A Day in Embu

The Saturday before Kelsey left, we went to Embu. It is an artist's town next to Sao Paulo. There are hundreds of store fronts and booths. Everything they sell must be made in Brazil. Top photo is the sign welcoming you to Embu das Artes. Kelsey, Al and I had fun shopping at the different stores and booths and visiting with people. We met an American family from Arizona who live in Sao Paulo right now. The Minden Family. He works for a US company there and they have six beautiful children. Photo 3: We ate at an outdoor restaurant while we were there, delicious! On the way home we stopped at the "Corn Palace". We had a drink made from corn, corn ice cream and a bread that was a lot like the scallop corn I make for my family. Al and I liked the corn drink but Kelsey wasn't wild about it but the corn ice cream was really good. Photo 4: Just outside the Corn Palace was a beautiful little garden with a pond. In the pond were several turtles. When the turtles saw us standing there, they were right there staring at us, we threw them some bread crumbs and they were right on it! They must expect that kind of treat. As we left we snapped a picture of Kelsey with the Corn King himself.

Praca de Santa at Christmas

Kelsey enjoyed the sites around the Praca by our apartment. They really went all out decorating it for Christmas. It's real name is Praca Martinho Gueddes but everyone calls it Praca de Santa. Probably because there is a statue of a saint in the middle of the praca!

Tropic of Capricorn

The Tropic of Capricorn runs right between Tatui and Itapetininga. Kelsey and I decided we needed to memorialize it!

The Feira

Every Thursday morning there is a Feira just up the street from our apartment. We go every other Thursday and stock up on eggs, fruits and vegetable. Limes are about $1.25 for 2.2 pounds. Abacaxi (pineapple) is a little over three dollars for 3 pineapples. We go through a lot of fruit! Kelsey picked out the tomatoes.

Christmas Day

Christmas Day we invited the Sister Missionaries, Sister Gamarano and Sister Kapp. We also had Luciana over for dinner. Luciana was baptized a couple of months ago. She has three daughters, Esther, Livia and Marila. All three girls have now been baptized, also. The girls were spending the holidays with their father and his family so Luciana was alone for Christmas. We made little gift baskets for the Sisters for Christmas, they had fun digging through them.

Two Days in Bauru with Kelsey

Top photo: Rosa and her family decided since Kelsey, Al and I could not be there Christmas Eve, they would move their traditional Christmas Eve feast to Friday, December 22, so we could be a part of it. It never fails to amaze me how generous and kind the people here are. Photo 2: The praca next to our hotel is busy every night with individual trailers set up (like the Cassia County Fair) serving food. Bauru is famous for the Bauru sandwich, which we all had to have one, of course! Photo 3: Rosa had told me she was making something for me, wow! She made a table runner, a long, long table runner. She crocheted all around the edges and painted the beautiful roses at each end. This will always be a family treasure. Photo 4: Kathy, Rosa and Kelsey. All those paintings you can see in the background were painted by Rosa. Photo 5: Al, me, Rosa, Rosa's daughter Silvia and Silvia's husband. Silvia speaks English very well. Her daughter married an American and they live in Utah. In the top photo her daughter and her husband are the first two on the left side of the table. Photo 6: Rosa painted this, can you see what it is? At first we didn't see it, but it is the Nativity.

Christmas Arrived for Us on December 21!

We were so thrilled when we picked Kelsey up from the airport in Sao Paulo the morning of December 21. That same day was our Mission Christmas Party in Sorocaba so we were so happy to introduce our daughter to Presidente and Sister Ribeiro and the wonderful Elders and Sisters. Elder Barrus and I are nestled between two of our favorite Elders, Elder Marinho and Elder James. They were the Elders who were here when we first came to Tatui. They took such great care of us, we would have been lost without them. After a great program and meal, we were each given a balloon and a church card to write a message on and attach to the balloon. Then we walked and walked and walked! to a shopping praca and released all the balloons at once. There was a stage set up and the Elders and Sisters from the Sao Paulo North Mission sang Christmas carols to the crowd for about 30 minutes. It was fun but Elder Barrus and I were tuckered out after the walk there, luckily we spotted a taxi on the way back and jumped in!