Church in Porto

We woke up Sunday to pouring rain coming down in sheets. Jonatas picked us up at the hotel. We passed by and picked up Kleber and all drove out to Porto Nacional for Sunday services. Kleber is on the high council and had to speak there, too. On our way, we got stopped at a police roadblock again, but luckily I wasn't driving, so it was quick.

We arrived at church a few minutes late and started out in priesthood meeting. I was asked to read a few scriptures and comment on them. The lesson theme was on giving our all. We ended up talking about the importance of the priesthood and living worthily. Jared also commented about a blessing he had received.

During the sunday school lesson on being spiritually and materially self-sufficient, we participated, were asked many questions and made several comments. When sacrament meeting was about to start, I told Kleber he should invite Jared to give a little talk. A few minutes later the branch president came over and asked me to play the organ for the meeting. I looked over at Kleber as he was laughing out loud. He told me I wasn't getting out of doing something today, either.

I played the songs as best I could on their ancient organ, and had to adjust my tempo accordingly. Brazilians sing hymns fairly slowly and like to slow down and put in fermatas that normally don't exist.

Jared got called up to bear his testimony after the branch president expressed his gratitude for Jared having served there, and he gave a great testimony of the truth of the gospel and how grateful he was to be in Brazil again among the people he had served.

The rest of the meeting went well, and Kleber's talk was excellent about the importance of the priesthood. We returned to Palmas after visiting with some members after church. On our way out of town, we saw a member of the church on his way to work in Palmas. We gave him a ride, and he ended up knowing where one if the women Jared had baptized lived now. We had been unable to locate any of his Porto baptisms thus far, so this was exciting news. She lived in Palmas now, so we decided to pass by there after lunch.

Lunch was excellent as always at Kleber's house, and afterwards we went by Ellen's. We only knew the general area where she lived, but the first house we stopped at happened to be hers! We went in and visited for a while. She had stopped attending church a few years ago, but she seemed to want to go back, and we asked her permission to ask the bishop to assign her home and visiting teachers. She accepted, and we said our goodbyes.

That night, there was a fireside for the stake, so we went to the stake center and arrived a little early. Soon after we arrived, we got a call from Michael, who had stayed home with Deborah who was supposed to be on bedrest for her current pregnancy (she is about 6 months along). She was having a lot of contractions and hurting, so her dr. told her to go get an ultrasound. Kleber and Deborah's mom left to take her while we stayed at the fireside.

The fireside turned out to be more of a training for those wishing to find better employment (all about the LDS employment services). It was not your typical fireside. They showed lots of videos and talked about what the employment center can do for you. They also talked about getting a good education and learning other languages. They asked all who spoke English fluently to raise their hands. Of course Jared and I did, and everyone in our group laughed. Hey, he asked, and didn't specify whether it was our first language.

As the fireside came to it's conclusion, Kleber and his mother in law came back to pick us up and let us know that Deborah seemed fine.

We went back to Kleber's house and ate some dinner, did some more visiting together, gave Deborah a blessing, and said our final goodbyes. We won't miss the heat and suffocating humidity, but we will miss these dear friends we have made. They are what have made the trip worthwhile. It was fun to see where we had served our missions, eat the food again and speak Portuguese, but the lasting impressions of this trip will be the lifetime friendships we have made with such fantastic people.

Tomorrow (Monday) we'll fly to Brasilia for the day and then fly home that night, arriving Tuesday mid-day.

- Posted from my iTouch