Christmas Time in Brazil -2107

Christmas 2017

"During this Christmas season and throughout the entire year, may we seek with our hearts and souls our beloved Savior,

the Prince of Peace, the Holy One of Israel.

For this desire, in large part, defines not only who we are as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but even more who we really are as Christ's disciples."

((First Presidency Message, Ensign, Dec. 2017)

Nativity at The Brazil MTC

Nativity and Sister  and Elder Whitaker

Brazil MTC

President and Sister Grahl

Our Favorite place in the MTC to take pictures. It tells about how the Missionaries are instructed here!

Nativity at the Stake Center next to the São Paulo Temple

Faith makes all things possible.

Hope makes all things work.

Love makes all things beautiful.

May you have all the three for this Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

And who could not forget Santa at Christmas time!

Warmest Wishes,

Elder Ted and Sister Melinda Whitaker

-->

(tedwhitakerfamily.blogspot.com)

A Little Piece of Peace and Quiet in the Big City!

Peace in the Center of the City

Today is our P-Day. It is hard for us to decide what to do , as we have no one else to do anything with. We decided to go the Ibirapuera Park in São Paulo.  We have been there before. So this is more of the same from a few months ago when we went with some of the instructors! It is about 15 miles away and I took us about an hour. It is a big park in the middle of the city. It has a lot of paths that are used by walkers , runners, bikers. It have grassy area, some lakes. It is very pleasant. We ended up finding the Bike rental area and rented bikes, A three wheeler for Sister Whitaker and a regular  bike for me. The three wheeler did not work out to well. We then went to a mall and had hamburgers at Johnny Rockets! 

Here are some pictures of the Park.  

A Selfie of course.

The Black Swans are Beautiful

Just one of the Many Walking paved paths

The park is a very peaceful, restful park right in the heart of the City

We hope that you can find a Peaceful, restful place where you can go and feel the spirit of the Lord to bless your life! We love it here in Brazil. We love the Missionaries. We bear testimony that the Lords loves each one of us and he will bless each one of us every day!

Celebrating Brasil Independence Day!

Brasil's Independence Day!

Dinner at the food court at Shopping Center North with our Brazilian friends, the Cavalhos, and Elder and Sister Snyder -- then off to an opera by Wagner.



São Paulo's Concert Hall - Sala São Paulo.  It is an old colonial train station that has been restored into a beautiful arts center. The concert hall is magnificent! We loved the huge orchestra, but had a hard time following the opera, sung in German with Portuguese subtitles.

We were invited by Brazilian Branch Presidencies here at the MTC to celebrate Brazil's Independence Day with them at a very nice churrascaria (Brazilian BBQ) on the outskirts of São Paulo.

The salads and side dishes were so numerous that we had a hard time choosing which to sample.  Of course the national dish, feijoada (rice and beans with chunks of meat) was offered. 

There were about 45 of us enjoying lunch together.  The Brazilians are a jolly and lively people.  It was noisy, but we have a good time trying to figure out what they were all talking about.

Every few minutes the servers brought around meats on a spit: filet mignon, chicken hearts (a Brazilian favorite), chicken, leg of lamb, pork, and other cuts of beef.  They also had fried bananas, pineapple coated with sugar and cinnamon and then cooked on the BBQ, and chunks of cheese cooked on a spit over the BBQ.  We ate way too much and then . . . a very large chocolate cake arrived decorated with slivers of milk and white chocolate.  What a feast!!

After our meal, we drove a short distance from the churrascaria to a Buddhist temple. We were surprised how large and authentic it was.  We went into the center "chapel?" and sat on the cushions facing the statue of Buddha.  We walked around the buildings and then strolled down into the garden where there was a pond with fish and a bridge crossing in the center.  The vegetation was nice, with monkeys swinging from the tall trees. 

Entering or leaving the temple we saw many small statues of buddha in whimsical positions. 

A tourist posing with one of the statues.

We are standing by the pond in the temple garden.

One of the many beautiful flowers in the temple garden. 

The Blessings of the Gospel

We have a missionary that just arrived at the Brazil MTC. He is a grandson of some people we baptized on the last week of my mission! He is learning Japanese here and will be serving in Japan Kobe. I am overwhelmed with joy for the blessings the gospel brings to the world. Thank you Heavenly Father! Here are pictures of me putting on his missionary name tag, Him emailing his family from my computer and elder Michelisa at the entrance to the Brazil MTC!!

Elder Whitaker putting on Elder Michelisa's Missionary Tag! The joy this brings!

Elder Michelisa emailing his parents. This is one of the first things that we have missionaries do.

The first day at the MTC.

He could be my assistant while here! Yet maybe not, he has Japanese to learn in NINE weeks.

Oh what joy this picture brings!! Please look real close.

New Elder with Elder and Sister Whitaker.

Trip to the Country

P-Day trip to the country!

Today we ventured outside the City of São Paulo to the Northwest to "Parque Maeda."

It took us about an hour and a half to get there from the MTC, located in the part of the city called Casa Verde.  We spend six days a week at the MTC working with missionaries and have been told we need to get away for a break once a week.  We don't take photos of the missionaries, so our photos are taken on our P-days when we leave the cement city of 20 million people and get out to experience the countryside and the Brazilian culture. The countryside has green rolling hills with lots of vegetation. There are nice freeways with great rest areas where you can get gasoline, shop for snacks or have lunch. 

Parque Maeda has many features: a large tree house, train rides, horse rides, carriage rides, helicopter rides, a large water park, large fishing ponds, a Japanese garden, suspension bridges, chair lift, paddle boats, water bumper boats, a very large restaurant and shops.

We are standing in front of a very large and old tree house. You climb steps and platforms up toward nine levels; about 4 stories up.  

This is a photo looking up to the higher levels on the large tree house.

This is a water feature near the tree house.

We passed through a tunnel and into the Japanese garden.  The walkways are pavers made of granite stones.  The garden has a large variety of sculptured trees and scrubs, along with some Japanese structures.  The flowering bushes are vivid and beautiful. The sculptured scrubs were in every shade of green.  

There are a series of wooden stairs and walkways that descend down to the river. It is a heavily foliaged area. There were small ponds with large orange, black and white fish. We saw several water wheels in varying sizes. 

We took this photo especially for our grandson, Jordan.  He likes cars and can usually identify each car.  This is an old car used by the workers here.  Will he figure out what kind it is?

These two photos are two of the three large fishing ponds located at the resort.  We watched a man catch a very large fish as he sat along the edge in one of the marked off spaces for fishermen.  

These are some of the flowers that we saw while in the Japanese garden.

We stopped the a cute little town on our way back to São Paulo, Itu.
There was a charming town square with this stately church at one end.  It had intricate stained glass windows inside, each one depicting the life of the Savior.  

FUN FACTS

Fun facts about our apartment. We live on the 4th Floor (tereciro adar) of the “a” Tower here at the MTC. Our apartment consist of a Living Room, Kitchen/dining Room, Bedroom, Bathroom and Laundry room

Here is a picture of our Dishwasher- it is of the under the counter design. We almost have to kneel down to load it. But of course we are missionaries and we pray a lot! It will hold 4 cereal bowls, 6 glasses, 4 small plates, 2 large plates and a pot or frying pan!

Here is a picture of our clothes washer/dryer combo. If you look really close you can see the time above the front loading door. Yes it says 4:41! That is the time it takes to wash AND dry one set of sheets, pillow case and PJ’s!

Oh well! what else do we have to do but watch clothes dry or Brazilian TV with Portuguese sub titles.

We love it here and couldn’t ask for anything more.  Hum “Peanut Butter”!