President Gordon B. Hinckley, in a satellite address to full-time missionaries , said that "missionaries will affect generations to come with their service" (Church News, May 4, 1996, 3). Claudia and I, Michael and Shauna, and David Monson were witnesses of that truth as we visited places in Brazil where I had served 26 years earlier and Michael and David had served two years earlier. We saw the fruits of our labors "among those whom [we] so dearly beloved, and among those who had so dearly beloved [us]—for [we] were treated as though [we] were angels sent from God" (Alma 27:4).
The five of us left Utah on Sunday, April 21, 1996, and visited seven different Brazilian cities (Salvador, Maceió, Manaus, Rio Branco, Porto Velho, Foz do Iguaçu, and São Paulo). The four members of our family returned home three weeks later on Sunday, May 12, which was being celebrated in both the United States and Brazil as Mother's Day.
It was my third time in Brazil, Michael's and David's second, and Claudia's and Shauna's first. Talmage, who did not come with us because he was still completing high school, had already received his call to the Brazil Curitiba Mission and would enter the Missionary Training Center in June. Michael and Shauna celebrated their first wedding anniversary in Brazil on Monday, April 29. I was serving at the time as the bishop of the Bountiful Twentieth Ward and because of this trip missed Sunday meetings four weeks in a row.
The clear highlight of the trip was our visiting with the wonderful people along the way—both ones we had known from before and others we were meeting for the first time.
Michael, for example, got to spend a week with his mission president and wife, Aldo and Francily Francesconi, who are being released July 1 after three years of service in the Brazil Manaus Mission. He also saw numerous members he had baptized or known while serving in Porto Velho (the capital of the Brazilian state of Rondônia), Manaus (the capital of Amazonas), and Rio Branco (the capital of Acre).
In Salvador, Maceió, and São Paulo Michael and David saw various former missionaries whom they had served with in the mission field. We went through a session in the São Paulo Temple with four missionaries Michael had known.
In Maceió (the capital of the state of Alagoas), I was able to meet with several members I had known when I was a branch president a quarter of a century earlier of the tiny branch that is now grown into three stakes. An eight-year-old boy I had baptized in the ocean in October 1970 is now a counselor in one of the Maceió stake presidencies.
In addition to the people we saw, we also spent time on an Atlantic beach in Salvador (the old capital of colonial Brazil and today the capital of the state of Bahia), saw from the air the modernistic government buildings of Brasília (the modern inland capital of Brazil), spent two days and a night on a boat on the vast Amazon River, hiked into the dense Amazon jungle, rented a car in Porto Velho and got to experience the excitement of driving in Brazilian traffic, saw from the air and from the airport the city of Curitiba (the capital of the state of Paraná, where Talmage's mission is headquartered), marvelled at the extensive Iguaçu Falls in southern Brazil on the border with Argentina (where we saw thousands of colorful butterflies), toured the largest hydroelectric dam in the world at Itaipu on the Brazilian border with Paraguay, and attended an endowment session in the São Paulo Temple, located in the megalopolis that has become one of the world's largest cities.
Brazil is a large country, about the size of the 48 contiguous states of the United States. It occupies about half of South America. The five of us covered a lot of territory all over Portuguese-speaking Brazil and our brief moments in Spanish-speaking Argentina and Paraguay. We landed 17 different times at airports and ate 19 different airline meals or snacks while we were in the air, not to mention all the meals the Brazilians kept feeding us, and a couple meals at the McDonald's in the São Paulo airport coming and going. We stayed three nights in hotels, one night in hammocks on a boat, three nights traveling on airplanes, and 14 nights in members' homes. It was a wonderful vacation.
Sunday, April 21, 1996
Today our adventure began. Claudia was up all night preparing for our trip. I had a final bishopric meeting at 8:00, attended priesthood meeting at 9:00 (where the stake presidency came and installed new leaders in our high priests group), and returned home at 10:00 to change out of my suit and leave for the airport. Michael and Shauna, who had just finished their finals yesterday at BYU, were at our house with David Monson. Talmage drove the five of us to the airport.
We caught an 11:45 Delta flight from Salt Lake to Los Angeles, and in Los Angeles after waiting a couple hours in the international terminal caught a 3:50 Korean Air flight to São Paulo. Claudia and I were next to a window about two thirds of the way back on the right side of the plane. Michael, Shauna, and David were in seats next to a window about a third of the way back on the left side of the plane. We were in the air about 11 hours—long enough to have two meals (dinner and breakfast), two movies we didn't care to watch, and some semblance of sleep. Our flight had originated in Seoul, with stops in Tokyo and Los Angeles, and everything was done in Korean, English, Japanese (we think), and Portuguese.
We sat next to a very nice Korean lady who lives in São Paulo. She could speak Portuguese, but I'm not sure how much. We mostly communicated by smiling at each other—especially each time we had to crawl over her to go to the bathroom.
Monday, April 22
We arrived in São Paulo about 7:30 this morning (4:30 a.m. Utah time). Out our side of the plane we had a good view of the incredible vastness of one of the world’s largest cities—clusters of high rises stretching as far as we could see. A nice feature throughout our flight had been a map shown on the monitors charting our progress from Los Angeles to São Paulo, interspersed with information about our speed, altitude, air temperature, and remaining distance (shown alternately in U.S. and metric measurements). For most of the trip we traveled 550-600 miles per hour at 33,000 feet.
After we landed at São Paulo’s Gaurulhos International Airport, we stood in line to have our documents stamped, waited for David to get the one suitcase he had checked, stood in another line to go through customs, which we were cleared to walk through without having to stop, and entered the passenger terminal to wait four or so hours for our flight to Salvador. During the rest of our trip we intend to carry everything we have on to the plane so we won't have to wait for luggage.
During our wait in the Gaurulhos airport, I called Sister Amato to advise her what time our flight would arrive in Salvador. Claudia and I wandered about looking at the shops, we all bought lunch at the McDonald's restaurant (Claudia and I had McBacon hamburgers with fries and guaraná), and otherwise passed the time beginning this detailed account of our trip. We decided we liked the Gaurulhos terminal (which appears to be fairly new) better than the international terminal in Los Angeles (which appeared to be fairly old and run down).
Before leaving Utah we had purchased five Brazilian air passes. Each air pass allows flights to five different destinations with Brazil on VARIG airlines for only $490. Each additional destination costs $100 more. So, for only $690 each, we will fly to seven locations during our three-week stay: Salvador, Maceió, Manaus, Rio Branco, Porto Velho, Iguaçu Falls, and São Paulo. (David also plans a side trip just by himself to Santarem, which for whatever reason didn't cost extra.) An incredible bargain when realizing that Brazil is about the same size as the lower 48 states in the United States.
At 12:15 p.m. we caught a VARIG flight for Salvador, where all five of us had seats on the very first row, the only spot in the non-smoking section they could keep us together. We had already eaten lunch at McDonald's because our tickets said we'd be served a snack/ brunch. It turned out to be a full-scale meal with more than we could possible finish—plus all the guaraná we wanted to drink. We were all very tired from our all-night flight from Los Angeles and had all fallen asleep and had to be awakened for the meal. Claudia and Shauna were not even aware of our taking off from São Paulo.
A little after two hours in the air we landed in Salvador, the capital of the state of Bahia, the colonial capital of all of Brazil. Before leaving the airport, Michael and David sent a telegram to Jailson da Rocha in Feira de Santana telling him we were in town. Both Michael and David had served as companions to Jailson, and when Michael and I were here nearly two years ago we took a bus out to Feira to visit him.
Sister Sandra Amato had agreed to meet us at 3:30 but was a little late because an elder is sick and she had to visit him in the hospital. She took us to the mission home, after a brief tour of the city and a drive along the beaches. The mission home is on the third floor of a seven-story apartment building and has a large balcony that overlooks a lovely little tropical forest that has birds and monkeys and dogs barking in the distance and off to the side a distant view of the city and the ocean or bay (I'm not sure which).
We spent the afternoon visiting with Sister Amato and their two children still at home—Miriam, age 12, and Homerinho, age 6. The other three children are in the United States—Cláudia in Provo, Daniel in the Texas Dallas Mission, and Eduardo in Provo. We also showered and rested until President Amato came home. The Amatos complete their mission in July, when President Brad Sheppard (who as a young man served with me in what was then the Brazil North Mission) and his family come to replace them. We had a lovely dinner, visited some more, the Amatos went to visit the sick elder in the hospital, returned, and ended the evening with family prayer, which Claudia gave in Portuguese. Just before retiring, we received a call from Jailson, who said he'd catch the first bus in the morning from Feira de Santana.
Tuesday, April 23
After a long and refreshing night's sleep, we got up and had breakfast with the Amatos, after which Sister Amato took us to the rodoviária to meet Jailson and then dropped us off at the big municipal elevator that takes people the 700 or so meters from the cidade baixa to the cidade alta and back down. From the top we looked out over the bay (Bahia de Todos os Santos), then began wandering around the upper city, where a guide latched on to us and took us through the numerous old cathedrals dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He told us that each family would build its own church and that eventually Salvador had 365 churches, one for each day of the year. The few we looked at were filled with gold and silver and other precious things (such as described by Mormon in 4 Nephi 1:41 and prophesied by Moroni concerning the last days in Mormon 8:35–39).
At some point the people no longer let the blacks enter their churches, so the slaves had to build their own separate one, which took 120 years or so to build and that with help from the African nations from where they came. When we visited the black church, which was far less ornate without all the rococo and baroque and neo-classic details we learned about in the other churches, we also found out that in that particular church they freely mixed their African religion with Catholicism.
In the final church we visited a dog was lying in the aisle near the front of the church, and the guide asked us if we knew why there was a dog in the church.
"No," we said, "why is there a dog in the church?"
"Because the door was left open," he replied, and we all laughed, and he seemed to enjoy the joke most of all.
We also visited an area called the Pelourinho, where all the houses, shops, and other buildings have been restored to the way they were in that same era of colonial Brazil. We were shown where the royal family lived when they ruled Portugal from Brazil in the early 1800s. We also saw where Jorge Amado, a famous Brazilian author, lived. We ended the morning with a visit to the H. Stern jewelry store and then caught two taxis back to the mission home.
About ten or so elders—some from the office staff, some going home tomorrow—joined us for lunch at the mission home. Miriam and Homerinho were home from school, and with the five of us, the Amatos, and the elders, it was quite a crowd.
This afternoon we sat around talking, reading, writing, visiting, playing with the kids, relaxing. It has been a wonderful day, we all decided. Later in the afternoon and throughout the evening it rained very hard off and on.
This evening was the final dinner and meeting with three missionaries going home tomorrow. Before dinner we watched the video Called to Serve. After dinner we had the meeting with the three missionaries. President Amato spoke of their next mission: the mission to prepare for celestial marriage. This mission has four parts or steps: work, study, serve, and date—all of which are necessary in balance to prepare for celestial marriage. In addition to the three missionaries, it was undoubtedly good counsel for Jailson and David to hear too.
Wednesday, April 24
This morning the skies were clear again, so David, Michael, Jailson, and I decided to go to the beach. David called the same taxi driver that brought us home from the city yesterday to come pick us up and take us to the beach. Shauna and Claudia stayed at the mission home and were there when a group of new missionaries arrived from the MTC in São Paulo to begin their missions. They were there for the welcome dinner and initial meeting that President Amato has with new missionaries.
Meanwhile, back at the beach, the taxi driver took us to a distant beach that had less pollution and less mud from all the rains, where we frolicked about in the waves (especially David), Michael got buried up to his neck in sand, David and I went exploring tide pools (where we found a little turtle and some tropical fish) and walked down toward a light house we could see and got drenched by a rain storm on our walk back.
We found a telephone on the beach, from which we called the taxi again and also PJ Hasleton in Provo. PJ didn’t believe we were really in Brazil, so we had Jailson talk to him also. The taxi driver picked us up and deposited us back at the mission home just in time to shower, change our clothes, and leave with the Amatos for the airport. The two elders leaving for the United States were leaving on a flight to São Paulo within minutes of our flight to Maceió.
The Amatos had been very kind to us, and we greatly enjoyed our visit with them. They will complete their mission in July and will be coming to the United States in August to pick Daniel up from his mission in Texas and to have a reunion with their American missionaries in Utah.
Our flight for Maceió was late leaving Salvador, but the pilot made the trip in about 50 minutes (instead of the hour scheduled), and the flight attendants barely had time to distribute and pick up the meal we were served.
Adriano Tenório and his sister Betânia and her husband were there to meet us at the airport. We had had to check our larger carry-on bags in Salvador (even though we had hauled them all the way from Salt Lake City), but they were ready to pick up about as soon as we were off the plane. We were taken to Virginia's house, where our third meal of the evening was ready for us. (Since we had missed lunch by being at the beach, we had bought hamburgers at the airport in Salvador, after which President Amato bought all of us ice cream. Then we ate on the flight from Salvador to Maceió. And then again at Virginia's house.)
Michael and Shauna went to Betânia’s house to sleep. Claudia, David, and I slept here at Virginia’s—Claudia and I in a little air-conditioned room off the front of her small house, David on a mattress on the living room floor.
Thursday, April 25
We had a good night's sleep, especially Claudia, but I was too cold so got up and turned off the air conditioner. Virginia fed us a big breakfast (all the meals here are big), and we continued visiting with Virginia and all her family. She has eight children: Inez (who studies all week in Recife and returns home on weekends), Alexandre (who lives close by and runs an English language school), Betânia (who lives close by and whose husband is a nonmember), Adriano (who lives at the family farm in Atalaia about 30 minutes into the interior and who is a counselor in the presidency of one of the three stakes here), Andre (whose wife is a sister to Elder Do Carmo, an elder Michael and David knew in the Manaus mission), Pedro, Tiago, and Lucas (the three of whom were born after I left Maceió in 1970). Lucas is adopted.
Later this morning Betânia came by, bringing Michael and Shauna, and she took the four of us on a tour of the city and some of the beaches. We saw the house where the Tenórios used to live in 1970 and the house on Rua Uruguaí where the branch used to meet. We went to Pajuçara Beach and some other beach. My how the city has grown in the 26 years since I came here in April 1970!
While we were out touring the city David had gone with Elder Do Carmo, his former companion, to one of the beaches and had a great time. Everyone thinks the hat he wears is very funny looking. Michael said David bought it in Moab with a booklet that listed more than a hundred uses for it, apparently one of which was as a hat. It looks like a little cloth bag but without a bottom. Or one leg of a pair of swimming trunks with the other leg missing.
This afternoon, after lunch and David's return from the beach, we left Claudia and Shauna here visiting with Virginia and others who came and went while Michael, David, and I caught a taxi to the VARIG office to change our tickets leaving from Maceió: Claudia and I will leave early Monday morning for Manaus instead of Tuesday morning, Michael and Shauna will leave early tomorrow morning for Manaus instead of Monday morning, and David will leave tonight for Santarem instead of Sunday night. There was a $30 charge per ticket, payable only in U.S. dollars, so we had to catch a taxi back to Virginia's to get the money and then back to the VARIG office to complete the negócio. (When Michael and I were here two years ago this August, we made the only change to our Brazilian air pass in the same VARIG office. It was located just a block or so from the house the Tenórios lived in 26 years ago.)
We returned to the house by taxi by about 6:00, by which time it was already dark. David grabbed his stuff and was going to use the same taxi to go on to the airport, but they said that would be way too expensive and wouldn’t hear of it. David had been our banker thus far on the trip, since his friend he met in São Paulo brought him a large supply of reaís, so I bought R$50,00 from him to last us until we met again in Manaus on Monday afternoon. Pedro or Tiago (I'm not sure which one) drove David to the airport in Betânia's car to catch his 8:10 flight to Santarem. He will arrive there at 2:30 or 3:30 in the morning and will be there all day Friday and part of Saturday before traveling on to Manaus.
Betânia this evening took Michael, Shauna, Claudia, and me (along with Gustavo, her son) to a feirinha along the beach and then to the Shopping (a Brazilian shopping mall). At the feirinha Shauna bought a cute little white dress for their baby that's coming in November (if it's a girl) for R$25,00, Claudia five wooden spoons for R$12,00, and Michael a little bottle of colored sand on a key chain for R$1,00. (One U.S. dollar is approximately equal to one real.)
On the way home we witnessed a bicycle accident that could have been more serious had the cyclist fallen into the path of Betânia's car rather than toward the side of the street as he did. The traffic here in Maceió is much calmer than it was in Salvador or than Michael says it is in Manaus, but the streets are far more crowded and busy than when I was here a quarter of a century ago.
We returned to Virginia's house, where we visited some more with Virginia, Betânia, Adriano, and Andre before Michael and Shauna went home to Betânia's apartment. We will not see them again until Monday afternoon when they pick us up at the Manaus airport. They catch a 5:30 flight for Manaus tomorrow morning. Claudia is really going to miss Shauna, who helps her a lot in trying to communicate with the Brazilians.
Friday, April 26
Today was mostly a quiet day visiting with Virginia and her family. I was able to catch up on this account of our trip and think about the fireside talk I've been asked to give Sunday evening. I also wrote out a little testimony for Claudia to learn in Portuguese if she's called on to bear one. This afternoon we took a nap.
Late this afternoon Betânia and the aunt who lives with her came by to take Claudia and me to visit the Pontal, a little village just south, I think, of Maceió located on a beautiful lake, Lagoa Mundaú. We stopped at a restaurant to try various kinds of seafood. Except for our being attacked by mosquitoes, it was a very lovely setting as we watched the sun set over the lake and trees and tudo. After dinner we wandered through some of the little shops, much like we had done at the feirinha on the beach last night. Betânia bought a lovely crocheted table doily and gave it to us as a gift from her and Virginia.
We had all tried to talk Virginia into going with us because we felt she needed a break from caring for four-year-old Miguel (Andre's son), who has been sick all week and seemed to be even worse this afternoon. He was being very difficult and wouldn't eat or take any of his medicine. Poor Virginia seemed to be at her wit's end ("at the foot of her patience," she said), but she stayed to give him a bath. By the time we returned a couple hours later, Miguel seemed to be doing better again.
On our way home from the Pontal, we stopped by Alexandre's English school (where he also happens to live), just a couple blocks away from Virginia's house. Alexandre had visited us in Provo in 1975, when Michael and Rebecca were babies, and Claudia could remember him still. We had a nice visit and then returned to Virginia's.
She had a supper ready for us, even though we had already eaten at the Pontal, but we agreed to take a little. While we were eating, Alexandre showed up with David Cavalcanti Medeiros de Mello, who was one of the young men in the branch when I was the branch president in 1970. His wife of ten years had just died four months ago, leaving him with their three children—a daughter ten, a son seven, and a daughter three. He is still grieving for her and showed us a video he had made of her from their first visit to the United States when the ten-year-old was 14 months old. We saw the video three times before the evening was over. They had been sealed in the Jordan River Temple.
Around 10:30, while Alexandre and David were still here, Inez arrived from Recife. It was getting late, and after a very short visit Inez went to her house to see her two girls (Sara and Carolina). We have now seen all of Virginia's eight children and a number of the grandchildren.
Saturday, April 27
Claudia has an upset stomach and did not sleep well during the night. She only had water, some crackers, and a little banana for breakfast to see if that would calm her stomach and then went to lie down while I visited with Virginia, Inez, and Betânia. It has been raining a lot all week and did so again this morning.
Betânia had planned an excursion for us today, and David de Mello wanted us to come out to his place this afternoon, but we ended up spending the entire day at Virginia's since Claudia still didn't feel well. We napped, I read the scriptures, ate, and visited at various times during the afternoon or evening with Alexandre, Andre, Betânia, and Virginia. We gave Virginia a copy of Rachael's picture of the Bountiful Temple, which she seemed to deeply appreciate. (We had also given copies in Salvador to the Amatos and to Jailson da Rocha.)
Claudia had the same thing for lunch that she did for breakfast: water, some crackers, and a little banana. Tonight she tried some chicken rice soup Virginia made for her. We visited quite a while with Virginia and then went to bed early.
Sunday, April 28
We were up a little earlier than other days to get ready for church, eat breakfast (we are always eating it seems), and leave for church. Virginia, Adriano, and Inez live in the Farol Ward, which meets in the Maceió Brazil Stake center. Adriano later in the day told us, if we understood him correctly, that there are seven chapels in Maceió. Virginia had to be at the church at 9:00 for a choir practice. She is the pianist.
Sacrament meeting began at 9:30 and, except for being in Portuguese, was like any other sacrament meeting anywhere in the world. After the sacrament, the bishop called on me to bear my testimony before the two scheduled speakers spoke. After sacrament meeting we attended the Gospel Doctrine class in Sunday School. This week's lesson was on Mosiah 7–13. Claudia then stayed with Virginia for Relief Society, and Inez joined them after being in Primary. They asked Claudia how to pronounce Elder Henry B. Eyring's name because they were studying the conference talk he gave last October. Claudia could tell it was a true Relief Society because the sister in charge put a tablecloth and a bouquet of flowers on the table. I went to priesthood meeting and, after the opening exercises, stayed with the high priests group, where there were seven of us present. All of the talks and lessons were given with enthusiasm and testimony and were capped off by hearty amens from the class or congregation.
After church we were visiting with some of the missionaries. There was an Elder Jones from Houston, whom we had actually met a couple evenings before at Virginia's house, who reminds us a great deal of Chad Cleverly, who also served in this mission and actually spent one week here in Maceió. There was also an Elder Eric McAllister from Sacramento, who remembered Elder Cleverly and who also knows PJ Hasleton from California. It's a small world. He said he had been thinking of PJ just last night, and I told him we had just called PJ in Provo on Wednesday from a telephone on the beach in Salvador.
Following church we went to Inez's apartment, a nice little place, to eat lunch. Nádia, a cousin of the Tenórios, who was also a member of the branch in 1970 when I was here, joined us. Her sister Hévia died because of an accident about four years ago, and Nádia returned from São Paulo to care for their aged mother. We visited some more, Claudia and I took a nap, and then ate again before leaving for a fireside at the church. Claudia, although feeling better than yesterday, was still a little sick to her stomach, and kept trying to get by on as little as possible at each meal. It has rained every day we've been here, but it really rained hard this afternoon and evening.
Adriano, who is a counselor in the stake presidency, told me the first night we were here that the stake president wanted me to speak at tonight's fireside. I didn't actually know if I was the main speaker or just a part of a larger program. As it turns out, I was a part of a very large program—mostly related to family history—that was very nice but had already gone an hour and a half when I got up, so I only bore a short testimony, followed by one Claudia gave that was a tremendous hit and made people think she is much more fluent in Portuguese than she is. The stake president then closed the fireside with his remarks.
Just before the fireside began, a returned missionary from the Manaus mission by the name of Elder Gerson Jesuino introduced himself, his wife, and child. He said he knew Michael and had just received a copy of O Casa News. He gave us a picture of his little family to give to Michael.
We returned from the fireside to Virginia's house at 9:30 to engage in everyone's favorite activity—eating. It was at least our fourth meal of the day. We gave each of Virginia's kids who have children a little bag of salt-water taffy. Also one for Virginia and the kids who still live with her. We also gave her three stuffed Disney toys—a Mickey Mouse, a Minnie Mouse, and a Dumbo elephant—for her to let the little grandchildren play with when they visit. Last night, when just Virginia was around, we had given her a copy of Rachael's photograph of the Bountiful Temple.
While we were eating, Michael called from Manaus, and we talked to him and David, who had left his camera (which we had already discovered) and perhaps his watch (which we have not seen).
Inez finally went home, and we visited with Virginia and Adriano until 11:30, even though we were going to get up at 3:30 to get ready to go to the airport. It had been a wonderful day. As we were retiring, Claudia said, "This is the hardest vacation I’ve ever enjoyed."
Monday, April 29
We awoke at 3:30, ate again (pois é), and left for the airport to catch our 5:30 flight to Brasília with a stop in Salvador. Virginia and Adriano took us to the airport. We had breakfast twice more—our second one on the Maceió-Salvador flight, our third one on the Salvador-Brasília flight. And then, after a two-hour wait in the Brasília airport for our next flight, we ate a full dinner on the Brasília-Manaus flight. The one problem we may have here in Brazil is being fed to death.
It was wonderful seeing the Tenório family again in Maceió after less than two years—plus the couple other people (David and Nádia) from when I served there as a missionary in 1970. They were sad to see us go and were especially delighted to have met Claudia and Shauna. They are all hoping we'll be back in another two years to pick Talmage up from his mission.
The terminal we waited in in Brasília was circular with large glass windows that gave a panoramic view of the Brasília area. I thought it was cold enough to need to wear Claudia’s jacket that she had been carrying. We watched various flights come and go, and the DC-10 we were to leave on arrived late.
As we approached Manaus we could see from our side of the plane both the Solimões and Rio Negro and the encontra das aguas downstream from Manaus where the two rivers join to form the Amazon. Both rivers are incredibly large, and it was a spectacular sight. Shortly after we got off the plane and got our bag that they made us check in Maceió, we were met by Michael, Shauna, and Sister Francesconi. David was back at the mission home still asleep. First we dropped by the mission office, where we met President Aldo Francesconi and a bunch of missionaries who were there, and then went to the mission home, located on the eighth floor of a nice apartment building, where we sat around and visited.
Pedro, a counselor in a stake presidency here in Manaus, came by and helped us plan our river trip later in the week. This evening we had a lovely meal prepared by Sister Francesconi, visited some more, and went for a swim in the pool below. It had been a long day and Claudia went to bed about 10:30. I called Rachael about 11:00 (9:00 Utah time) and went to bed before 11:30. Michael, Shauna, and David apparently stayed up until 2:00.
Tuesday, April 30
We spent most of today right at the mission home visiting, eating, playing the piano (only Shauna and I did that), reading, or doing stuff on the computer. We sent e-mail messages to home (to Rachael, Talmage, Anna, Camilla, Eliza, and Mary).
I summarized our trip thus far: "We have had a wonderful time thus far—both in Salvador with the Amatos (Claudia's parents) and in Maceió with the Tenórios. The only real problem is that people here try to feed us to death. Now we are here with the Francesconi family in Manaus and will be here off and on until next Monday morning. I am loving the hot weather (as Rachael would if she were here), but Mom thinks it's way too hot. I nearly froze to death yesterday during the two hours we were waiting in the Brasilia airport to catch our plane here to Manaus. The mission home here in Manaus is air conditioned, however, and Mom really likes that. I'm not sure I do."
Claudia wrote: "Sunday I was asked to bear my testimony in a fireside that Dad was speaking at. I did it in Portuguese and surprised everyone. They didn't know I'd been practicing and praying very hard. The Tenórios thought I'd been fooling them all week and really could speak their language much better than my humble attempts. If I could have spoken better, believe me, I wouldn't have wasted a week pretending. But it was fun to surprise them and be able to speak in full and complete sentences and express the feelings of my heart."
Later we received one that Rachael and the other kids sent us last night: "This is Rachael to tell you our exciting adventures while you have been gone. I've been sick since last Tuesday, when I stayed home from work. I thought I was getting better, but then I had to stay home today, too, because I was sick.
"The Monday after you left, Mary swallowed some dishwasher soap while putting soap mustaches on her face. They couldn't find my work phone number on the refrigerator, so she just cried and drank a lot of water. She is not dead. Now we have my phone number written very BIG on a magnet on the fridge.
"Camilla and Eliza have each broken dishes accidentally (just one each; we have plenty still). Eliza also says there was a 1.7 earthquake (she says she heard it on the early morning news, but she was still half asleep and frankly I don't believe her) that broke another dish and knocked some scriptures on the floor.
"This Sunday (yesterday) there was a BIG (and we are not just saying that because they're scary) HAIRY spider that jumped on our wall, and Eliza was even too scared to get it. Here is Eliza to tell you about the experience:
"It was so scary!!! We think it was a wolf spider. I cried really lots, and I started hyperventilating and couldn't feel my face. And then my toes started to tingle. Then Rachael told me don't catch him and just to watch him. Camilla called Becky Young to save us."
Rachael interjected at this point: "She was the only neighbor we could think of who wouldn't laugh at us too bad for being helpless in the face of a ½" hairy spider, though we almost called the Taylors."
Eliza continued: "Then she came with a pie and caught the spider (not with the pie). Then we poured alcohol in the bottle and she shook it around and in about three seconds, he went limp and died."
Rachael some more: "After the spider was taken care of, we went outside to feed birds with stale bread ends. About 20 seagulls came, and that cheered us all up immensely. Then we ate pie. . . .
"Today the lawn got fertilized and Muffit couldn't powder her nose. We drove her down to the school in Kermit so she could relieve herself (though we were going to very responsibly clean up after her). She couldn't get out of the car, though, and when she finally did, she fell flat on her face and scraped up her face and front left leg. It was so-o-o-o sad. She is an old dog. I think she was embarrassed because she got up quickly and limped away, and after a while she was walking just fine again. (As fine as she usually does, anyway.)
"Mary and I left Camilla and Eliza there to play with her while we went to the store to get her a leash and collar (her old one is lost) and some vitamin-enriched doggie treats so they could walk her home. We didn't want to try to get her in and out of the car again. She walked very fast—we were surprised. I think overall she had fun, but it's too bad that she fell.
"Nobody has brought us dinner yet. Anna gets real food every night from the Youngs. I am a bad cook—I burned rice and the quiche I tried to do tasted very strange. But Camilla ate two helpings of it (the quiche, NEVER the rice), so I guess it wasn't so bad. And so did Eliza. I guess I'm sensitive. I never want to be a single mother, because it is stressful to work all day and then come home and have people expect me to work some more on dinner and cleaning and laundry and this and that, and Rachael My Teacher Wants You To Sign This, and Rachael, She Hit Me, and bla-bla-bla. Very bad. But we're having fun, don't get me wrong, and the kids have been on the whole VERY, VERY, VERY cooperative and helpful. I enjoy being in charge, except for the cooking business. And Sister Strasser says she'll bring something over in a few days, so that will be nice."
This evening Shauna went with Renata to her English class. Renata asked Shauna if she were nervous, and Shauna responded, "No, I speak English very well." Afterward they went to the Shopping.
Claudia went shopping for food with Sister Francesconi. David and Michael participated in a chat session on the Internet with David's brother Ryan in Utah. The session abruptly ended when President Francesconi's monthly amount of time suddenly ran out without any prior warning. Claudia did our laundry in the Francesconis' washing machine and dryer.
The mission home occupies the entire eighth floor of the apartment building and has a large living room/dining room, a large kitchen (where we've spent much of our time today), at least four large bedrooms, and at least three baths that I'm aware of. Many of the rooms have spacious windows with sliding glass doors that open on to little balconies. From our bedroom balcony we can look out over some houses and a lot of forest. One kind of tree is covered with pretty red flowers. There must be a lot of open fires around because we can often see smoke rising from half a dozen places at any given time. The balconies from the living room look out over the swimming pool and a large undeveloped piece of ground that right now are two red-dirt soccer fields.
Later this evening, sometime after 9:30, Sister Francesconi took Claudia and me and her two daughters—Audrey and Stephanie—to a nice place along the river that has been developed into a park for walking and biking and skating (Audrey and Stephanie took their roller blades) and where concerts are sometimes held. It was very pleasant and we ended our outing by buying chilled coconuts and drinking the water from them. That was very refreshing. Michael and David had gone off to do something with Renata's brother Roberto, and they and Shauna were still gone when we returned.
Manaus is as clean a city as I've seen here in Brazil, and both Michael and David said it is noticeably cleaner than when they served here two years ago. Sister Francesconi says there has been a major campaign in the last six months to really clean the place up and plant trees and flowers along the middle of the main thoroughfares and praças and such.
Both Claudia and David are still sick to their stomachs—David I think even more so than Claudia from the bad food he ate or bad water he drank in Santarem on Friday. Sister Francesconi bought some medicine (Bactrim F), which Claudia started taking tonight after our visit to the river. By morning she felt tremendously better.
Wednesday, May 1
Today is Labor Day in Brazil. On Friday we will be going on a boat to the encontra das aguas (the Encounter of the Waters), where the two rivers meet to form the Amazon River. Today could well have been considered o dia da encontra da gente (the day of the encounter of the people). It happened like this:
Sometime this afternoon Roberto Mello (sometimes affectionately called Bob) came by the mission home to pick us up (Michael, Shauna, David, Claudia, and me) to go to the Shopping. He tried calling his sister Renata to come get some of us so it wouldn't be so crowded in his little car, but no one was home. So we all piled in his car—Shauna and Roberto in the two front seats, Michael, Claudia, and I in the back seat, and David on Claudia's lap. As we drove into the parking lot of the Shopping, there were Renata, her mom, and her grandmother in the car right in front of us. We parked next to each other and wandered through the mall together, and we bought some more post cards, and Michael and Shauna and the Grandma some Pringles potato chips.
Afterward Claudia and I rode with Sister Mello and Grandma. The other car was supposed to follow us but didn't, so we went to the Hotel Tropical, which is in a lovely setting on the Rio Negro just past Ponta Negra Beach, where we went last night with Sister Francesconi and her girls. At the hotel we went through the zoo, which has tropical birds and animals that are native to northern Brazil.
As we were walking back through the lobby of the hotel to leave, we happened to see right in front of us Elder Adam Pettey, who is being released, and his parents who arrived this afternoon from Houston to pick him up. Our second fortunate but unplanned encounter. We visited with the Petteys a few moments while they were waiting for Sister Francesconi to come pick them up.
We were in an awkward position, having been invited out to dinner by both the Francesconis and the Mellos, and having left the mission home without Sister Francesconi's knowing where we had gone or when we'd be back. We agreed we'd go with the Francesconis and Petteys and let Michael, Shauna, and David stay with the Mellos. On her way back to drop us off at the mission home, Sister Mello received a call on her cellular phone from Roberto, Renata, and the others. They had stopped at Ponta Negra Beach instead of coming just a little further to the Hotel Tropical. They reminded their mother that she and they were attending an Institute class tonight, so that's what the other car full of people were doing while Claudia and I went back to the mission home to participate with the Francesconi family and the Petteys in the release meeting for Elder Pettey. It was very much like a family home evening. Each person had to share a talent—most being musical numbers on the piano, flute, or guitar, or singing, and Claudia's bearing her testimony in Portuguese. She did very well but was more nervous than when she did it Sunday night in Maceió.
President Francesconi told a touching story about a young man, son of a Protestant minister, who joined the Church in a city where Elder Pettey had worked, who had just gone on a mission despite intense opposition from the father and the ministers of that church. Originally the young man had followed around behind the missionaries in that town leaving anti-Mormon literature, but the missionaries taught him, and he felt the Spirit and was converted.
Elder Pettey was translating for his parents (his father speaks German and his mother a little Spanish) and at the end, when President Francesconi expressed love and appreciation for the elder, he got very emotional and had a hard time completing the translation. The elder then bore his testimony in English so his parents could understand and then joined with President Francesconi, Sister Francesconi, Audrey, and Stephanie in singing the mission song. It was a tender meeting.
After the meeting we all went in two cars to a churrascaria somewhere in the old part of Manaus and had dinner. The third encounter was about to happen. Near the end of our meal Michael, Shauna, David, and all the Mellos walked in and sat at tables just beyond ours.
Eating at a churrascaria is an interesting experience. You don't really order from a menu or anything, but waiters keep coming around with platters of food or long skewers of meat of all different types and asking if you want any. If you say yes to the meat, they slice off a piece for you. I suppose we tried five or six different kinds of meat, and that was maybe only half of what they offered to us. Sister Francesconi was our guide on what to try or what to pass up. The Petteys were quite adventuresome and were willing to try all the strange new things. Claudia felt up to eating again because last night she started to take the medicine Sister Francesconi gave her, and she feels so much better today.
Thursday, May 2
We never have had or probably never again will have an adventure quite like today's. We can now say we have flown over the Amazon jungle, driven through it, walked through it, and after tomorrow floated through it.
We awoke early (at 5:45) to get ready to leave for a day's outing to a town called Presidente Figueredo, which is about two and a half to three hours out into the jungle north from Manaus, although we probably left at least an hour later than our intended 6:30 departure. There were 12 of us all totaled: President Aldo Francesconi, Sister Francily Francesconi, Craig Pettey, Nann Pettey, Adam Pettey, Irmão Pedro (our guide), Renata Mello, David Monson, Michael, Shauna, Claudia, and I. We traveled in three cars—the Francesconis' two cars and the one the Petteys were renting.
Sister Mello joined us for breakfast at a little place we stopped at on the road just outside of Manaus, an outdoor restaurant that specializes in regional foods, then returned to work. Claudia and I had hot egg sandwiches that were very good and guaraná for breakfast. Except for some chocolate cookies we bought later in the day at Presidente Figueredo, it would be our only meal until tonight back at the mission home.
The road to Presidente Figueredo, which someday is supposed to connect Manaus with Caracas, Venezuela, had long stretches that were under construction (at least they were not paved, although we did not see a lot of work going on), and the travel on those sections was very rough. At one point we had to cross a temporary little wooden bridge and had to get out of the cars to help reconstruct one end of it before we felt comfortable in going over the river. Except for the three drivers, the rest of us walked across. On our return, it was raining when we reached the bridge (as it did off and on throughout the day), so we all stayed in the cars to cross. We were very grateful for the stretches of road that were paved.
When we reached the town of Presidente Figueredo it was raining pretty hard. We stopped long enough to go the bathroom, buy supplies (cookies, flashlights, plastic garbage bags, and water), and allow Brother Pettey to call home to Texas. Then we drove to a place eight or ten kilometers away, where we parked the cars and headed out into the forest. Even though the rain had stopped, it was still raining a lot under the dense trees, and after tearing holes for our necks and arms to fit through we all put plastic garbage sacks on to keep us dry. Pedro was our guide, and he led us along a very muddy and sometimes steep path through the jungle. The soil appeared to be clay and was very slippery when wet. After what seemed to be a very long hike, we reached a waterfall and behind it the mouth of a cave that had a little stream flowing out of it.
Despite a little hand-lettered sign that said, "Don’t risk the cave," we hiked into the cave, walking through the water, some of us barefoot (which may not have been wise), and saw lots of bats hanging from the ceilings of the various corridors we explored. We didn't look too closely at creatures that were on the ground beside the stream. At one point we turned off all our flashlights, and it was completely dark. I think most of us were very glad to get out of the cave. The return hike back to where the cars were parked along the road left us hot and sweaty and dirty, even though it was a relatively cool but very humid day for the Amazon region.
We drove back to Presidente Figueredo and parked along a fast-moving, muddy river and washed our shoes off and rested for a while. We had planned to go see some more spectacular waterfalls than the little one we had seen, but I guess they decided it was getting too late in the day and everyone was too tired, so we headed back to Manaus.
Evening was coming on as we arrived, and we stopped at a restaurant to see about eating, but it didn't open for another couple hours, so we took the Petteys back to the Hotel Tropical, and the rest of us returned to the mission home, where we all took showers and Sister Francesconi prepared us left-overs to eat while she and President Francesconi went out for the evening with some friends (Mike Deputy and his wife) who are in town from Utah. We were tired and sore and grateful for beds to sleep in tonight. David stayed with the Mellos.
Friday, May 3
This afternoon we began our excursion on the river. Originally we were to have left at noon, but they decided 10:00 would be better, which was probably good because with that deadline it still took us until after noon to get everyone gathered to the boat and a couple more hours beyond that before we left the port of Manaus. In our party were the five of us, the three Petteys, the two Francesconi girls (Audrey and Stephanie), Presidente Álvaro and Marta and their three children, and Presidente Pedro and his wife and children—about 20 people. In the end neither President or Sister Francesconi nor any of the Mellos were able to go.
After leaving the port we traveled down the Rio Negro to where it joins the Solimões and becomes the Amazon River. The place is called the encontro das aguas (the Encounter of the Waters) and is distinctly visible because the black waters of the Rio Negro and the light brown of the Solimões do not mix for many miles downstream. It is an interesting site.
Next our boat took us back up the Rio Negro to a place opposite Manaus, where we got off and saw giant lily pads, Vitória Régia (Queen Victoria, so named by the English explorer who first found them). At the little floating restaurant there we also bought water and pop and meandered through a little gift shop.
Just after we got back on the boat, the sun was setting in the west, reflecting brilliantly across the water of this huge river, the planet Venus shining brightly above it, while the moon was rising in the east, a giant red-orange ball coming out of the forest jungle. It was an awesome sight that neither pen nor brush could begin to capture. What an incredible world the Lord has created for us to enjoy!
Today had been the clearest day we've seen in the nearly two weeks we've been here in Brazil and consequently the hottest day since we've been here in Manaus. The temperatures have been very mild in Claudia's behalf.
Tonight the stars were out, and we could identify o cruzeiro do sul (the Southern Cross), the southern hemisphere's equivalent to our Big Dipper. Most of us, after eating our evening meal, were sitting on the topmost of the three decks, enjoying the soft breeze as our boat steadily made its way up the river. Late in the evening Marta, who is the regional Young Women camp director, led us in a campfire program (without the campfire) such as might occur among Latter-day Saint youth anywhere in the world. She assigned each family to sing something: we did the birthday song in Portuguese, Craig Pettey sang "O Tannenbaum" in German, Adam Pettey and Michael sang the mission song, Shauna did her rendition of "Happy Birthday" in Hebrew (which is really just the Hebrew numbers sung to the same tune), and so on. Then we retired to our redes (hammocks) on the middle deck and settled in for the night.
Sleeping all night in a hammock is an experience in itself but, coupled with the swaying boat and a cool breeze across the river, made for a somewhat restless, uncomfortable night. Who ever would have thought that we would feel like we were freezing here in the heart of the Amazon jungle!
Saturday, May 4
Sometime during the night the boat docked on an island in the river and was there when we awoke this morning. Pedro, our guide on this trip, told us that in this stretch of the river there is an archipelago with more than a thousand islands, one of which we went exploring after breakfast. During this hike through the jungle, we saw various forms of plant and animal life (mostly spiders and bugs) and heard various bird sounds. Claudia saw various huge colored butterflies.
After reboarding the boat, we returned to the place where we had parked during the night and on the boat ate a midday meal prepared by the people who lived there—rice, fish, and chicken. While some of us napped in our hammocks, others went on a canoe ride and swimming in the river (and didn't get eaten by piranha) and saw fresh-water dolphins swimming in the river.
Álvaro's and Marta's youngest child, 17-month-old Plínio, was a cute little challenge throughout the trip. He was big enough to try to get into everything and small enough to have little sense. After he had seen the others swimming in the river, he kept wanting to climb overboard and jump right in. It was a great challenge for everyone to keep watch on him during the rest of the trip.
Álvaro and Marta, who for ten years have been trying to make it to the United States, will be coming for October conference and will be in Utah about two weeks. He travels a lot in his work and has now earned enough free miles for he and his wife to come to Los Angeles and back. They are nice people, and it would be good to see them again. Álvaro is a stake president in one of the three stakes here in Manaus. Pedro is a counselor in a different stake presidency.
We have also really enjoyed getting to know the Petteys too. Craig is a dentist and was released last July as bishop in the Houston area. Adam is the oldest of their three children. A brother is in Germany, where Craig also served his mission (and knew Bruce Harper). A 16-year-old daughter is at home in Texas.
Throughout the afternoon we were on our way back toward Manaus. It clouded up and rained. We stopped at Ilha dos Macacos (Monkey Island) to see a rehabilitation center for monkeys being prepared to return to the wild. There were about 450 monkeys of various types there. We had to take off any jewelry and keep together in a tight group to discourage the monkeys from jumping right on us. No one got jumped.
In this middle part of the planet, so near the equator, daylight and darkness are pretty much equal year round, lasting about 12 hours each, so the sun comes up about 6:00 in the morning and goes down about 6:00 in the evening.
A little after dark the boat docked at the Hotel Tropical, where yesterday Álvaro and Audrey had joined us, and most of us (except Pedro and his family) got off the boat instead of waiting another hour to get back to the port. The Petteys were staying at the hotel, and Sister Francesconi came to pick us up.
We went back to the mission home, showered, changed, ate a snack, and went to the Shopping, where at 8:30 we had agreed to meet the Petteys and President Álvaro and Marta. Roberto and Renata also showed up. Mom bought T-shirts for each of the children at home.
Sunday, May 5
Fast Sunday. Beginning at 9:00 we attended fast and testimony meetings in two different wards in the same building—the Alvorada and Flores wards. Michael had known people from his mission in both wards. During part of the second meeting, Shauna had to get up to stretch her legs and, while she was out in the hallway, got invited to go into Young Women in the other ward. Throughout our trip people have been commenting on how young Shauna and Michael look.
Like last Sunday in Maceió, we found the meetings to be such as you might experience anywhere in the world—except for being very hot and very much in Portuguese. In each ward there was a child blessed, although in the first one they had to do it a second time because the child's mother stood in the circle to hold the baby. There was a steady stream of people—including children—bearing brief, heart-felt testimonies in both meetings. It was hard to hear those who didn't speak directly into the microphones because of the noise of the whirling ceiling fans.
Back at the very air-conditioned mission home, Sister Francesconi served a lovely meal of sweet-and-sour meatballs, corn, peas, rice, and pistachio pudding. We spent a quiet afternoon listening to a CD of Tabernacle Choir hymns, catching up on the account of our trip, calling home to the children, and looking through The Mission: Inside the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the large picture book recently published by Time Warner Books. There is a three- or four-page picture essay on one of the caravans from Manaus to the São Paulo Temple in the book that has pictures of some of the people we met and a lady that Michael baptized while he was here as a missionary. Each caravan takes a week to get to the temple (three days in a boat on the river and another four days on the road in a bus), spends a week in São Paulo attending the temple, and another week returning home.
This evening we went with Michael and Shauna to catch another ward just as it was ending at 7:00, although some of the people he had hoped to see there weren't there. Sister Francesconi dropped the four of us off. David had spent the day with the Mellos. We did see President Álvaro again, who had come for a 7:30 fireside. Renata and David showed up. And also the Petteys, so Claudia and I rode with them back to the mission home. We just met them four days ago, but all we've been through together makes it seem like we've known them forever. Michael and Shauna went to Francisco and Maralena's house for a while before returning to the mission home. Just as we arrived with the Petteys at the mission home, one of the other stake presidents in Manaus, the one Pedro is a counselor to, arrived in a taxi with his wife and went up the elevator with us to the eighth floor. All of us spent a delightful evening visiting, telling stories, sharing jokes (which sometimes translate well into another language and sometimes don't), and eating homemade pizza prepared by Sister Francesconi.
Late in the evening, after many of the others had left, I helped Michael and President Francesconi translate from Portuguese an announcement for the Church News about the virtual missionary reunion at April conference held over the Internet between former Brazil Manaus missionaries gathered with Elder Costa at Shauna's parents' house in Bountiful and with President Francesconi and others gathered in Manaus.
Our week here in Manaus has been wonderful. The activities have been varied and interesting, the people warm and friendly, the hospitality of the Francesconis open and generous, our newfound friendship with the Petteys delightful and rewarding. A wonderful week.
Monday, May 6
The third and final week of our trip begins. Even though we got to bed sometime after midnight, probably closer to 1:00, Claudia got up at 5:00, the rest of us around 5:30, to get ready for Sister Francesconi to take us to the airport to catch our 7:30 flight to Rio Branco. David, who had spent the night with the Mellos, had overslept but arrived at the airport quick enough to get on the plane with us. Sister Mello, Roberto, and Renata brought him to the airport, and we got a chance to tell them goodbye too. Roberto, along with his other two brothers, will begin their missions in a couple months. Renata and her mother will visit the United States in November or December. President Francesconi will be coming in either October or January. If it's in October, it sounds like Sister Francesconi will come too.
We left Manaus at 7:30 and flew for about an hour and 10 minutes to Porto Velho, sat there for about 20 minutes, and then flew another 45 minutes to Rio Branco, which is the capital and largest city of the state of Acre. We were served breakfast on the first leg of the flight and a snack on the second. We landed in Rio Branco just a little before 9:00. (Acre is in a different time zone than Manaus, comparable to the Central daylight savings time in the United States. Manaus is comparable to Eastern daylight savings time. And the coastal areas, such as Maceió and Salvador, are an hour ahead of that.)
On the flight we were all on row 14—Michael, Shauna, and David on the right side of the aisle, Claudia and I on the left. I visited with a man sitting next to me, Sebastião Gama Dias, who lives in Rio Branco. He gave me his card and invited us to get in touch with him if there was anything he could do for us while we were in Rio Branco. He is an electronic technician, father of three daughters, native of Goiás, resident of Rio Branco for 13 years. In July he will travel to Toronto for something related to his business, his first trip to anywhere outside South America. He also gave me a number of his uncle, Deusdediti Leal da Gama, a medical doctor in Foz do Iguaçu, if we needed anything when we're there.
After getting our luggage, we caught two taxis (at a cost of R$5,00 each) to the Pinheiro Palace Hotel (the Pinetree Palace Hotel), apparently the nicest place in town, and checked in—Michael, Shauna, and David in room 110, and Claudia and I in room 113. We took naps, then walked through the downtown area a few blocks to get some food just a few doors down the street from one of our chapels. After eating lunch, we walked back up to the telephone company and placed calls to Korea Air and Delta Airlines in São Paulo to confirm our trip home. Michael, Shauna, Claudia, and I leave São Paulo just after midnight Sunday morning and arrive home in Salt Lake at 1:30 Sunday afternoon. David changed his flight home to Tuesday, May 21.
We then returned to the hotel, where we found the power had gone out and hence our air conditioners were not working. Michael, who spent the last six months of his mission here in Rio Branco, said that they didn't have enough electricity to power the whole city so they used to turn the power off to different parts of town at different times of the day. Downtown was never turned off during the middle of the day, so he assumed this outage was not a planned shutdown.
Michael and David went out wandering about the city looking for people they knew when they were here as missionaries. Apparently they were headed in completely the wrong direction, but a bishop of one of the wards here saw them on the bus and told them where to find the people they were looking for. Shauna, Claudia, and I stayed in our air-conditioned rooms in the hotel reading, writing, napping, and otherwise enjoying ourselves. This evening, after Michael and David returned, we ate in the hotel restaurant across the street and had a delicious meal of filet mignon, rice, vegetables, potatoes, and such. Michael, Shauna, and David went to a home evening at some member's house, where about 20 people had been invited that knew them from before. They arrived about the time the closing song and prayer were being offered. Claudia and I returned to our hotel room and watched Whoopi Goldberg speak Portuguese in a dubbed version of Sister Act on television. After the movie, the other three returned, we visited a while, and then we all went to bed.
Tuesday, May 7
David was up early to go to the church at 8:30 to meet someone he knew. The rest of us took too long getting up and missed the free breakfast offered by the hotel, which we thought ended at 10:00 but really ended at 9:00, but they kindly got more food out (bread, cheese, ham, and cake) and let us eat anyway. We went back to our rooms to plan out our day and were visited by a young man named Mitch, who is an elders quorum president here in town. He served his mission in Santa Caterina in southern Brazil, where he also met and married his wife. He joined the Church here in Rio Branco in 1989, the year after the first missionaries came here. His parents were originally from Maceió.
After Mitch left, David finished packing then left to go have lunch with someone he met last night who had told him when he was here as a missionary that if he ever returned to visit they would kill the duck. Michael, Shauna, Claudia, and I went walking around the city center, getting money from an ATM, walking through Rio Branco's version of the Shopping (a very small mall that wouldn't have reminded anyone of Manaus's Shopping), looking through some other stores (where we could not find post cards), and at the post office sending telegrams to people Michael knows in São Paulo advising them we were coming.
We then caught a taxi out to Conjunto Universitário, out beyond the Federal University of Acre, to see where Michael used to live and work as a missionary. He pointed out the chapel where the branch (now a ward) met, the street where he and PJ Hasleton lived when they were companions, the public telephone on which he was informed that Grandma Lange had died, and the place where Matt North used to live.
Although checkout time was noon, the hotel said we could stay without additional charge until it was time to go the airport. David returned from his luncheon appointment, where they did not kill the duck, and at 3:00 we checked out of the hotel (our portion of the two rooms and last night's dinner was R$100,00), took two taxis to the airport (R$5,00 each), and checked in for our 4:40 flight to Porto Velho, which actually left at 4:30. This was our first flight where there was no assigned seating. Some of the members Michael and David knew came to the airport to see us off, and David bought ice cream for the children who came. We had not eaten lunch, so the little snack we were served on the 50-minute flight from Rio Branco to Porto Velho was most welcomed.
Porto Velho is the capital and largest city of the state of Rondônia. It is where Michael began his mission and is probably his least favorite place in Brazil. We are here so he can show us the contrast between Rio Branco (where he finished his mission and probably his favorite place in Brazil) and Porto Velho. David also served here; this is where they both had Jailson da Rocha as companions; and this is where Michael and David first met each other.
Our taxi from the airport to the hotel cost R$25,00, which we felt was a major rip-off. We checked into the Hotel Vila Rica, a lovely five-star hotel that is much larger and much nicer than Rio Branco’s three- or four-star Pinheiro Palace Hotel. Claudia and I are in room 308, and Michael, Shauna, and David are in room 405. After settling in, we went down to the restaurant and ate a lovely meal of filet mignon, rice, and potatoes. The food was good, but the portions were far smaller than we had last night. Michael, David, and I ordered orange juice, which they served in little pitchers that filled each glass at least three times. Michael, David, and I went swimming afterward in the Vila Rica's outdoor pool. That was refreshing.
Wednesday, May 8
A little after 9:00 we went to the restaurant for the free breakfast that comes with our room. There was a wide variety of fruits, drinks, breads, cakes, meats, etc. Shauna also had cornflakes, and I had what appeared to be an omelet. After breakfast David tracked down a place to rent a car, and he and I went to pick it up and get more cash from an ATM. (The car rental place came to the hotel to pick us up, agreed to let us store our luggage all day with them, let us keep the car until 11:30 tonight, and drove us to the airport after we turned the car in. We were given a bottle of wine for renting the car, which the moça who helped us suggested we drink after returning the car. We just left it in the back of the car.)
We returned to the hotel at noon, the time we had to check out, and got everyone and all our bags (our portion of the hotel and last night's dinner and this morning's breakfast care to R$130,00), and took them to the car rental place to store for the day. We then drove down by the Rio Madeira (the Wood River), on which Porto Velho is located, and visited the train museum, apparently one of the big tourist spots in town. It was very hot, so we sat for a while in the shade by the river and enjoyed the breeze coming off the muddy brown water. This river was much smaller than the Rio Negro or the Solimões but is larger than any rivers I’ve seen in the United States except maybe the Colombia and the Mississippi.
We went to a pharmacy to buy some more anti-diarrhea medicine, looked for a place to eat and decided, even though it would cost more, to return to the hotel restaurant because it was air-conditioned. There was a man playing the piano whose music reminded us of Tom Brandon's.
After lingering as long as we could in the cool place, we all piled in our little air-conditioned rental car and went exploring parts of Porto Velho where Michael and David had lived and worked. We found the house where a family lives that David baptized nearly four years ago. The father is now the branch president of one of Porto Velho's six branches. There were three branches when Michael and David served here. Except for a short visit Michael, David, and I made to another family on the next block, and a visit all of us made to a married daughter, we spent the entire afternoon and evening with this family before taking our car back at 11:30 and then being taken to the airport. I had to rent the car and be the driver because I was the only one 25 years old (except for Claudia, of course, who had no interest in driving in Brazilian traffic). The rental cost us R$103,00.
During part of the evening it rained very hard and filled the dirt streets in this part of town with lots of mud and huge puddles of water in the otherwise dry craters that we constantly tried to navigate around. Every city we've been in here in Brazil has lombadas (speed bumps), but Porto Velho even has them on its dirt streets as well as its paved ones.
Thursday, May 9
At 1:00 this morning we left Porto Velho for Foz do Iguaçu. Even though it was the middle of the night and we wanted to sleep the whole trip, we were fed two meals—one after leaving Porto Velho and another one after a stop in Cuiabá. In São Paulo we changed planes and were fed again before reaching Curitiba, the capital and largest city of the state of Paraná and the headquarters of Talmage's mission. In Curitiba we changed planes and were fed again before reaching Foz do Iguaçu at 10:30. The plane made a big circle over the Falls before we landed, which gave everyone on the left side of the plane a panoramic view of the famous cataracts. Unfortunately, our luggage did not arrive with us and probably didn't make the fairly quick connection in Curitiba.
We had to take two taxis to our hotel because airport regulations wouldn't allow more than four passengers in the same taxi. On the way to the hotel David arranged with his taxi driver to take us tomorrow up to Itaipu dam, the Argentina side of the Falls, and to the airport for R$120,00. That sounded like a reasonable deal—our own taxi and guide from 9:00 in the morning until 2:30 in the afternoon. (The taxis from the airport cost R$16,00 each.)
We are staying in the Hotel Tropical, which is a five-star fancy hotel right on the edge of the Falls, inside the Iguaçu National Park. It is associated with or owned by the same company that owns VARIG, so we were given a 40 percent discount on our rooms because we flew in on VARIG airlines. Claudia and I were in room 2101, and the other three were in 2128 just around the corner. We anticipated that Iguaçu would be the most expensive part of the trip because it is a resort destination, and it was (especially the food).
After eating in the hotel restaurant, we walked down to see the Falls. Wow! A year ago at this time, we visited Niagara Falls, and I'm not sure I'd even list them in the same category as Iguaçu. From the Brazilian side of the river there is an incredible panoramic view of all the falls (there are between 150 and 300 separate falls, depending on the water flow at various times of the year). We followed this little path that kept opening whole new vistas to us. There were swarms of gorgeous butterflies of all sizes, colors, and descriptions all around, including one variety that had an 88 on each wing when they were folded. The butterflies would land on our clothes or fingers or wherever. They were almost as spectacular as all the water falls.
Michael and Shauna returned to the hotel because Michael had to make a quick trip to the bathroom, so David, Claudia, and I continued on until we came to a boardwalk that actually went out over the water and was in the mist right below Devil's Throat, the largest single falls. Words do not begin to describe the experience. The cool mists. The crashing thunder. The foaming water. The energy of it all. At the end there was an elevator that took us back up to the top.
As we walked back toward the hotel, Claudia and I saw about five or six animals (guati or something like that) that looked like a big rodent with a nose something like an anteater's, paws like a raccoon's, and a tail like a raccoon's. They could climb well and appeared to like to hang around people, probably because the tourists feed them. One followed us until it could tell we weren't going to feed it.
Back at the hotel, we took showers, napped, and read. Rather than go to the restaurant or grill, we decided to order in room service. We had hamburgers. The temperature all day was delightful, not at all like it had been in the North, and was even on the cool side tonight. It was definitely jacket weather.
At 9:30 Claudia and I went to a presentation about the Iguaçu National Park and learned lots of interesting things about the area. The Falls are on the Iguaçu River, which begins somewhere near Curitiba and flows from east to west until it flows into the much larger Paraná River six kilometers downstream from the Falls. Here at Iguaçu the river forms the international border between Brazil and Argentina, and the Paraná River, flowing north to south, forms the border between Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina. The Itaipu dam is just north of the town of Foz do Iguaçu on the Paraná River and is the largest hydroelectric dam in the world, providing about 75 percent of Paraguay’s electricity and 22 percent of Brazil's. Were the dam operated at full capacity, Brazil's half of the electricity could provide about 70 percent of Brazil's energy needs.
Friday, May 10
We awoke fairly early (at 6:00 and again at 7:00), so David could go explore the Falls some more and so all of us could eat the free breakfast provided by the hotel and be all checked out by 9:00, when the taxi driver arrived to take us on our tour. The total cost of our one-night stay in the hotel was R$491,00, about R$100,00 each, much of it because of the very expensive food.
The taxi driver took us through the town of Foz do Iguaçu on the way to the Itaipu dam, where we went through the visitor center, saw a film, and then took a bus tour of the dam. During this tour we went on the Paraguay side of the river for a little bit. Back at the visitor center, we met our taxi driver again, and he took us into Argentina to see that side of the Iguazu Falls.
There are at least two main walkways, and we all took the upper path that wandered through Argentina’s Iguazu National Park and brought us within feet of some of the falls. It was a less panoramic view of all the falls, but it was interesting in its own way. David also took the lower walk, which took him down under or behind some of the falls. On his hike he saw a big snake, and we were grateful we were not with him. We saw a herd of 19 guatis (if that's their true name), and Michael fed one of them a cracker, and they all came back and wanted to follow us. He took a lot of pictures of them.
When we entered the national park, we had to pay a $5.00 entrance fee per person in either Argentine pesos or U.S. dollars. We paid in dollars and got some of our change back in dollars and some in Brazilian reaís. A couple of little shops we bought food or butterfly magnets at took our U.S. currency but not our Brazilian money.
We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to Iguaçu, even though it was our most expensive place, and we were glad we came. Everyone we had talked to before our trip who had ever been here said it was a must-see place, and we certainly agree.
Our taxi driver drove us back into Brazil and left us at the Foz do Iguaçu airport. On the way he stopped on the bridge that crosses the Iguaçu River just before it empties into the Paraná River and took a picture of Michael, David, and me with Paraguay in the background, Argentina on the left, and Brazil on the right. The area is referred to as the Tres Fronteiras.
At the airport we caught our final VARIG flight non-stop back to São Paulo. We landed at Gaurulhos International Airport and wondered what would happen next. We had made no specific arrangements with anyone, and Michael had not made contact with Elder and Sister Costa, who at April conference had invited them to come see them in São Paulo. David met Roberto, his first missionary companion, and went off to spend the next ten days with him.
I called the family Sister Francesconi had arranged from Manaus for Claudia and me to stay with, although they live near the temple and were supposed to pick us up there because everyone thought the Costas were bringing us from the airport to the temple. The Petteys, who had been at Iguaçu the day before us, had spent the previous night with this family—we didn't even know their names, just had a telephone number—and the husband was bringing them out to the Gaurulhos airport so they could catch their flights home to Texas, Adam on a different flight from his parents. They expected it would be at least a two-hour drive from their house.
After that we waited and waited. Two hours. Three hours. We made a sign that said Cleverly and put it on top of our luggage. Later I thought I'd go wandering around the airport looking for someone I did not know who looked like he might be looking for us. I made a smaller sign that said Cleverly and clipped it onto my shirt. Two or three different people stopped to tell Claudia that they'd seen who she was looking for because they'd seen me with my sign.
Finally I saw Adam Pettey, and he took me back to where Irmão Milton was holding his place in line so that Adam could come looking for us. (We had not realized that the Petteys would be with him or we could have been less concerned about finding each other.) We had a chance to tell the Petteys good-bye and then rode with Irmão Milton to their little apartment, where the four of us spent the night.
Saturday, May 11
Milton and Euara Aversa have three children—a married son living in Curitiba, a son currently on a mission in Paraguay, and an 18-year-old daughter named Rebeca. Shauna had known Rebeca in Provo. This daughter will be returning to Utah in June to attend LDS Business College but has no housing arranged yet. We offered our place, which Milton and Eurara were deeply touched by, but they also have to check with two American missionaries from the Salt Lake City area who were having their families check on possibilities. They said they could let us know in about ten days.
After eating breakfast, Milton drove us to the temple, where Michael had arranged with six former Manaus missionaries to meet him at 10:00. Four of the six showed up, plus he saw another former missionary working in the temple. We visited for a while in front of the temple, walked across the street to a little LDS bookstore called Zion's, and returned to the temple to go through the 11:15 endowment session in Portuguese. It was a beautiful day.
Sometime in recent months the São Paulo Temple has started staying open all night Friday to accommodate patrons from the outlying areas and even people from the greater São Paulo area who can come during the middle of the night. As far as we're aware, it is the only temple to run a full shift from its opening on Friday morning until it closes Saturday afternoon.
At the temple complex is the temple itself with a lovely garden in front of it, a large chapel to the side, the MTC/temple patron accommodation center behind that, and the area offices behind that. A new, much larger MTC is being built elsewhere that is supposed to be done by the end of this year.
About 2:00 Irmão Milton returned to pick us up. Michael and Shauna went with Sister Bittencourt to explore downtown São Paulo. Claudia and I went with Milton to a nearby shopping center, where we looked for some stuff and bought 40 packages of artificially flavored maracujá powder at the supermercado. As he drove us back to their apartment, Milton showed us around the area a little. We spent the afternoon visiting, eating a late lunch or early supper, and got to meet Euara’s mother and sister.
We bonded with the Aversa family and felt like we'd known them forever, even though we'd just met yesterday. Euara and Francily Francesconi are best friends, which is how we came to even be in their home. Euara is the stake Primary president, and she and Claudia shared a lot of Primary ideas. Later, while I was playing their little organ, Claudia was helping Euara in the kitchen, and they were getting along wonderfully—Euara in Portuguese with her very few words of English, Claudia in English with her very few words of Portuguese. Only occasionally did they have to come in and ask me to translate for them.
Sometime around 7:00 p.m. Michael, Shauna, and Sister Bittencourt returned. We had dessert again, gathered up all our stuff, told the family good-bye, and left for the airport in Milton's car. We dropped Sister Bittencourt off near where she lives in another bairro then went to the airport. We checked in, found everything in order with our tickets (which was comforting since we had changed our return flight times), and waited to board our Korean Air flight. At the gate Michael and Shauna couldn't find a good place to sit and they happened to stand behind some other guy in front of the door that wouldn't yet open for another half hour or 40 minutes or whatever, and by the time we got there this huge line had formed behind them. Even though we were at the front of the line, they boarded all the first class, executive class, and something-else class people first. Then everyone else. They don't do it in any kind of systematic way, such as by row number as is customarily done in the United States. When we all got to board the plane, we found it was very full of people. The four of us were sitting together in the middle section. The plane left São Paulo's Gaurulhos airport at 20 minutes after midnight. Our wonderful adventure in Brazil was coming to a close.
Sunday, May 12
Mother's Day. After traveling all night from São Paulo, we arrived this morning in Los Angeles. It did not take long to get our luggage and go through Immigration and Customs. We had a couple hours to wait before catching a Delta flight home to Salt Lake City. We were off the plane and heading toward the terminal before the children (Rachael, Talmage, Anna, Camilla, Eliza, and Mary) arrived to meet the four of us (Michael, Shauna, Claudia, and me).
Our trip to Brazil was wonderful, a dream come true, but it is good to be home.
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