Fetching Michael from Brazil

During August of 1994 I traveled alone to South America to bring Michael home from his mission in the Brazil Manaus Mission. It was the first time I had returned to Brazil since I came home from my own mission there nearly 24 years earlier. Michael observed that during the days we were travel­ing about Brazil he could see a steady improvement in my proficiency in speak­ing Portuguese.

Thursday, August 4, 1994
In airports and on airplanes all day from 11:00 this morning. I flew on three American flights from Salt Lake City to Dallas-Ft. Worth, from Dallas-Ft. Worth to Miami, and from Miami to Rio de Janeiro. I had dinner on all three flights. On the long flight to Rio I sat next to a girl from São Paulo who spoke no English, so I was able to begin immedi­ately to practice my Portuguese. She had been visiting in Florida for the past 20 days with a friend of her mother's and the friend's daugh­ter. She was impressed that I could still speak Portuguese after 24 years away from Brazil.

Friday, August 5
In Rio this morning I had less than an hour and a half to clear cus­toms, get my Brazil air pass changed into actual tickets for Michael and me to use in traveling all over Brazil the next two weeks (allow­ing us for only $420 to visit five different destinations), pay the air­port tax (which has to be done in a separate line from anything else), change my previously scheduled flight to Manaus to a more reason­able hour (so I could arrive there early this afternoon instead of after midnight), and haul my two very heavy carry-on bags to the correct gate to board a 10:00 VARIG flight to São Paulo. I did not have time to change my money from dollars to reais.

I actually made the connection to São Paulo, where I caught a second flight to Manaus. About 2:30 in the afternoon we landed in Manaus. As we flew over the Rio Solimões and the Rio Negro, the two rivers that a few miles downstream from Manaus meet to form the Amazon, I knew they were large rivers but was simply unpre­pared for how large they actually looked from a few thousand feet in the air. Our plane was a little early, and no one was there to meet me, but Elder Cleverly and Elder Fails were at the far end of the airport making a telephone call.

What a thrill to see Michael again! Perhaps a small foretaste of what it will be like to pass through the veil and there greet all our loved ones who have gone on before.

The Fails family—consisting of President Willis Fails (who on July 1 completed presiding over the Brazil São Paulo East Mission), his wife Diane, Karl (being released from the Manaus mission with Michael), Joann (age 19), Jerry (17), Jennifer (13), and Amy (10)—had arrived in Manaus late Thursday night and, like us, are staying in the mission home with the Francesconis. After arriving at the mission home I was put to bed and slept for a couple hours.

This evening all of us (the Francesconis, the Failses, and the two Cleverlys) went to a ballet at the Teatro Amazonas, the world-famed Manaus Opera House, built in 1896 (the same year Utah became a state) in the heyday of the Amazon rubber plantations. We saw dif­ferent numbers, each one to me increasingly interesting to watch: Players ("A magical mixture of videogame and soccer"), O Boi no Telhado [The Bull on the Roof] ("The tradition of Brazilian music from the first decade of the century"), and Cânticos Místicos ("How beauti­ful are the feet of the messengers of peace"). The final number seemed particularly appropriate to the occasion of our being here to bring home two successful missionaries, who for the past two years have been out preaching the good news of the gospel of peace.

Saturday, August 6
Last night Michael and I slept on mats on the floor of the living room and, after going to bed quite late, talked long into the night. A neat experience. Everyone slept in late this morning. Sister Francesconi fed us what she called breakfast. Feast would be a more accurate descrip­tion.

This afternoon we went to downtown Manaus, where among other things we arranged our river cruise for Monday, went up to the top of the tallest building in Manaus (20 stories), and otherwise looked around. Later we went to the Hotel Tropical, a world-class resort hotel on the Rio Negro, where we wandered through their zoo, walked along the river, and swam (except President Francesconi and the two unreleased missionaries) in their wave pool. In the late after­noon, after another of Sister Francesconi's feasts, we went to the Manaus Shopping Center, the place where Michael and the other mis­sionaries sang at Christmastime.

Once again Michael and I talked long after we went to bed.

Sunday, August 7
This morning the Failses went to church in the Alvorada Ward, which began at 8:30 with priesthood, Relief Society, and Primary. Michael and I attended the Flores Ward, which began at 9:00 in the same building with sacrament meeting. No one present was able to play the piano, so I offered my services, apparently a rare treat. (Elder Fails did the same thing in the ward he attended.) It was fast Sunday and therefore testimony meeting. I was very impressed with the spirit and content of the numerous testimonies borne. Afterward an excel­lent lesson on fasting was taught in the Gospel Essentials class in Sun­day School. In priesthood meeting the bishop spent nearly the entire time getting after the brethren for not home teaching and various other things I was not entirely following because of its being so hot and my being so tired.

After the two wards were over, we stayed for a baptismal service of a young man who became a member of the Church. Michael and I then went with an Elder Bertine to eat dinner in the home of a nearby member. We returned to the mission office, which is right behind the church, to await the Failses' return from their luncheon appointment. We took naps back at the mission home before leaving at 5:30 to attend sacrament meeting in the Petrópolis Ward, where I again played the piano and met Augusto, Francisco, and Marilena—people Michael had baptized. (Francisco and Marilena used to live with each other before they knew anything about the Church, had separated, joined the Church independently of each other, and are now happily married to each other.) Several of the people who bore testimonies in this ward mentioned Michael by name. It was obvious the love and apprecia­tion they had for him.

Back at the mission home we were treated to another of Sister Francesconi’s feasts. Elders Cleverly and Fails thought they had died and gone to heaven. This evening Michael and I called home to wish Rachael a happy birthday. She turned 19 today.

Monday, August 8
A day of great adventure. The nine of us (seven from the Fails family and two Cleverlys) went to the floating dock near downtown and met our guide for the day. He took us out on the Rio Negro, about an hour downstream to the encontra das aguas (the Encounter of the Waters, where the black waters of the Rio Negro meet the muddy brown waters of the Rio Solimões and they become the Amazon River), and back up various tributaries of the Solimões, through the jungle, to an old abandoned rubber plantation mansion, and such exotic places. At some remote spot out in the dense jungle we stop­ped to fish for piranhas. I caught a small one, about the size of my hand spread out, and a little later Elder Fails caught a smaller one, about the length of my index finger. We saw alligators and numerous kinds of birds. Finally, we wended our way back through the forested waterways until we reached the Rio Negro again and crossed its broad expanse back to Manaus on the far side.

We spent some time wandering through downtown, which seemed hot and humid indeed after being out on the water much of the day. I finally exchanged $60 into 52 Brazilian reais. And bought a poster of the Brazilian World Cup team for Talmage. We were hot and tired. Very tired. We couldn't reach anyone by phone to come pick us up, so we caught a bus we hoped was going our way. As soon as we realized it wasn't, we got off and started walking toward the mission home. Part way there, President Francesconi happened to drive by and stopped to give us a ride. It took him two trips to fit everyone in.

Back at the mission home, President and Sister Fails, Jerry, and I went swimming, which was very refreshing. The final feast was the official departure dinner for the two elders, followed by a talent show (consisting mostly of singing or piano playing and various unwilling children) and a testimony meeting. A marvelous and wonderful evening, an exciting day, and for two young men an adventurous two years.

Tuesday, August 9
The Failses left this morning for Belem. We will see them again Satur­day morning in São Paulo. After they left Michael and I packed, ate a final one of Sister Francesconi's meals, and went to the mission office with President Francesconi. He talked about the growth of the mis­sion, which a little over a month ago was divided to form the Belem mission, and showed me some of the computer programs Elders Cleverly and Fails had set up for him to keep track of the mission. A little before 1:00 two of the office elders took us to the airport, where we caught our VARIG flight to Brasília. We were surprised at how small and low-tech the airport was in the nation's capital.

After about a two-hour layover, we caught a second VARIG flight to Maceió, the spot of Brazil where I left my heart many years ago. We were met at the airport by Irmã Virginia and several of her child­ren: Inez (who was 15 when I was last here and is now 39), Betânia and her husband, and Adriano and his wife, and several of their children. What an incredible reunion after nearly 24 years!

Wednesday, August 10
We are staying with Inez Tenório and her adopted children, five-year-old Sarah and ten-month-old Carolina, who are living in the home of Virginia's parents, where Inez helps take care of her aged grandparents. (I had met the grandparents once in 1970 when we went with the Tenório family on an outing into the interior of the state of Alagoas to visit Paulo Afonso Falls.)

While we were eating breakfast around 9:00, her grandfather up and died on us. That rather changed plans for the day. The grand­father, who was 95 years old, had lung cancer, and everyone was pretty much grateful he went so quickly and painlessly. Michael and I accompanied Adriano (age 31) and Tiago (21), two of Virginia's sons, as they drove around town to make various arrangements and pick out a coffin.

Maceió has changed substantially in the past 24 years. The Atlantic Ocean is still here and the soccer stadium (o Trapichão) and the cathedral and some government buildings downtown. I recog­nized little else. We went by the house where the Tenórios lived in 1970, and it is now a business in a business district. The sleepy little town is now a bustling little metropolis.

This afternoon I met Alexandre, who has never married and owns a school that teaches English. Even though he served a full-time mission, he is not currently active in the Church. He was the member of the family I had last seen because he lived in the United States (in Yarrington, Nevada) for about six months in the mid-1970s and came to visit us when we still lived in Provo and Michael was just a wee babe.

Late this afternoon, around 5:30 or so, just before dark, we attended the grandpa's funeral at the cemetery where he was buried. An interesting experience. He and his wife are Catholics. His daugh­ter (Virginia) and the grandchildren are all Latter-day Saints. It was something like a combination Catholic–Mormon graveside service. A Catholic priest did his thing. Michael and I sang "Abide with Me" with a group of family members. Adriano, whom I had baptized in the ocean when he turned eight in 1970 and who is now a bishop, dedicated the grave.

Adriano looks and sounds very much like his father Aldo, who had been the branch president in Maceió just before I was appointed to that position in 1970. Aldo, whom we met briefly at the funeral, has left both the family and the Church and is living in the interior with some other woman. He looked like an old and worn-out man.

By early evening, just as it was starting to rain again, we had Grandpa all done and buried. Nice and quick.

Later in the evening we went to Adriano's house and with a few other members from my era in Maceió had a testimony meeting. What a marvelous experience! One of the things Inez recounted was her impression a couple months ago, when she learned that we were coming to visit, that when I arrived her grandfather would die. She dismissed the thought and didn't even think about it again until today.

Thursday, August 11
We were originally scheduled to leave Maceió today, but last night as Michael and I lay in bed talking we decided to skip our final two days in Rio de Janeiro, stay an extra day in Maceió, go to São Paulo first, and then return to Salvador for our final three days in Brazil. The Tenórios were delighted when we told them of our plans and took us this morning to the VARIG office to get our tickets changed.

Then Inez took us all to lunch at a nice restaurant in a part of town that didn't even exist when I was last here. Afterward we spent the rest of the day touring the city. The beaches and the bay are so beautiful here. Michael got to stick his finger in the sea. Yesterday was the first time he had seen the Atlantic Ocean. It occurred to me that I have performed baptisms in both oceans: Adriano in the Atlantic Ocean on October 3, 1970, and Talmage in the Pacific Ocean on July 4, 1985.

Tonight Adriano took us out for pizza to a place just across the street from the house on Rua Uruguai that in 1970 was the branch meetinghouse. A flood of pleasant memories from those distant, de­lightful days crowded in upon us as we visited. A most pleasant day. While we were waiting for our pizza order, little Aldozinho, Adriano and Amélia's two-year-old son, kept trying to steal a piece of pizza from a neighboring table. He couldn't understand why we had come to eat pizza but no one would let him have a piece. Finally he broke into tears, and the man at the next table gave a piece to him.

Friday, August 12
At 6:00 this morning our plane left Maceió for Salvador, where we caught a second flight to São Paulo with a stop in Rio. We arrived in São Paulo about 11:30, and Irmão Muniz picked us up at the airport and took us to the CTM [MTC], where we will stay two nights. After we got checked into our room (510 on the top floor with a nice view of the back of the temple), we walked next door to the area office building, where we met Gisa (Adalgisa M. Dias), who had been so kind in helping me set up our flights all over Brazil.

We spoke briefly with Elder Helvécio Martins of the Area Presi­dency and then spent some time with Elder Harold G. Hillam, the Area President, who spoke at considerable length about the growth of the Church in Brazil.

At the CTM we met President Val H. Carter, the MTC president, and spent a while with him in his office. I first knew President Carter as the president of the Jardim Botânico Branch in Rio de Janeiro in 1969 when he was there working for the U.S. govern­ment. At the CTM we also met José Rosa Pereira, whose wife Edomita and mother-in-law Odcira I had known 24 years ago in Rio de Janeiro. We also met his son Nefi, who had served his mission in the Idaho Pocatello Mission and had called me from President Hal John­son's house in Idaho Falls. Such a small world.

Michael and I then went to the temple and did our first endow­ment session ever in Portuguese. A nice experience. Afterward we ate in the temple cafeteria and then did another session.

Saturday, August 13
We ate breakfast in the temple cafeteria and then met President and Sister Fails and Elder Fails for the 8:15 session. After the endowment session, Michael and I had an opportunity to help with a sealing ses­sion, and I was able to act as proxy for a child being sealed to his parents.

This afternoon we were supposed to go with the Failses on an outing to Elder Archibald's farm, but we never could get an answer at the telephone number Elder Fails had given us. After coming out of the temple, Michael and I met Odcira and Edomita and their family and visited for a while.

During the two days we've been here at the temple complex, Michael has met ten missionaries he knew in the Manaus mission.

Since we were unable to make contact with the Failses, we ate a late lunch at the McDonalds in the shopping center up (down?) the street from the temple. We attended another endowment session this afternoon, our fourth, after which we waited for the sealing of a sister missionary, Sister Doudement, from Michael's mission who married yesterday in São Luis, Marinhão, and flew to São Paulo to be sealed today. Michael and I served as witnesses and afterward as photo­graphers out in front of the temple.

By now it was quite dark, and we discovered we were locked out of the CTM building. All the caravans there from distant parts of Brazil had left and gone home, and the building, we found out, gets locked up on weekends—even though there are still missionaries there in residence. After circling the building once to see if there were any open doors, Michael and I returned to the main entrance just as President Carter was unlocking the door to go back in himself. He let us in and told us the security guard at the front desk of the area office building next door could let us in anytime we needed. President Carter also loaned us his alarm clock so we could wake up early enough tomorrow morning to go catch our early plane.

Afterward Michael and I walked up the street to get some more cash out of a bank machine and had hot dogs for supper at the same shopping center food court where the McDonalds was located.

Sunday, August 14
Our second Sunday in Brazil. The meetings last week in Manaus seem so long ago. We were up very early to be ready for Irmão Muniz to pick us up at 6:00 and take us in his taxi to the airport by 7:00 to catch our 8:00 flight to Salvador.

Daniel and Miriam Amato picked us up at the airport and whisked us off to church, where sacrament meeting was just get­ting ready to start in a rented school next to the meetinghouse that was being remodeled into a stake center. Salvador has two stakes.

After sacrament meeting we went to the mission home, called home, had lunch, and visited with everyone. President Amato's mother is visiting from São Paulo. Sister Amato's parents, the Puertas, are presiding in the Brazil Florianópolis Mission in southern Brazil.

Tomorrow is the Amato family's last day all together. Daniel leaves Tuesday morning for São Paulo to receive his endowment and Tuesday night leaves for the United States from Rio on the same flight as Michael. He enters the MTC in Provo on Wednesday after­noon on his way to the Texas Dallas Mission. Cláudia leaves Tues­day night for São Paulo to finalize arrangements for her visa to the United States and returns, hopefully, to Provo next Monday to attend BYU.

I had previously met President and Sister Amato when they were in Utah last summer to attend the seminar for new mission presidents and wives. Daniel had gone with us earlier this summer to watch Brazil play Russia in the opening game of the World Cup in San Fran­cisco. And Cláudia, of course, had lived with us nearly a year and a half ago, and Rebecca in return had lived with the Amatos here in Salvador for the last four months of last year. Today was the first time I had met Eduardo (age 17), Miriam (11), and Homerinho (5).

After lunch we had a family home evening on missionary work. President Amato and Daniel then took Michael and me on a tour of part of the city down by the beaches before it got dark. Then we went to one of the stake centers, where Daniel had a final interview with the stake president and where Michael and I were introduced to a lot of members and missionaries as Rebecca's brother and father. Most everyone seemed to know her from when she was here nearly a year ago.

Monday, August 15
We talked to Mom again this morning just as it was time for break­fast and later in the day just before it was time to eat lunch. I sure do miss her and wish she could have come on this trip with me. One of the things we had to do is have Church Travel change Daniel's flights from Miami to Salt Lake City to be on the same planes as Michael. Coincidentally, they were already on the same flight from Rio to Miami.

In the morning Cláudia, Daniel, their grandmother, Michael, and I went to visit the Pelourinho, the old part of the city up on a bluff overlooking the port and bay (Baia de Todos os Santos). We mostly wandered through old shops and churches and saw the house of Jorge Amado, a famous Brazilian author.

In the afternoon we went with Sister Amato to the Shopping Cen­ter and to a supermercado to buy stuff for Rebecca—including three cans of goiaba, three packages of soap (?), and 99 packages of mara­cujá (passion fruit) powder. We could not find the Bahian clothes she wanted.

In the evening we went to a place something like a sidewalk café to eat acarajé, a famous Bahian food made of white bean bread and spicy stuff inside. Michael liked it without shrimp added. Afterward we came back to the mission home and had a farewell home evening for Cláudia and Daniel, both of whom leave for Utah this week, Daniel to begin his mission, Cláudia to return to BYU.

Sunday when we arrived here in Salvador, the Amatos told us of a Brazilian missionary, Elder Evangelista, who had died in their mis­sion the previous Sunday. It was unexpected, and the nonmember family in southern Brazil took it very hard and was very angry with the Amatos and the perceived lack of care they gave their son. Sister Amato talked on the phone with the mother, who thoroughly chas­tised her and spoke many harsh words. All week Sister Amato had been praying that the Lord would somehow soften their hearts. To­night during the home evening President Amato received a phone call from the stake president where the nonmember family lives. They had been reading Elder Evangelista's missionary journal and had had a complete change of heart. The mother now wanted to go to São Paulo with the next caravan from the stake to see the temple, even though she knew she couldn't go inside. Another brother, a Pentecostal minister, hoped his own son could join the Church and serve a mission. What a marvelous miracle!

Rebecca had sent a Triple Combination in English with me to deliver to Elder Evangelista from Cade Hoff. When Cade learned he had died, he asked that it go instead to one of his brothers, who was the only other member of the Church in the family and who had earlier also served in the Salvador mission.

Tuesday, August 16
Our last day in Brazil. President Amato woke everyone up early, at 5:00, so they could get Daniel to the airport by 6:00 to catch his flight to São Paulo, where he will take out his endowment today. Before we left the house, President Amato set Daniel apart as a full-time missionary. On the way to the airport the president dropped Michael and me off at the rodoviária, where we bought passage on a bus to Feira de Santana, about an hour and a half away, Bahia's second largest city, where we met Jailson da Rocha, Michael's first companion in Brazil (in Porto Velho from November 15, 1992, to February 1, 1993).

Just before I left the United States nearly two weeks ago, I had written Jailson telling him that Michael and I were coming to visit him and mentioning when we would be arriving. As we were leaving Manaus a week ago today, thinking he may not have received my let­ter from the States, Michael sent him a telegram from the Manaus air­port to be sure he knew we would be arriving in Salvador on Thurs­day afternoon and leaving Friday afternoon. That was before we changed our itinerary in Maceió and went to São Paulo first. So last Thursday, the day we would have gone to Salvador, Michael sent a second telegram canceling our earlier plans and saying we would be in Salvador Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. Unfortunately, Jailson re­ceived my letter on Thursday, hopped on a bus that very afternoon to Salvador, and waited for us at the airport. When we didn't arrive, he called the mission office and found out that our plans had changed. So he took another bus back to Feira de Santana, and when he arrived home the second telegram had come telling of the changed plans. The first telegram never did arrive. Finally, we had managed to get to­gether.

We went to Jailson's house and also a sister's house nearby and later in the morning met his mother, who joined the Church a year ago, about a month after Elder da Rocha's return from his mission. We also met a sister and two of her children. This sister's oldest son, about 14, has also joined the Church.

We walked and took a bus ride that equaled anything at Disney­land for excitement back to the center of the city, where we ate lunch in a self-serve restaurant in the back of a supermercado. Then we walked back to the rodoviária to catch our 1:45 bus back to Salvador.

We met a number of people who had known Rebecca when she served her three-week mission here nearly a year ago. Apparently she made quite an impression on both Feira de Santana and Salvador.

Michael and Jailson had a wonderful visit during the nearly five and a half hours we were in Feira, but it was heart-wrenching for them to say good-by to each other, possibly never to see each other again (although I never expected to see the people in Maceió again). Jailson said that he considered Michael to be his favorite companion from his entire mission.

Soon after our arrival back at the mission home, we showered, changed clothes, finished packing, and rushed off to the airport—Cláudia and her grandmother to fly to São Paulo at 6:15, Michael and I to return to Rio at 6:00 to catch our flight to the United States. In all the confusion and shortness of time at the Salvador airport, I lost the large poster of the Brazilian World Cup soccer team I had purchased in Manaus for Talmage that I had been carefully hand carrying all over Brazil.

Michael and I landed in Rio around 8:00 this evening, leaving us sufficient time for me to catch my 10:00 American flight to Miami and Michael and Daniel, joining him from São Paulo, to catch their 10:30 VARIG flight to Miami.

Wednesday, August 17
I arrived in Miami a few minutes after 5:00 this morning and waited in customs for Michael and Daniel to arrive about an hour later. On the flight from Rio de Janeiro I talked with a man a few rows in front of me who was from Durham, North Carolina. He knew of Peace College, where Rachael attends in Raleigh, and thinks the Raleigh-Durham area is one of the nicest places to live he's ever encountered. There was also a group of 10 to 15 Brazilian exchange students head­ed for various loca­tions in the United States. They were all from Salvador, except for one girl from Maceió. I spoke with several of them: a boy going to Michigan; another boy to Hoquiam, Washing­ton; a girl going to Ogden, Utah; and a boy going to Mississippi.

Daniel, Michael, and I visited for an hour or so before they went to catch their Delta flight to Atlanta and on to Salt Lake, and I went to catch my American flight to Dallas-Ft. Worth and then Salt Lake. I arrived in Salt Lake about 20 minutes later than Michael and Daniel. It was so nice to be home.

On my last flight, from Dallas-Ft. Worth to Salt Lake City, I cal­culated that I had been on 16 different flights during the past 13 days. I will be glad to be done with airports and airplanes for a while.

A few days later Michael listed five neat things from our trip: the river trip in Manaus, attending church, the temple in São Paulo, Brazilian pizza, and our visit with President Hillam. He also made a list of un­expected things: the ballet in the Manaus Opera House, the death in Maceió, the Catholic–Mormon funeral, and our serving as witnesses at the wedding in the temple.