We spent the last day of our two week vacation at the beach in Recife.
Everybody but me loves to drink coconut water.
We always pack a little snack with us where ever we go
 just in case we don't get back in time for lunch.

The senior sister missionaries, Sister Rodriguez and Sister Hansen,
went with us and showed us how to navigate the buses to the beach.
They work in the Family History Center that is located on the first floor of the apartment building
where the temple missionary couples live
and where the patrons stay when they come on caravans to the temple for a week.

We usually get together with all the missionaries once a month and have a party.

We should refer to our time here as "Missionary Fun!" not "Missionary work" 

All of us have grey hair but the three of us on the front row go natural.

back row, Sis. Hadley from Ogden Utah, Sis Queiroz from Fortaleza, Sis. Pizzirani from Sao Paulo, Sis. Luiz from Sao Paulo. Sis Silva from Ontario Canada, Sis Rodriguez from Ontario Canada (the last two are sisters) Sis. Hansen from Queen-creek Arizona. 

Front row Sis. Baird Provo Utah, Sis. Anderson were from Idaho but sold their home before coming to Brazil

Unlucky Day in Olinda

This is how we get around here in Recife. We ride the bus.

If you are over 60 you can ride the buses free. If you are over 65 you can ride the subways free.

So taking the time to get to know the transportation system is well worth it. The cost of taking a taxi gets pretty expensive for a day of sight seeing. 

We road the bus out to the city of Olinda. 

Carol Hadley in the middle is really quite short  (4' 11" ?) but she has no problem at all keeping up with the rest of  us

The young man standing behind Brother Hadley we call Junior. He works for the American Consul here in Recife. He is a member of the church but not very active. The Bairds before they left, were friend-shipping him and hoping to convince him to serve a mission before he gets too old to go. 

Olinda sits right on the coast and has a train that takes you up and down the hills and all around the city. This was not our lucky day, however, the train was shut down for repairs. 

The weather here is just right for taking a nap

To cool off the kids play in the smaller pools of sea water that collects behind the reefs

There are fishing boats in the bigger pools 

Vendors selling food and drink, beach clothes, bags and hats, line beach front.

You can see the city of Recife looking back across the bay.

They even have a "Hilton" 

After Vernon took a tumble down the stairs at the visitor center, cut his knee, and tore his pants, we decided to come back another day. 

The knee healed and the pants were mended. He now carries band-aids in his wallet.

The temple is closed for two weeks . . . some leave for home some go sight seeing

Bob and Vonnie Baird from Provo have finished their 18 months and are loading their luggage into the temple pick-up. 

Jerry  took this picture with Hadleys on the left, President Gelson Pizzirani and I in the middle and the Bairds  on the right.

From the ruins of an old brick and tile factory has emerged a fascinating  art museum . This is the entrance  to the complex of restored buildings and large open plazas.

The open areas outside are adorned with  ceramic and brass statutes and are almost entirely of a modern impressionistic style. Here the "four comedians" greet visitors as they enter. 

These huge galleries contain thousands of art objects.

Some rooms are filled with pottery.  The entire complex is surrounded by remnants of the Atlantic rain forest. The Brazilian government keeps it as near to being as it was to the point of not allowing even an asphalt road to be built..

The whole museum and the grounds are well maintained. There were very few visitors here on the day (April 9th) we were there.

We noticed that there were several large black swans roaming about with warning signs to beware of the "wild swans"

They seemed pretty docile while we were there. But then we did nothing to provoke them, either.

Some of the architecture looked somewhat like pictures we have seen of ancient Chinese and Egyptian cultures.

We are now several miles away from the museum in what the  natives call "Old Recife" We are looking out across part of the bay towards a reef. (Recife means reef in Portuguese)

This is were the first Portuguese settled in the 16th Century. It is no longer allowed for any one to tear down any of these older buildings in this part of the city.

Ocean going vessels go up and down this part of the bay. Here we are approaching a huge circle made of colored rocks along the water front

In the very center is this brass marker. It is the reference point  from which all roads, buildings and even other cities are laid out in the whole state. They call it the "marco zero" which we would probably call ground zero.

The unassuming building behind the lamp post is a restored Jewish synagogue . It is the oldest Jewish synagogue in the Western Hemisphere. Built by Jews who came from Holland during the Dutch occupation of Northeastern Brazil in the late 1500s, it serves today as a museum.  Descendants of these Jews later came to New York and one or more of them were contacted by Joseph Smith to teach Hebrew in the School of the Prophets   

We leave you now from the historic streets of Old Recife. Tchau!

The lady on the right is Giovana Paiva. Her sister has a beach house about 2 hours north of Recife in a city called Joao Pessoa. She invited us and the Bairds to spend the week end there. We left on a Saturday and came back Monday

We had dinner at quaint restaurant with theee statures of beef cattle out in front. All of the waiters were dressed in the style of legendary "Robin Hood" of the Nordeste (Northeastern Brazil) whose nick name was "Lampiao"

We fixed all but one of our meals in the breach house with food we brought with us

The Bairds and the Christophersons on the beach.

This stretch of beach front is just outside of the gated condominium complex where we stayed.

Jerry and Vonnie had to get their feet wet.

Cleaning up the dining room after lunch.

This was the largest condo in the complex and was for sale. The asking price was one million Reais or about $500,000.00

There were lots of coconut palms on the property.

One of the caretakers there graciously volunteered to cut some down so that we could sample the coconut water. It was delicious. 

While stopped for some road construction, this picturesque little village caught our eye. Between the road we were on and this little town in a sugar cane field.

We started with Jerry standing by a statue of a steer. We'll end with a picture of a real young bull munching the grass just a few feet outside the car window.