 to use the internet and send the file to Humberto and we were off to the chapel to set up for our class at 7:30 pm. Again, since it was pouring, we took a taxi – and again, because they’re jerks, he drove in circles ripping us off. When we got out I tried to give him a tip, but he didn’t accept it, probably because he felt bad for ripping us off. His driving in circles would cause problems for us later in the night.
Uncharacteristically loud, thumping music welcomed us to the Joinville chapel – tonight was not only a night for the Career Workshop, but they were preparing for an all-Ward Dance; just our luck.
The Joinville Stake Employment Specialist, Manoel, welcomed us as we arrived. He showed us to the High Council’s room (the only with air conditioning) and told us that 40 people had confirmed their participation, but probably less would make it (that’s how it was in Porto Alegre also). We then began preparing the chairs and looking for tables – that was harder than it sounds. Because of the dance, at first we didn’t think we’d find any tables, but after rummaging around through each room and even in the attic (they have 3 class rooms in a type of attic above the stage, pretty cool actually) we came up with enough tables, big and small, to make a big U around the room. Our plan was to have participants sit on both the outside, and the inside of the U – those on the inside still facing towards the front of the room.
By 7:15 we had about five participants; by 7:30 we had roughly 15. When we started the class at 7:40, 22 or so people had arrived.
To teach the 12-hour course, we were scheduled to begin with 2 1/2 hours Friday night, and finish up Saturday morning and afternoon.
We had a great group of participants! Most everyone paid attention and the activities went well. We ended the night teaching the “Me in 30-Seconds” and challenging them to practice it over the night before the next morning’s class.
Most participants were members of the Joinville Stake, and those who were having their first impression of the church I think really enjoyed everyone’s company and that atmosphere we had – though the American accents of Dave and I took a while for them to get used to it seemed.
I know this is a well-known fact, but Mormon-world is a small place. Let me give you three quick examples why:
1. Pablo, one of the participants in the course, is a return missionary from the Provo, Utah mission. He was a companion of Craig Guincho who lived in the Portuguese house with me over the summer term at BYU.a. Pablo taught David’s BYU Portuguese teacher the gospel and David was at her baptism.
2. Élida Ripole is a friend of Pablo and while talking with them I discovered she is a return missionary from the Rio de Janeiro North mission; she got home while I was in the MTC in São Paulo at the beginning of 2003, so we never crossed paths in Rio.
a. Élida’s mother thought that maybe my sister Jenna had served with her daughter. Jenna served her mission in Joinville 10 years ago, about the same time Élida’s sister served as a ‘part-time’ missionary with an American Sister, her mother thought it may have been ‘Sister McAllister’.
3. While learning Forró (more details to come) I spotted Elder Portela, my third companion from the mission. He is from Curitiba (2 1/2 hours away) but came down for work and to ‘get to know’ a girl (he was specific to say they weren’t dating, yet). Boy was he surprised to see me!
So that’s what I mean by, Mormon-world is a small place.
For those who don’t know, David, my friend and partner here, is quite the dancer. He’s been on a few teams at BYU (Folkdance and Ballroom) and wanted to give the Brazilian dance a try. And than there’s me: I think I was injected with a DANCE vaccine as a kid, because there is seriously a chemical reaction that takes place in my body where I usually end up, well, rejecting the atmosphere. In other words, I’m not much of a dancer. Trust me, I’ve given it a try a few times (boy have I tried), but I’m just chemically not made to dance. With that said, after noticing Dave was taking a long time to come back, I wondered to the cultural hall to see him dancing Forró with some girl. I meandered over to the food tables and was disappointed to notice everything was gone. Then, within 30 seconds I was being called by one of the sisters (mothers) in the room. “Geoff,” (she remembered my name) “come dance with Élida.” I stammered back a reply, “But irmã, I don’t know how.” Ha… that didn’t work, of course. “Oh she’ll teach you,” was her response. So I found my way to the dance floor and Élida was nice and patient enough to show me how to dance Forró. It was actually pretty fun, and easy.
While we were dancing was when I looked up and saw my companion from the mission, Elder Portela. You can actually see him in the background of this picture. The arrow is pointing to him.
Obviously the dancing was interrupted by our reunion and it was fun catching up. I’m pretty sure he forgot my name, which was fine because I couldn’t remember his for the life of me. Ha… but after a few minutes we figured it out.
It wasn’t much later that Dave and I left and headed back to our hotel… or so we thought.
Like I said, the taxi driver drove in unnecessary circles, and that messed me up when we left the church. I thought we were supposed to walk one direction, and after 10 minutes walking that way we stopped at a pizza restaurant to order to be delivered and as we looked at a map, explaining where we were staying, I noticed we had been walking the opposite direction!
By 12:30 am we made it to the hotel. From there I called the same pizza parlor and they delivered – probably the tastiest pizza I’ve had in Brazil.
By the way, the hotel was probably one of the nicest I’ve ever stayed in. Unfortunately, everything else cost money – breakfast, internet. (pictures can be found at http://www.accorhotels.com.br/guiahoteis/mercure/hotel_main.asp?cd_hotel=269 )
Watched Legally Blonde on TV while we ate pizza, then went to bed.
Monday, February 13, 2006
it's been a fun last couple days! i have LOTS to catch up on, but ... you know that feeling that you have so much to do but you just don't want to start yet? that's how i'm feeling w/ the blog.
but to wet your whistle, here are some pics from what i did today:
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8EaNnLNs5Zsc4¬ag=1
enjoy...
but to wet your whistle, here are some pics from what i did today:
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8EaNnLNs5Zsc4¬ag=1
enjoy...
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Thursday, February 9, 2006
So last night when we called Bishop Marcelo from Joinville he told us to expect at least 50 participants this weekend! That caught me off guard, since we are prepared to teach a class of about 25, so this will be interesting. Dave and I plan to divide the class in 2 and each teach the entire course, switching back and forth between classrooms to give the participants a different teacher every now and then.
We realized we only had 20 of the new manuals, so first thing today we went to Lazer Copy, a copy place owned by the 2nd Counselor of the Stake Presidency and we made 50 copies off the CD we received from training in SLC. Hopefully they have them done by the time we have to leave tomorrow (noon).
Rained again today. The usual Thursday night soccer had a low turnout, a few kids, and Irmão Aldo (the less active man and his son that I made friends w/ last week and played w/ until late). But this week Dave and I didn’t play; we were having a meeting with Sister Natchigall. Her and her husbands had been the SRE workers/ CASP teachers for the past few years and have done a great job!! She told us many a story about their sacrifice and the blessings they received and all they’ve put into this program. They were part-time missionaries, who lived from their nearby home, had 4 kids, and Harold (the father) had just retired. Not much of a retirement when he was working so hard for 2 years. So now they’re taking a well-deserved break. I felt really bad when after hearing many of her stories she leaked out (not sure if she meant to) that she had heard from 2 people at church that we were complaining about how things were unorganized! Honestly, I did not say that to anyone. Maybe they got that impression because we had to call so many people trying to get updated phone numbers (the list we had wasn’t very updated), but that was the only problem. So Dave and I listened and tried to let her know how much we appreciate her and her husband’s work.
It was about 9 pm when we got done w/ our little meeting, and it was still raining pretty good. I was kinda sad about her thinking we didn’t appreciate their work, so I wanted to eat away my troubles… across the street from the hotel there’s a rodizio pizza. For those who are unfamiliar with rodizio pizza, it’s like a buffet for lazy people. Instead of getting up and walking to the buffet table, waiters come by and serve you pizza at your table – constantly coming by with different, good, pizzas. Last night they were having a special. For the same prize I’d pay to get one medium pizza to go I could sit down and eat all I wanted. So, even though I was by myself (Dave wanted a hot dog instead), I enjoyed the rodizio.
During other parts of the day I found time to study, type a paper, and organize more things at the SRE office.
So last night when we called Bishop Marcelo from Joinville he told us to expect at least 50 participants this weekend! That caught me off guard, since we are prepared to teach a class of about 25, so this will be interesting. Dave and I plan to divide the class in 2 and each teach the entire course, switching back and forth between classrooms to give the participants a different teacher every now and then.
We realized we only had 20 of the new manuals, so first thing today we went to Lazer Copy, a copy place owned by the 2nd Counselor of the Stake Presidency and we made 50 copies off the CD we received from training in SLC. Hopefully they have them done by the time we have to leave tomorrow (noon).
Rained again today. The usual Thursday night soccer had a low turnout, a few kids, and Irmão Aldo (the less active man and his son that I made friends w/ last week and played w/ until late). But this week Dave and I didn’t play; we were having a meeting with Sister Natchigall. Her and her husbands had been the SRE workers/ CASP teachers for the past few years and have done a great job!! She told us many a story about their sacrifice and the blessings they received and all they’ve put into this program. They were part-time missionaries, who lived from their nearby home, had 4 kids, and Harold (the father) had just retired. Not much of a retirement when he was working so hard for 2 years. So now they’re taking a well-deserved break. I felt really bad when after hearing many of her stories she leaked out (not sure if she meant to) that she had heard from 2 people at church that we were complaining about how things were unorganized! Honestly, I did not say that to anyone. Maybe they got that impression because we had to call so many people trying to get updated phone numbers (the list we had wasn’t very updated), but that was the only problem. So Dave and I listened and tried to let her know how much we appreciate her and her husband’s work.
It was about 9 pm when we got done w/ our little meeting, and it was still raining pretty good. I was kinda sad about her thinking we didn’t appreciate their work, so I wanted to eat away my troubles… across the street from the hotel there’s a rodizio pizza. For those who are unfamiliar with rodizio pizza, it’s like a buffet for lazy people. Instead of getting up and walking to the buffet table, waiters come by and serve you pizza at your table – constantly coming by with different, good, pizzas. Last night they were having a special. For the same prize I’d pay to get one medium pizza to go I could sit down and eat all I wanted. So, even though I was by myself (Dave wanted a hot dog instead), I enjoyed the rodizio.
During other parts of the day I found time to study, type a paper, and organize more things at the SRE office.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Wednesday, February 8, 2006
According to Understanding Contemporary Latin America by Richard S. Hillman, before Spanish and Portuguese explorers discovered the Americas, the population exceeded 50 million inhabitants. In 150 years, 90% of those inhabitants died due to a number or reasons (war and disease are a few). It took almost 400 years for Latin America to repopulate what took 150 years to lose.
So I’ve been studying a lot these last couple days, trying to keep on top of my studies. This weekend we won’t have much time to study because we’re going to Joinville to teach on Friday and Saturday, and Florianópolis is having Stake Conference on Sunday.
It’s been raining off and on; I finally bought an umbrella today, and some clothes hangers J.
When we weren’t studying, we were at the SRE office following up with last year’s participants to see if they’ve found work. Thos who have always had fun stories they wanted to share. Most everyone was pleasant on the phone… but it’s normal to come across a few that must have been having a bad day and don’t have the patience or desire to listen to an American accent.
According to Understanding Contemporary Latin America by Richard S. Hillman, before Spanish and Portuguese explorers discovered the Americas, the population exceeded 50 million inhabitants. In 150 years, 90% of those inhabitants died due to a number or reasons (war and disease are a few). It took almost 400 years for Latin America to repopulate what took 150 years to lose.
So I’ve been studying a lot these last couple days, trying to keep on top of my studies. This weekend we won’t have much time to study because we’re going to Joinville to teach on Friday and Saturday, and Florianópolis is having Stake Conference on Sunday.
It’s been raining off and on; I finally bought an umbrella today, and some clothes hangers J.
When we weren’t studying, we were at the SRE office following up with last year’s participants to see if they’ve found work. Thos who have always had fun stories they wanted to share. Most everyone was pleasant on the phone… but it’s normal to come across a few that must have been having a bad day and don’t have the patience or desire to listen to an American accent.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Tuesday, February 7, 2006
Pretty quiet day today. Dave and I studied during the morning, ate lunch, went to the SRE office and called 2005 course participants following up if they found jobs or need help with anything. We called a few other leaders around the state, marking more visits.
The cleaning crew was at the church, so while we had the office open they took advantage and cleaned it. it took longer than we expected, so I went out back and played some soccer with the neighborhood kids. Then went back to the hotel and found The Terminal movie on – thanks to all those who emailed and told me the name of the movie, it’s nice to know people read this thing. Unfortunately, the movie was in Portuguese this time. Tom Hanks in Portuguese just isn’t quite the same, so I’m looking forward to watching it again once I get home.
After the movie I went back to the office where Dave was, and called more people.
Came back to the hotel, watched Mean Girls (I think that’s what its called… ha), skyped for a bit with my brother, did some reading and went to bed.
Just for fun I took a picture of my back – I look like a leper. I have spots where my burn peeled, and then I burned the fresh skin while some skin still hadn’t peeled off, so now its all done peeling but just left me w/ spots. Not too sure how good you can see it. Like the self back-portrait?
Pretty quiet day today. Dave and I studied during the morning, ate lunch, went to the SRE office and called 2005 course participants following up if they found jobs or need help with anything. We called a few other leaders around the state, marking more visits.
The cleaning crew was at the church, so while we had the office open they took advantage and cleaned it. it took longer than we expected, so I went out back and played some soccer with the neighborhood kids. Then went back to the hotel and found The Terminal movie on – thanks to all those who emailed and told me the name of the movie, it’s nice to know people read this thing. Unfortunately, the movie was in Portuguese this time. Tom Hanks in Portuguese just isn’t quite the same, so I’m looking forward to watching it again once I get home.
After the movie I went back to the office where Dave was, and called more people.
Came back to the hotel, watched Mean Girls (I think that’s what its called… ha), skyped for a bit with my brother, did some reading and went to bed.
Just for fun I took a picture of my back – I look like a leper. I have spots where my burn peeled, and then I burned the fresh skin while some skin still hadn’t peeled off, so now its all done peeling but just left me w/ spots. Not too sure how good you can see it. Like the self back-portrait?
Monday, February 06, 2006
Monday, February 6, 2006
This afternoon I was quickly reminded that after a quick, heavy downfall the streets often flood and the drainage sewers get backed up. It was about 7:45 pm and I had just run to the church to quickly call my home teaching companion. As I arrived, a HUGE bolt of lightening struck and the proceeding thunder blasted my ears. And then the rain started… and wouldn’t stop… Dave and I were invited to a family home evening at 8, so I had to get back to the hotel. I decided to make a run for it, since our hotel is a mere block away. As I ran out the church and shut the electric, sliding gate behind me I began crossing the street… and unknowingly, decided I would go for a little swim. Shin-deep in water, my momentum helped me wade through the water to the sidewalk on the other side. Soaked were my sandals, feet, legs, and lower part of my shorts. Oh well.
We sat in the hotel for a few minutes, waiting for the rain to lessen – I was trying to dry off. A good show was on the movie channel, something with Tom Hanks and he’s a foreigner who just arrived to the US and his country had been taken over. Anyone know what that movie’s called? I didn’t get to see more than 20 minutes because we were on our way to FHE, but I would really like to watch the rest.
So FHE was fun. It was at the home of Irmá Valdmiria – the sister who invited us over for lunch on Sunday. It was her, her 2 sons and her sister who was visiting. Their tradition is to start with food, and end w/ the message, so we sat down at a table with a pot of boiled hotdogs, buns, corn, potato sticks, mayonnaise, ketchup and guaraná.
When Irmá Valdmiria called us at 7 pm, inviting us to come, she made it clear that the message and the game were our department. She wanted our help to get her family back in the habit of having FHE. Ha… so I was in charge of the message while Dave took care of the game. My message took longer than anticipated – I guess it’s been a few years since I’ve done it on the mission. Together we read 1 Nephi 8 and drew the Tree of Life from Lehi’s vision. They enjoyed it. Dave’s game was kind of a magic trick with a coin – not too sure how to easily explain it, but the purpose of the trick is to make the person look silly. It worked. Then Rubens and Tiago (the 16 and 18 year old boys) prepared a trick/game for Dave. It was the candle-plate trick where … long story short… Dave gets his face dark with soot from the candle.
Earlier in the day Dave and I traveled to the island (Florianópolis) to visit Irmão Perrotti, the Institute director. We had a nice talk w/ him and we swapped ideas about how to best teach CASP to those in need. We came to the conclusion that he would talk with his secretary and get back to us with some more specific numbers, dates, and contact information. It’s a nice Institute facility. They bought a nice sized house and turned it into the Institute building. Classes there should be fun.
After eating lunch at a new, good and cheap restaurant we went to the church and made phone calls for a few hours. Humberto, from Porto Alegre, asked us to call all of the participants from 2005, J-Z, and see how their job searches are going. That was an interesting few hours of phone calls. Kinda discouraging ‘cause most of the numbers didn’t work.
The rest of the day was spent studying, sleeping, or something productive like that.
This afternoon I was quickly reminded that after a quick, heavy downfall the streets often flood and the drainage sewers get backed up. It was about 7:45 pm and I had just run to the church to quickly call my home teaching companion. As I arrived, a HUGE bolt of lightening struck and the proceeding thunder blasted my ears. And then the rain started… and wouldn’t stop… Dave and I were invited to a family home evening at 8, so I had to get back to the hotel. I decided to make a run for it, since our hotel is a mere block away. As I ran out the church and shut the electric, sliding gate behind me I began crossing the street… and unknowingly, decided I would go for a little swim. Shin-deep in water, my momentum helped me wade through the water to the sidewalk on the other side. Soaked were my sandals, feet, legs, and lower part of my shorts. Oh well.
We sat in the hotel for a few minutes, waiting for the rain to lessen – I was trying to dry off. A good show was on the movie channel, something with Tom Hanks and he’s a foreigner who just arrived to the US and his country had been taken over. Anyone know what that movie’s called? I didn’t get to see more than 20 minutes because we were on our way to FHE, but I would really like to watch the rest.
So FHE was fun. It was at the home of Irmá Valdmiria – the sister who invited us over for lunch on Sunday. It was her, her 2 sons and her sister who was visiting. Their tradition is to start with food, and end w/ the message, so we sat down at a table with a pot of boiled hotdogs, buns, corn, potato sticks, mayonnaise, ketchup and guaraná.
When Irmá Valdmiria called us at 7 pm, inviting us to come, she made it clear that the message and the game were our department. She wanted our help to get her family back in the habit of having FHE. Ha… so I was in charge of the message while Dave took care of the game. My message took longer than anticipated – I guess it’s been a few years since I’ve done it on the mission. Together we read 1 Nephi 8 and drew the Tree of Life from Lehi’s vision. They enjoyed it. Dave’s game was kind of a magic trick with a coin – not too sure how to easily explain it, but the purpose of the trick is to make the person look silly. It worked. Then Rubens and Tiago (the 16 and 18 year old boys) prepared a trick/game for Dave. It was the candle-plate trick where … long story short… Dave gets his face dark with soot from the candle.
Earlier in the day Dave and I traveled to the island (Florianópolis) to visit Irmão Perrotti, the Institute director. We had a nice talk w/ him and we swapped ideas about how to best teach CASP to those in need. We came to the conclusion that he would talk with his secretary and get back to us with some more specific numbers, dates, and contact information. It’s a nice Institute facility. They bought a nice sized house and turned it into the Institute building. Classes there should be fun.
After eating lunch at a new, good and cheap restaurant we went to the church and made phone calls for a few hours. Humberto, from Porto Alegre, asked us to call all of the participants from 2005, J-Z, and see how their job searches are going. That was an interesting few hours of phone calls. Kinda discouraging ‘cause most of the numbers didn’t work.
The rest of the day was spent studying, sleeping, or something productive like that.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
Sunday, February 5, 2006, 22:29 hours
Ashley Florence McAllister, welcome to the family!! So I have a new baby niece and she’s healthy and so his her mother. This was a big relief (for some reason I was uncommonly worried). So my niece and nephew count has reached… (let me count… 4 + 4 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 1/2) 12 with one on the way. Here’s some of her information and picture from the new Dad’s email:
Name: Ashley Florence McAllister
Born: 04 February 2006 @ 11:47 pm
Weight: 8 lbs. 14 ounces
Length 20.5 inches
Mom, Dad, and Ashley are all very sleepy, but doing great!
I didn’t get mom’s email until after church, so before the great news most of my day had already passed.
When you’re prepared, you don’t fear.
I got to church fifteen minutes early and made copies of the flier I made so they could be given to the bishops of neighboring wards to advise their members of the CASP class on the 21, 22 and 23rd off this month.
It felt great being prepared. And it’s great to help people fulfill their callings, instead of working around or above them. Márcia Pickler is the stake employment specialist and Mária (something) is our ward specialist and they both attend the Kobrasol ward (my ward), so we got to talk w/ them a bit and mark a later day to sit down and share the plans we have made so they can be more involved and help make the appropriate people aware.
Dave woke up feeling sick – sun poisoning, maybe. Whatever it was, he felt a bit nauseous, but he made it on time for all of church.
I was given a home teaching companion and 5 families today. The brother seemed a little nervous to be with me, as he quickly told me he has only been home teaching two times, so I told him we would learn together :o), but thanks to my dad (and the mission) I have had plenty of practice and experience.
Last Sunday a very nice sister invited us to eat lunch at their house this Sunday, so after church they patiently waited for us to finishing talking with leaders and such and they gave us a ride to their apartment. I forget the sister’s name… but her husband is Rubens, they have 3 kids – one is soon to be returning from his mission (São Paulo Norte), Rubens is 18, and Tiago is 16. Awesome family! Very funny – the father has this serious exterior appearance, but you soon figure out it’s his way of being funny. Tiago is a musically talented kid, and taught me how to correctly hold and play the violin (I managed to squeak out the basic cords… and it wasn’t as bad as I’m sure you’re imagining) and his trombone – which was actually pretty fun and I picked up pretty fast. I all of a sudden wished I would have listened to my mother and played some sort of musical instrument as a kid… but then I wonder what I would have had to give up to practice it, and I think I’m okay not knowing :o). Hey, I can still learn if I wanted.
Lunch was Brazilian stroganoff (a peachish color sauce with chicken, corn, and other good stuff served on top of white rice), lettuce and tomatoes, another veggie dish, Lime-aid, and watermelon and a ‘sweet corn’ dish for dessert.
In the afternoon I took a nice nap completely through the Oct. Priesthood session on DVD I was going to watch, ate some chicken fingers, and then actually watched the session awake – in Spanish.
Ashley Florence McAllister, welcome to the family!! So I have a new baby niece and she’s healthy and so his her mother. This was a big relief (for some reason I was uncommonly worried). So my niece and nephew count has reached… (let me count… 4 + 4 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 1/2) 12 with one on the way. Here’s some of her information and picture from the new Dad’s email:
Name: Ashley Florence McAllister
Born: 04 February 2006 @ 11:47 pm
Weight: 8 lbs. 14 ounces
Length 20.5 inches
Mom, Dad, and Ashley are all very sleepy, but doing great!
I didn’t get mom’s email until after church, so before the great news most of my day had already passed.
When you’re prepared, you don’t fear.
I got to church fifteen minutes early and made copies of the flier I made so they could be given to the bishops of neighboring wards to advise their members of the CASP class on the 21, 22 and 23rd off this month.
It felt great being prepared. And it’s great to help people fulfill their callings, instead of working around or above them. Márcia Pickler is the stake employment specialist and Mária (something) is our ward specialist and they both attend the Kobrasol ward (my ward), so we got to talk w/ them a bit and mark a later day to sit down and share the plans we have made so they can be more involved and help make the appropriate people aware.
Dave woke up feeling sick – sun poisoning, maybe. Whatever it was, he felt a bit nauseous, but he made it on time for all of church.
I was given a home teaching companion and 5 families today. The brother seemed a little nervous to be with me, as he quickly told me he has only been home teaching two times, so I told him we would learn together :o), but thanks to my dad (and the mission) I have had plenty of practice and experience.
Last Sunday a very nice sister invited us to eat lunch at their house this Sunday, so after church they patiently waited for us to finishing talking with leaders and such and they gave us a ride to their apartment. I forget the sister’s name… but her husband is Rubens, they have 3 kids – one is soon to be returning from his mission (São Paulo Norte), Rubens is 18, and Tiago is 16. Awesome family! Very funny – the father has this serious exterior appearance, but you soon figure out it’s his way of being funny. Tiago is a musically talented kid, and taught me how to correctly hold and play the violin (I managed to squeak out the basic cords… and it wasn’t as bad as I’m sure you’re imagining) and his trombone – which was actually pretty fun and I picked up pretty fast. I all of a sudden wished I would have listened to my mother and played some sort of musical instrument as a kid… but then I wonder what I would have had to give up to practice it, and I think I’m okay not knowing :o). Hey, I can still learn if I wanted.
Lunch was Brazilian stroganoff (a peachish color sauce with chicken, corn, and other good stuff served on top of white rice), lettuce and tomatoes, another veggie dish, Lime-aid, and watermelon and a ‘sweet corn’ dish for dessert.
In the afternoon I took a nice nap completely through the Oct. Priesthood session on DVD I was going to watch, ate some chicken fingers, and then actually watched the session awake – in Spanish.
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Saturday, February 4, 2006
They zip to the peak, and then soar at least fifteen feet beyond the wave, glide like feathers back to the sea and then continue their trajectory along the coast. Never seeing anything like this before I wadded up the coastline with great curiosity to get a better look – and hopefully learn how I could do it, too. I encountered two surfers finishing their runs just as I arrived along the shoreline. They stood on top of boards similar to wakeboards, but bigger.
A harness anchored their bodies - fitted in wetsuits - to a large parachute some 30-feet high. The Campeche beach is a windy place, and this was obvious as the Para-Surfers wrestled with the wind to get their parachutes to the sand. From my observations, these men had come with their own equipment, and unfortunately, I didn’t see anywhere to rent a board and ‘chute. But if I ever do, you can bet I plan on giving it a try. (the picture was taken from google images)
So Dave and I didn’t make it to the Naufragos beach like we had planned (we left too late, since to get to this beach we’d have to walk an hour and a half trail), but instead went to the Campeche beach – it was a nice beach, with an island less than a mile off the water's edge providing a peaceful sight. Following the beach south, a peninsula of two mountains scenically protrudes from the water. The waves were a mere four or five feet, but the water and the wind were refreshing.
Before leaving for the beach we stopped by our ERS office to call the institute director, Irmão Perrotti, who had just gotten home from a trip. He didn’t answer, but later that night I called and was able to talk w/ him. He was excited to mark a time w/ us to come by the institute and talk with him. We need to schedule when we can teach the CASP (Career Workshop) course to the institute participants who want help from the Perpetual Education Fund.
Yesterday we created a flier to advertise for an upcoming course here in São José.
Dave thought there was a dance at the church at, so we got dressed up and went (I went for moral support… well, Dave didn’t need any support, it’s more like, I went with him so he could give me moral support. Dave’s on a few BYU dance teams, so he knows what he’s doing… me?? Ha…). But there was no dance, there at least.
Spanish soccer was on ESPN. Real Madrid played Espanola and won three to nothing. Anyone who keeps up w/ Spanish soccer knows that more than half of the stars on this team are Brazilian, so they have quite a big following here.
Scott and Amber? Are you guys okay? Have you had your baby girl yet? I asked my friend to call Brent and ask him to get online ‘cause I wanted some updates on your situation. Unfortunately, he was on his way to a wedding and couldn’t get on, but I guess he didn’t know any more than I did.
They zip to the peak, and then soar at least fifteen feet beyond the wave, glide like feathers back to the sea and then continue their trajectory along the coast. Never seeing anything like this before I wadded up the coastline with great curiosity to get a better look – and hopefully learn how I could do it, too. I encountered two surfers finishing their runs just as I arrived along the shoreline. They stood on top of boards similar to wakeboards, but bigger.
A harness anchored their bodies - fitted in wetsuits - to a large parachute some 30-feet high. The Campeche beach is a windy place, and this was obvious as the Para-Surfers wrestled with the wind to get their parachutes to the sand. From my observations, these men had come with their own equipment, and unfortunately, I didn’t see anywhere to rent a board and ‘chute. But if I ever do, you can bet I plan on giving it a try. (the picture was taken from google images)So Dave and I didn’t make it to the Naufragos beach like we had planned (we left too late, since to get to this beach we’d have to walk an hour and a half trail), but instead went to the Campeche beach – it was a nice beach, with an island less than a mile off the water's edge providing a peaceful sight. Following the beach south, a peninsula of two mountains scenically protrudes from the water. The waves were a mere four or five feet, but the water and the wind were refreshing.
Before leaving for the beach we stopped by our ERS office to call the institute director, Irmão Perrotti, who had just gotten home from a trip. He didn’t answer, but later that night I called and was able to talk w/ him. He was excited to mark a time w/ us to come by the institute and talk with him. We need to schedule when we can teach the CASP (Career Workshop) course to the institute participants who want help from the Perpetual Education Fund.
Yesterday we created a flier to advertise for an upcoming course here in São José.
Dave thought there was a dance at the church at, so we got dressed up and went (I went for moral support… well, Dave didn’t need any support, it’s more like, I went with him so he could give me moral support. Dave’s on a few BYU dance teams, so he knows what he’s doing… me?? Ha…). But there was no dance, there at least.
Spanish soccer was on ESPN. Real Madrid played Espanola and won three to nothing. Anyone who keeps up w/ Spanish soccer knows that more than half of the stars on this team are Brazilian, so they have quite a big following here.
Scott and Amber? Are you guys okay? Have you had your baby girl yet? I asked my friend to call Brent and ask him to get online ‘cause I wanted some updates on your situation. Unfortunately, he was on his way to a wedding and couldn’t get on, but I guess he didn’t know any more than I did.
Friday, February 03, 2006
Friday, February 3, 2006 23:30 hours
Slept in, ate breakfast, took a nap, ate lunch, did some homework, went to the laundromat, read the local newspaper, watched some movies, updated some forms and typed some papers for our program, ate a killer hotdog, and… that about sums it up.
So what am I going to do w/ the rest of this space to write?
Ha… well, currently showing on TV is one of many commercials ESPN’s been playing about NFL Football – Americanizations anyone? The commercials are almost funny to watch – classical music, slow motion, trying to show the beauty of the sport. I would say of ten commercials that pass, 4-6 are NFL related. They even have a minute clip telling the NFL Rules with highlights; this afternoon I watched a show about the history of the Super Bowl. They sure are blugging hard to get Brazilians interested in football.
I don’t have any facts to back this up, but I imagine this is a similar technique they used many years ago to introduce basketball, and today it’s surprisingly big. Like was mentioned in an earlier blog, the other day when we were playing w/ the neighborhood kids at the church they would rather play basketball than soccer. And it wasn’t just because they were with two American guys and they thought we’d be good at basketball and awful at soccer (a typical stereotype), but one of the kids – who was actually a pretty decent ball handler – said he didn’t even know how to play soccer (which was totally against the stereotypes I have of Brazilians).
NFL football will take some work for it to get big. There are some big barriers that they have to overcome: #1. footballs are hard to find, #2. fields to play in are limited. Hence, I imagine this is why futsol (soccer on a basketball-like court) was invented and is the main way to play soccer here. In fact, in Brazil I still haven’t played a pick up game of soccer on grass yet --- COMMERCIAL ALERT… so this is the 2nd commercial since I started writing my blog, and what was it? “ESPN PRESENTS, NFL RULES.” Ha… this one was explaining what a kickoff was.
Walking through downtown Florianópolis yesterday we passed a McDonalds. It’s dirty yellow arches on the outside, providing shade for those enjoying their ice cream desserts, looked to be at least 25 years old. Though it’s nice to have some reminders of home every now and then, in my opinion it saddens me to see so many influences of the United States. In a way they take over the ideas and way of life here.
At times I stop and trace the reasoning behind why things are the way they are? More often than not it all comes back to one word: money – the root of all evil. My hats go off to the marketing and advertising agencies that do their job well. I mean, geez, where would Brazil be without “Big Brother 6” (their version of MTV’s Real World, except smuttier), or spending three times as much money to eat a Quartarão at McD’s (Quarter Pounder) or Pizza Hut, or improving their literacey skills thanks to a majority of English television programs and movies.
Of course, globalization does have its benefits. I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t recognize that for two years I dedicated my life as one of 50,000 volunteers globalizing the teachings of Jesus Christ. And I am ever so thankful for the increasing communication skills that bring the people of the world together in such a personal way. So I suppose it’s only natural that globalization occurs, taking from one’s culture and sharing with another.
The institute director of Floripa gets in tomorrow, so we’ll get to talk w/ him and discuss our plans for teaching those taking institute who are getting help from the PEF.
Tomorrow, we also plan on going to southern Floripa to the Praia dos Naufragos.
Slept in, ate breakfast, took a nap, ate lunch, did some homework, went to the laundromat, read the local newspaper, watched some movies, updated some forms and typed some papers for our program, ate a killer hotdog, and… that about sums it up.
So what am I going to do w/ the rest of this space to write?
Ha… well, currently showing on TV is one of many commercials ESPN’s been playing about NFL Football – Americanizations anyone? The commercials are almost funny to watch – classical music, slow motion, trying to show the beauty of the sport. I would say of ten commercials that pass, 4-6 are NFL related. They even have a minute clip telling the NFL Rules with highlights; this afternoon I watched a show about the history of the Super Bowl. They sure are blugging hard to get Brazilians interested in football.
I don’t have any facts to back this up, but I imagine this is a similar technique they used many years ago to introduce basketball, and today it’s surprisingly big. Like was mentioned in an earlier blog, the other day when we were playing w/ the neighborhood kids at the church they would rather play basketball than soccer. And it wasn’t just because they were with two American guys and they thought we’d be good at basketball and awful at soccer (a typical stereotype), but one of the kids – who was actually a pretty decent ball handler – said he didn’t even know how to play soccer (which was totally against the stereotypes I have of Brazilians).
NFL football will take some work for it to get big. There are some big barriers that they have to overcome: #1. footballs are hard to find, #2. fields to play in are limited. Hence, I imagine this is why futsol (soccer on a basketball-like court) was invented and is the main way to play soccer here. In fact, in Brazil I still haven’t played a pick up game of soccer on grass yet --- COMMERCIAL ALERT… so this is the 2nd commercial since I started writing my blog, and what was it? “ESPN PRESENTS, NFL RULES.” Ha… this one was explaining what a kickoff was.
Walking through downtown Florianópolis yesterday we passed a McDonalds. It’s dirty yellow arches on the outside, providing shade for those enjoying their ice cream desserts, looked to be at least 25 years old. Though it’s nice to have some reminders of home every now and then, in my opinion it saddens me to see so many influences of the United States. In a way they take over the ideas and way of life here.
At times I stop and trace the reasoning behind why things are the way they are? More often than not it all comes back to one word: money – the root of all evil. My hats go off to the marketing and advertising agencies that do their job well. I mean, geez, where would Brazil be without “Big Brother 6” (their version of MTV’s Real World, except smuttier), or spending three times as much money to eat a Quartarão at McD’s (Quarter Pounder) or Pizza Hut, or improving their literacey skills thanks to a majority of English television programs and movies.
Of course, globalization does have its benefits. I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t recognize that for two years I dedicated my life as one of 50,000 volunteers globalizing the teachings of Jesus Christ. And I am ever so thankful for the increasing communication skills that bring the people of the world together in such a personal way. So I suppose it’s only natural that globalization occurs, taking from one’s culture and sharing with another.
The institute director of Floripa gets in tomorrow, so we’ll get to talk w/ him and discuss our plans for teaching those taking institute who are getting help from the PEF.
Tomorrow, we also plan on going to southern Floripa to the Praia dos Naufragos.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Thursday, 2, 23:59 hours
As the six o’clock sun beat down on hundreds making their way home from a long day of work (shopping or sightseeing), in their midst, almost overlooked, stood four pre-teen boys. They too seemed to be in their own world, oblivious of the masses passing just feet from their half naked bodies. One boy, his dark skin covered from collar to shin with white, lathered soap, stood poised on the center island of a public fountain. The other three, dark and sunburned, stood waste deep in surrounding water. I, too, walked pasted them, as many thoughts emerged in my head – what about their welfare, why have their lives had such a different course than mine, will they will ever know a healthier life?
I am careful not say a happier life, for one thing I cannot ever forget from my time in Brazil is that possessions do not make your life happy. Some of the happiest people I’ve met in life are those who have little to no material goods, but they have faith in something better and hope for the future.
To be honest, it’s times like this that I am very proud of being an Employment Service volunteer. I take our responsibility seriously because I know that the things we are teaching don’t only impact the adults that come in looking for help and work, but many of them have families as well.
Next Friday and Saturday Dave and I will be traveling up the coast to the city of Joinville to teach the course at the church there. And then starting next week we have the following two weeks marked with cities to teach, and we’re still trying to arrange courses for each week until the beginning of April.
About 1 this afternoon Dave and I called Salt Lake City and spoke with Stephanie and Mimi, those who provided our training in Salt Lake at the start of this adventure. They just wanted to know how things were going and if we needed anything. :o) They’re so awesome. Training was really a fun week ‘cause we really got to know them on a personal level.
Other than studying for a few hours, we also took the bus on to the island (Florianópolis) and walked through their city fair and went to the Historic Museum of Santa Catarina. Very cool stuff! Floripa is an amazing city – safe, beautiful, well organized. According to this picture I took, it looks like the Carnival preparations are on their way:
We got home about 6:20 and rested for a bit before we headed to the church for Thursday-night soccer. For those who don’t know, most soccer played in the cities of Brazil are played on little courts called a “salão”. The court is like a basketball court (so it’s pretty small) and it’s a lot like indoor soccer, except there are out of bounds (so you can’t kick off the wall) and the ball is a little smaller, and heavier so it doesn’t bounce as much. The teams are small – 4 or 5 on each team, and a goalie. Tonight we had enough players for 3 teams, and we rotated through, ‘king of the court’ style. It was a great time! I haven’t played real soccer in a LONG time. Most people were tired after about an hour, but I stayed and played with Aldo and his 12-year-old son Tiago until about quarter to 10. Good times.
To finish the night I bought myself one of those killer hotdogs w/ grilled chicken breast! Is there a better way to end a day?
On a side note, when I came home and took off my shoes, I noticed a quarter sized blister on the ball of my left foot that had popped and ripped itself almost completely off. The smallest bit of skin was holding it. Since then, it dried and then fell off. I was going to take a picture and post it… but then I decided against it.
As the six o’clock sun beat down on hundreds making their way home from a long day of work (shopping or sightseeing), in their midst, almost overlooked, stood four pre-teen boys. They too seemed to be in their own world, oblivious of the masses passing just feet from their half naked bodies. One boy, his dark skin covered from collar to shin with white, lathered soap, stood poised on the center island of a public fountain. The other three, dark and sunburned, stood waste deep in surrounding water. I, too, walked pasted them, as many thoughts emerged in my head – what about their welfare, why have their lives had such a different course than mine, will they will ever know a healthier life?
I am careful not say a happier life, for one thing I cannot ever forget from my time in Brazil is that possessions do not make your life happy. Some of the happiest people I’ve met in life are those who have little to no material goods, but they have faith in something better and hope for the future.
To be honest, it’s times like this that I am very proud of being an Employment Service volunteer. I take our responsibility seriously because I know that the things we are teaching don’t only impact the adults that come in looking for help and work, but many of them have families as well.
Next Friday and Saturday Dave and I will be traveling up the coast to the city of Joinville to teach the course at the church there. And then starting next week we have the following two weeks marked with cities to teach, and we’re still trying to arrange courses for each week until the beginning of April.
About 1 this afternoon Dave and I called Salt Lake City and spoke with Stephanie and Mimi, those who provided our training in Salt Lake at the start of this adventure. They just wanted to know how things were going and if we needed anything. :o) They’re so awesome. Training was really a fun week ‘cause we really got to know them on a personal level.
Other than studying for a few hours, we also took the bus on to the island (Florianópolis) and walked through their city fair and went to the Historic Museum of Santa Catarina. Very cool stuff! Floripa is an amazing city – safe, beautiful, well organized. According to this picture I took, it looks like the Carnival preparations are on their way:
We got home about 6:20 and rested for a bit before we headed to the church for Thursday-night soccer. For those who don’t know, most soccer played in the cities of Brazil are played on little courts called a “salão”. The court is like a basketball court (so it’s pretty small) and it’s a lot like indoor soccer, except there are out of bounds (so you can’t kick off the wall) and the ball is a little smaller, and heavier so it doesn’t bounce as much. The teams are small – 4 or 5 on each team, and a goalie. Tonight we had enough players for 3 teams, and we rotated through, ‘king of the court’ style. It was a great time! I haven’t played real soccer in a LONG time. Most people were tired after about an hour, but I stayed and played with Aldo and his 12-year-old son Tiago until about quarter to 10. Good times.
To finish the night I bought myself one of those killer hotdogs w/ grilled chicken breast! Is there a better way to end a day?
On a side note, when I came home and took off my shoes, I noticed a quarter sized blister on the ball of my left foot that had popped and ripped itself almost completely off. The smallest bit of skin was holding it. Since then, it dried and then fell off. I was going to take a picture and post it… but then I decided against it.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Wednesday, 1, 23:30 hours
Parts of today reminded me of the mission. Walking in the noon-day sun for almost about an hour straight was what did it. You see, last night Dave and I received and email from BYU requesting that we go to the Federal Police Station and register with our passports there. So, being obedient we went (instead of taking the bus to an unknown place on the island – we paid about he same price for the hotel van to drop us off in the police station parking lot. Good deal.) and then waited in line for a good thirty minutes. Two minutes after my number had been called, I was done w/ my interview… the man said we did not have to register since our Visa’s clearly said we could be in Brazil for 90 days each.
Since the Police station was on the “Beira do Mar” we, Dave and I, wanted to see the view and walk the biking/running trail along the ocean for a bit. As we walked we saw downtown was fairly close (ha... look how close in the picture), so we decided to walk to it while going to the bus stop downtown. The walk ended up being a little longer than expected, but the nice part was being able to stop when we wanted, look inside some shops and buy some juice (goiaba, which is my favorite – guava in english) and relax - take pictures, or whatever. Eventually we made it to the bus stop and got home shortly after.
Here are a few pictures I took along the walk...
This is Florianópolis from Florianópolis:
This is across the ocean from Florianópolis:
This is from a look out point over looking the bridge (the bridge is under constuction, hense why this picture turned out better):
The rest of the afternoon I did some reading for my classes, and then we went to the SRE office in the church and tried calling a few more people and organizing a bit.
We then came back to our apartment and waited for 8 oclock cause that was when we thought Tiago, our buddy from church, was going to meet up w/ us to go to a pizzaria. So… he never showed up. About 9 we called him and then walked the short distance to where they were eating pizza.
The pizza wasn’t that great, but it was filling and relatively cheap for an all you can eat.
Parts of today reminded me of the mission. Walking in the noon-day sun for almost about an hour straight was what did it. You see, last night Dave and I received and email from BYU requesting that we go to the Federal Police Station and register with our passports there. So, being obedient we went (instead of taking the bus to an unknown place on the island – we paid about he same price for the hotel van to drop us off in the police station parking lot. Good deal.) and then waited in line for a good thirty minutes. Two minutes after my number had been called, I was done w/ my interview… the man said we did not have to register since our Visa’s clearly said we could be in Brazil for 90 days each.
Since the Police station was on the “Beira do Mar” we, Dave and I, wanted to see the view and walk the biking/running trail along the ocean for a bit. As we walked we saw downtown was fairly close (ha... look how close in the picture), so we decided to walk to it while going to the bus stop downtown. The walk ended up being a little longer than expected, but the nice part was being able to stop when we wanted, look inside some shops and buy some juice (goiaba, which is my favorite – guava in english) and relax - take pictures, or whatever. Eventually we made it to the bus stop and got home shortly after.
Here are a few pictures I took along the walk...
This is Florianópolis from Florianópolis:
This is across the ocean from Florianópolis:
This is from a look out point over looking the bridge (the bridge is under constuction, hense why this picture turned out better):
The rest of the afternoon I did some reading for my classes, and then we went to the SRE office in the church and tried calling a few more people and organizing a bit.
We then came back to our apartment and waited for 8 oclock cause that was when we thought Tiago, our buddy from church, was going to meet up w/ us to go to a pizzaria. So… he never showed up. About 9 we called him and then walked the short distance to where they were eating pizza.
The pizza wasn’t that great, but it was filling and relatively cheap for an all you can eat.
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