I have failed (Donna) as a blogger.  We missed December and January.  I would say that we have been so busy, but that would not be true.  I just plain forgot.  Will try to do better in the future  This is a picture of the big tent over the temple site to keep out the rain so they can keep working during the rainy season.  It is very hot and humid inside.

The Tent over the temple construction site

We flew back to the states in December, just in time for a granddaughter's wedding and Christmas.

We ordered about 50 packages from Amazon Prime, and had a great time figuring out how to get them all to fit in a suitcase.   Thanks to Reed's skill as a packer, they all fit, and we were even under the weight limit for the airlines.

Very nice to be back in the cold and snow

We travelled to Rio de Janeiro in January for a construction conference.  Reed did a presentation, and did a good job.  At least everyone laughed a lot, so they had a good time.  The day after, we all went river rafting.  Our boat lost it's bottom, so we  were sitting in water for an hour or so until they brought another one.  It was fun!

On the bus back from the river

On the river with friends

Both of us (this is Reed writing) are struggling on how to use Blogger. There has got to be a much more friendly system. Pictures and narrative don't stay in place the way they should. Formatting is a pain. Perhaps it is just old age that is getting to both of us and we just can't handle new things?  For example, nothing that I can do will remove the underlining of the preceding three sentences!!!!!!  What a pain!!!!  Interesting, the underlining disappears in the preview mode.  What the heck!

November marks four months of living here in Belem.  We have moved to a safer apartment not far from our old one.  We haven't missed the dogs, or the night time barking.  Now we listen to very loud frogs, which I like.  Reed is jogging with two people from the job site once a week.  They are both about 30 years younger than him, so he gets a good work out.

We went driving last Saturday, and stopped by the river in downtown Belem.  They had a sign that says, " I (heart) Belem.  It was a beautiful day and a beautiful sign.





Another thing we saw was a statute much like the Statute of Liberty in New York Harbor.  This one is not nearly as big, but it was fun to see it.






We saw a lot of birds,  but this heron was a surprise.  I was taking pictures of boats, and when I enlarged the photo, there was the heron, just sitting there.







The last thing  from our drive that I am including is this burned out wreck of a bus.  It looked like it had been there for a while, just sitting on the side of the street.  I thought when I saw it that it was like a warning for our lives; stay active, stay useful, or maybe we will be sitting on the side of the road like the poor abandoned bus.







The last photo is of our worker birthday party.  Once a month, we have a birthday party for all workers who have birthdays during that month.  Since it was on Halloween, Reed bought a Happy Halloween cake.  Nobody spoke English, so nobody noticed.  I made the cupcakes.

October 2019 in Belem, Brasil

We are doing fairly well here in lovely Belem  do Para.  This is supposed to be the beginning of the other season down here.  The season we are leaving has rain on average once a day.  The season we are going into has rain all the time.  So far, we haven't seen much difference, but everyone says it is coming.  We both are marching forward with our individual crosses.  Mine is trying to relearn Portuguese, and Reed's is trying to drive without losing his patience.  He is also struggling with the high humidity here.  The heat would be easier to handle if the humidity were not so very high.  Today, the temperature is 89.6 degrees fahrenheit, and the humidity is 60%.  Sounds nice  unless you are working in it.  I like the heat, and love the thunderstorms.

We are including 4 photos I took with my little cell phone.  The first one is of a statute I took downtown.  Belem was established in 1616, so it is about 400 years old.  Lovely old town.


The second was at President and Sister Soare's apartment.  They had a birthday party for Reed, including cake and ice cream.  They are very thoughtful and gracious people.  They are the mission president and his wife here.  They are from Recife, and will be here for three years

The third picture is one of the front of our old apartment, with the two surviving puppies from when we moved in three months ago.  Originally, there were six, but two died, and two got run over by cars.  We bought dog treats to toss when we moved the car in and out.  They slept under our car, and got into the street whenever we opened the gate.  Until we started tossing treats.   The last picture is of our new apartment.  We moved (in fits and starts ) over the last week.  We like not having to worry about dog poop, or even worse, running over one of the pups, as well as being able to walk around without being robbed.  The new place is a condo complex with security and gates.  It also isn't too far from the job site. 

We love what we are doing, we love the Lord, and we love the Brazilian people.




 

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.