We went to a ceremony honoring the church for it's service in the community, and for the Proclamation on the Family.  The photo shows the city officials, as well as the local leaders of the church here in the state of Para.  The mural in the background is very pretty.  We are sitting in the second row, in reserved seats, much to our chagrin.  We were trying to sit in the back so we could slip out after an hour to go to another appointment.  Didn't happen.  We got introduced, and got to stay for the full 2 and a half hours.  It was really nice.

This is a picture of one of our daily afternoon rainstorms.  Once in a while, we have a day without rain, but most of the time it comes down hard for about five minutes, and then stops.  Donna loves the rain, especially since the little container we are currently housed in at the job site has a metal roof.  It is such a lovely sound every day.  We are mostly enjoying this mission.  We have issues with language, humidity, and driving, in that order.  Oh, and barking dogs.  Our apartment has many many barking dogs.

 Monkey at job site - one of our neighbors in the jungle to the south of the project.

We spent the morning having our finger prints taken at the Federal Police office here in Belem.  This is the second stop in the effort to obtain our permission to stay in the country.  In about 60 days we can return to the first Federal Police office and receive our card that proves we are entitled to be in Brasil.

Interestingly enough, my temporary authorization is until August of 2021 while Donna's authorization says she is good until August of 2020.  We'll need to straighten this one out when we receive our permanent cards.

Friday we attended President Nelson's devotional with the missionaries.  President Soares, our mission president, made sure we were invited.  Sunday we attended President Nelson's devotional for all members in Brasil.  It was broadcast via the internet to chapels throughout Brasil.

As the closing hymn was being sung, I became emotional as I thought back to what has changed since Donna and I served missions here in Brasil from 1969 to 1971.  Where there was a single stake in Sao Paulo, now there are many stakes.  There were no temples in Brasil and now we are being given the privilege to assist in a small way in the construction of the 9th temple in Brasil.  It seemed to me that there were angels singing with the group of about 300 who were in our stake center.  I imagine that many of the true pioneers of the church in Brasil who have already passed on were helping the congregations sing.  It was inspiring and uplifting.  These experiences make the opportunity to serve here even more special.

Here's a foto of the site with the jungle (a preserved area controlled by the Navy) in the background.  This is a legitimate photograph that I can share because it was taken from outside the project.

Here we sit in our cool container, well it would be cool if Donna would not turn the thermostat up, while workers outside work hard on two accessways to the site and caisson work continues.

We met with a member of the local high end neighborhood and passed on the following message to Troy Buckner (the Church's project manager here in Brazil.)

"While Sister Nielsen and I were walking along the north boundary of the site, a person living in the condominium walked over to speak with us.  Paulo Coutinho de Vilhena, who is a civil engineer and works with IN LOCO Engenharia e Fundações Especiais, had run out of gas on the access to his home in the condominium and while waiting for his nephew to fill his car with gas, wanted us to know that not everyone in the condominium is against the project.  I believe in reference to the individual who made the most noise, he said that there were some that were only happy when everything was 100% in their favor.  He assured us there were others who did not share the same concerns.  We shared with him briefly the numbers that attend the Rexburg temple over the course of a day and assured him that the number of attendees here would not be so great as to cause major problems with the condominium.  He said that the presentation did indicate a much smaller number of attendees than some in the condominium were concerned about.

We invited him to visit with us when the missionary office is finished and learn about the temple that is being built.  He said to let him know if there was anything he could do to help us.

It was a nice encounter.

I have his card and will give it to Ednei."

We visited the grocery store Tuesday night.  I took a picture of the avocados that were there.  The picture doesn't do these things justice.  We purchased one last week and have had several slices every night until last evening.  They are about the size of a large grapefruit available in Rexburg.

Last night I was awakened by a telephone call just before 9PM (Yes, we do go to bed earlier here) from one of the local members.  He asked Donna and me to teach a marriage and family relations class this coming Saturday evening at 8PM.  After trying to figure out what he wanted us to do, Reed and he agreed that we would come Saturday and see the lesson manual and see how we could accomplish this with our limited Portuguese speaking abilities.  He even said we could present the lesson in English, then no one would understand.

Given the requirement that pictures from within the walls of the site are not to be taken except for purposes of as-built and reports to the Church, Reed has decided to take a picture each week from this location just north of the site and outside of the fence to provide all with an understanding of what is going on here in Belem.  This was taken earlier in the morning before we travelled to meet with the Federal Police.  Not to worry.  We had to meet with them to begin the process of extending our visa to two years from the one year that we were originally given.  We'll go back in two weeks to another Federal Police office to have all of our finger prints taken.

The next step will be to obtain a Brasilian driver's license.  Unfortunately, the International one is only good for 3 months.

Life is good.  It looks like we are attending a baptism tonight in a nearby ward.  More about that later.

As we sit in our shipping container that is our temporary office for the next few months listening to the rain beat upon the sheet metal roof  Reed is reminded of rain storms that he was privileged to drive through in Salt Lake City, when he worked for his grandfather Reed in the late 60's before his mission and early 70's after the mission.  Only those thunder storms are not comparable to the one we are going through right now.  We have been told that it will rain like this much more often during the months of January, February, March and April.

Here's a foto of the inside of our office.  Donna is hard at work

Last Saturday was the ground breaking of the temple construction and work has commenced for real here on the site.  Reed has been privileged to participate in two safety orientations and a weekly safety meeting thus far.  He is given the opportunity to provide some background on the construction of a temple, why the church builds them and how each worker is a part of a team to make sure the work is done safely and of high quality.   Everything we have seen thus far leads us to believe we are working with some honorable, helpful and outstanding people.

Here's fotos of the two of us in our safety vests and hardhats.  You are not allowed to laugh!!!

We arrived just over two weeks ago in Belem.  During this time Elder Nielsen has spent time learning to drive again in Brasil (it is different!!!!) and we've met some very wonderful people.  President and Sister Soares (our mission president and wife) met us at the airport at 2:30AM on July 31, took us to their home for a time to sleep and recover.  We've been introduced to Ednei, who is the Church's site manager, and quite a number of workers of Afonso França, who is the contractor on site.  We've been to the grocery store several time, purchased two Brasilian cell phones, obtained internet access at the site.

Here's a panoramic picture of the project site taken from outside the fence.  Any fotos that we take from inside are to remain Church property and cannot be shown on any public service.  It sounds like some of the rules that existed when I worked on project with Bechtel.

Our apartment has an air conditioned bedroom so we are able to sleep at night but we are adjusting better to the heat and the humidity so we don't have the A/Z on much during the day and have, in fact, turned the temperature down at night.

The final photograph is a rendering as to what the temple will look like when completed.  This one can also be shown since it is already available on the Church's web site.