Festa Junina is a big party in Recife

Festa Junina lasts the whole month of June in Recife. 

They stack piles of wood along many of the streets 

and on June 24th celebrate with large fires. 

It is similar to Sadie Hawkins day in the States. 

Young and old dress up like hillbillies

 with plaid shirts, straw hats, pig tails or braids and mustaches.

This was our wards celebration of the holiday.

Our bishop and his wife, Flavio and Rebecca Escobar, love to party and this was a fun evening with a great turnout. Bishop Escobar is also the temple recorder

We fell in love with Elder and Sister Luis. They just finished their mission here at the temple and will be greatly missed. The young sister missionary also just left. She is from Argentina. She met and developed a friendship with a missionary from Brazil going to serve his mission in Argentina, while they were in the Missionary Training Center. 

This holiday celebrates with lots of corn on the cob, corn bread, sweet corn soup, and pop corn. There were all kinds of other food like chicken stroganoff, rice and beans, fruit, cake and milk pudding.

We bought hats at the market and tried to get into the spirit of the festival.

There was a live band that played non stop for the whole evening. The whole ward family came as well as many less active members, investigators and other people from other wards. It reminded me of the old days in Boise when I was growing up and my parents took me to ward dances throughout the stake.

Here are our wonderful senior sister missionaries

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I am dancing the Virginia real with sister  Gala Hansen.

We love the sister missionaries, Sister Maxwell is from Michigan. We have them over for dinner once a month. They are terrifc missionaries. Since we have been in the ward they have had at least two or three baptisms a month. They brought investigators with them to the celebration

There is a park right next to the church where there was a celebration also going on.  This one was sponsored by the City of Recife.

 They have dance completions all month long in the parks.

We walked over and watched for a while during our wards celebration.

Here at the temple the early birds, monkeys and joggers get the Mangoes.

Most every morning  about 5:00 or 5:30 a.m.
I go walking around the temple grounds.
These round green fruit in the front are the mangos I picked up off the lawn one morning.

The temple sits on what use to be a mango orchard.We have huge mango trees that produce year round.
While one part of the tree is dropping its leaves another part is blooming
 and another part is filled with ripe fruit.

This is our dining room, scripture study area, and game board.
We put one of the lamps from the bedroom on the table to give us more light for studying.
When we have two or three couples over for dinner we bring in an other table from another apartment(remove the lamp of course) and four more chairs. Everyone has the same furnishings and tableware in their apartments so it makes it quite nice for entertaining. 

This is our living room. The computer is on a little desk off to the left. We have a TV in the large "armairo" All the programming is in Portuguese except for the BYU international channel is sometime in English.
We were able to get all six sessions of conference in English which was wonderful.
We have the computer hooked up to the TV, so we have been able to watch the Bible mini-series, some history documentaries and even season 12 of American Idol on Youtube.

Here is the bedroom.
The wall opposite the bed is filled from floor to ceiling with built in drawers, shelves and our two closets.

The kitchen came furnished with microwave, hot plate, dishes, pans, toaster, blender and cooking utensils.

We have only had to buy a few things and we brought a few things with us like a really good can opener.

We bought this little oven and cabinet from the Bairds when they left. The microwave just fits in the cabinet which gives me more counter space. I have been making whole wheat bread and rolls every week now. 

This is the open air hall out side our apartment. Just beyond the doors is our laundry room. It has five washers and five dryers which we share  with the patrons that come on the caravans so the missionary couples usually do their laundry on Monday when the temple is closed and the caravans are gone 

This is the "Alojamento" (apartment building) for missionaries and caravan patrons.

We actually do go to work everyday. We are working the afternoon shift this month so we leave for the temple about 1:30 and work until 9:30 PM. 

Vernon is so handsome all dressed in white!

Behind us are my wonderful  Mango trees which I like to think of as modern day "manna" from heaven. Almost every morning there is a fresh supply.There are normally enough for the missionary couples, the patrons, the staff, the monkey and the birds.

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!