The other highlight of the month was a reunion with our Belem missionaries. The large chapel by the Sao Paulo temple was filled with missionaries, their spouses, and their darling children, our adopted Brazilian grandchildren. The afternoon was spent watching a video of days in Belem, visiting, singing and feeling the spirit of the mission, drinking pink Guarana Jesus that comes from one particular area of the north, and taking pictures. Former missionaries came from the surrounding areas and as far as 1000 miles away and even Idaho. It is such a joy to hear of their after mission successes and continued service in the building of the Kingdom.
Our weekends were filled with Stake Conferences, and we began our 3 week long run of missionary interviews which we have just finished. As you know that involves a lot of travel for us. This past week as we were on the highway headed up north we had a little scare. We were passing a large dump truck and just as we were even with it, one of the truck tires exploded with a loud blast and shook our car a bit. No damage to us or our car but just one more experience to write home about.
We managed to squeeze in another Fireside. Those always provide another adventure in our lives. We never quite know just what to expect. In this case it turned out that the address was correct but when we arrived there was no chapel to be seen. We drove around a few blocks without success and then called the Elders. Turned out it was a rented building, which we finally located. As we use a power point with videos, having the technology, screen, electrical outlets etc is always tricky. In this case the screen was improvised with a portable chalkboard covered with a white cloth, I think it was probably also the Sacrament cloth, We had electrical power, the right kind of adapter plugs and were able to remove the mic from the pulpit as needed to use as a portable mic and to reach the sound from the videos on the computer. You have to be creative in the mission field. If it had been totally up to us this could have been a disaster. Thankfully, it was the wonderful young men in the ward who had put together the program to teach about the importance of the Faith in God program and their preparation to serve missions, who came to the rescue and made it all work They also sang a hymn in English for us and brought a beautiful spirit to the meeting.
We are getting ready now for transfers again. This month we will loose 15; 11 Brazilians and 4 Americans and gain 15 or 16. It seems we never know exactly how many are arriving until the day before it happens. The Americans continue to trickle in a few at a time. (Transfers were finished yesterday and we are enjoying a nice, quiet, rainy day in our peaceful apartment finally posting this blog.)
We are so proud of all of our family missionaries Bryce, Tynan, Cameron, and Andrew serving at this time and want them to know what an inspiration they are to us. I have used some of their exemplary missionary experiences to teach our missionaries here occasionally.
