Botanical Gardens of São Paulo

Kerma and Richard Hill from Blackfoot Idaho, Area Medical Adviser for Brazil with Jerry. We took them to the Botanical Gardens for our first P-day in a month. We had been to this park before, but this was their first time. Dr Hill receives calls on his cell phone all day long from mission presidents and their wives requesting medical advise for sick and injured missionaries. Here he is taking a call from Sister Prieto (the mission president's wife) in the Goiânia Mission.

These huge leaves were clustered around the base of a palm tree and were about two feet wide and three feet across. They were not part of the palm tree but were growing on a separate staulk next to the palm tree.

Dr Hill still on the same call.

This bush of brilliant pink flowers caught our eye as we walked through the gardens. The gardens were full of school children on field trips from various schools in the São Paulo area. Here a group of children are rolling down a grassy slope and then running back to the top to try it again.

Children are pretty much the same all over the world. At first a little shy, but as we made an effort to talk with them they warmed up. Soon they we practicing all the English word they knew. When we began to speak to them in Portuguese their natural curiosity came to the surface and we had a delightful time talking with them. As you can see they were quite willing to let us take a few pictures.

These children were all from the same school and ranged from about nine to twelve years old.

There was such a profusion of beautiful flowers through out the gardens that was hard not to show more of them. For now this one will have to do.

Oh to have this much energy again!

They followed us for a while asking us if we didn't want to take just one more picture Upon seeing this large gatheing of children excitingly pointing and screaming for other to "come and see", we joined the crowd to see what was happening.
This was the reason. A small band of tiny monkeys had come out of the forest to beg for food. One of the students had a banana which he peeled and offered to one of the larger monkeys. He quickly grabbed it and in trying to scamper away, dropped the banana. You can see him in the middle of the picture about half way up the tree. He's looking regretfully down at the banana. Tchau for now. I will send more pictures soon.

Vernon and Jerry.

Couples we have served with

President and Sister Clark addressing Dr. and Sister Brinton, Area Medical Advisor (AMA). He thanked them for their for dedicated service in Brazil. This was a gathering of the mission presidency and branch presidencies, as we held a farewell party for the Brintons. They served together in Rio as Mission President and then came back to Brazil about six months later as AMA.

Front row left to right: Ronald and Thelma Dent. He served as the mental health adviser and now they serve together as temple missionaries together. Then Sister Nilce Bassi. Back row: President Osvaldo Bassi, president of Branch 12. And then us.From left to right: Adriana and Paulo Kretly, 2nd councelor in the CTM presidency; Orestes de Oliveira, counselor in Branch 13; Nasário and Martha Araújo, President of Branch 13; Dennis and Lavina Alldredge, counselor in Branch 4.

From left to right: Carli and David Arntsen (she has her hand on his shoulder). President of Branch 6; Don Farrow, counselor in Branch 4; Larry and Lynette Clark (her sister's husband is David Eastman's brother. Some of you know David). President of Branch 4; Front row couple on the right: Nolan and Christine Steadman, counselor in Branch 1. From left to right: Luis Carlos and Rose Mary Perrupato, counselor in Branch 12; Ruth and Thomas Pratt, president of Branch 7; Álvaro and Fátima Ichi, counselor in Branch 12; The Perrupato's son; Maria and Ruben Ferraz, counselor in Branch 6.
Back row, from left to right: Richard and Kerma Hill, new AMA and counselor in Branch 7; Milton and Barbara Brinton, departing AMA and former president onf Branch 4; Sidney and Marisa Camargo, first counselor of the CTM presidency; Donald and Zaza Clark, MTC President; Front row: Luiz Carlos Yamaguchi, president of Branch 11; Ercilia and loacir Nunes, counselor in Branch 11.

We´re still alive here in Brazil

13 August 2010

Dear Family, Friends et al.,

There will be pictures to follow soon!

Until now Jerry has been the chief of our blogging efforts. However since we returned to Brazil, she has had more to do than she had during the first two years we were here (some of it is at her own choice) and I have a little less to do than before. Currently she is going through the grammar part of a new district's curriculum in the classroom with them for two to three hours a day.

She is supervising the rehersals of the MTC choir for their perfomances at a new LDS chapel "open house" not far from here. We are now in the middle of perforamces every night this week. We are just there at the open house for a half hour, but getting almost a hundred missionaries up the hill to the chapel and then back to the MTC each evening is a major task in itself. And it has been more of an adjustment to a new mission president and wife than anticipated.

She also is doing an hour of exercise, an hour of companion study with me, and two hours of individual study a day. (She truly is not happy unless she is over scheduled). I, therefore, have assumed her duty as the official blogger in this companionship. The drawback here is that my typing skills are not nearly as good as hers. But I'm going to give it my best shot and we'll post news items of interest and photos on a regular basis.

Repentance is a wonderful principle and with some help from Jerry we want to get back into the routine of posting the things that will be of interest to all of you. Thanks for all of your encouragement to do so. We appreciate all of you very much.

Abraços (hugs) to all.

Vernon and Jerry