Curitiba

When we woke up Sunday morning, neither of us remembered anything between lying down and the alarm waking us at 7am. We slept so hard, and felt good the next morning.

After getting ready for church, we arrived just before 8:30am at the most beautiful chapel we had ever encountered in Brazil. It had a white steeple similar to our own stake center, it was two stories, had carpeting and marble floors and even an elevator!

Church was great, and everyone kept mistaking us for the missionaries. I cannot count the number of times we have been called Elder while we've been here. We met a lot of wonderful people, made a bunch of new friends, and came away with a love for the people of Curitiba.

After church we returned to Roseangela's house and had lunch. She had invited my old companion Roberson de Lima and his family to lunch. We had delicious feijoada with rice, salad and spinach. We all caught up with each other's lives and families, shared mission stories and had a wonderful visit.

After we ate some outstanding flan (pudim de leite) and coconut cake for dessert, we all headed out to visit some parks on our way to see the new Curitiba temple. We stopped by the Opera de Arame, where BYU had sent its dance teams to perform in the past. The theater was surrounded by large stone walls covered with the flora of Brazil. Around the theater, there was a lake with a large waterfall and lots of huge koi swimmming. It felt like we had walked from the parking lot and straight into a part of the amazon rainforest.

We stopped at one more park, Parque Tangua, which was even more spectacular. It was just as beautiful, but much more expansive. The kids played in the fountains while we strolled around and took it all in. Roberson's oldest boy, Iago, took this opportunity to practice his English with me. He had lots of questions all about the differences between the US and Brazil, whether I had been to Hollywood and Disneyland, and if I liked store-bought bread better than homemade. Homemade, of course.

We continued on to the temple there, and strolled around the perimeter fence and talked, laughed and had a great visit. We took pictures and said goodbye to Roberson and his family, then headed back to Rosangela's house.

During our drive back, Rosangela and her husband Fabio convinced us to sleep there one more night and get up early to head up to Ribeirao Preto rather than drive through the night. It didn't take a lot of convincing since we were pretty tired. And there was leftover flan back at the house.

We headed back, had a light dinner and the rest of the flan and hit the sack. What a great day we had making and strengthening friendships with wonderul people. We will miss them all a great deal. We decided we have to bring our families back to visit sometime in the next several years. So get ready Angenette and Carolee!