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.