September 15

We realized that most of you do not know what we do here, so we thought we better explain. We are coordinator and secretary for the seminaries and institutes for the Salvador South mission except in the city of Salvador. The area that we cover is about 400 miles north to south and about 200 miles east to west. We have responsibily for 10 cities and 22 seminary classes and 22 institute classes. This means we keep track of attendance in all of the seminary and institute classes in this area. We also do teacher training and graduation services in all these cities. We also have responsibility for the Perpetual Education Fund processes in these cities. We currently have an office in a rented home that serves one of the wards here. The newly remodeled stake center is soon to be opened and we will have an office and classroom there where we can do most of our work. We do have to travel at least 2 times per month, usually on weekends. The church has given us a car so we can do all of the traveling.
This past week we had some enjoyable experiences. In Janet's English class, we taught the students the hokey-pokey, so they could learn body parts. On Wednesday, we helped the missionaries get to the bus station and back to their apartment. There was a transfer with new ones coming in and old ones leaving. On Friday, we traveled to a city called Jequie, about 120 miles away. We had some training to do there. While there, we met with the district president, did teacher training and visited an institute class. That was Saturday afternoon. That morning, we wandered around the city, both in the car and on foot. We went to the city's open air market. It seemed pretty big. You could get anything you wanted there quite cheaply. I got a belt and we found some DVDs; they may be pirated copies, but we don't know. Most of the DVDs here are such the you can pick the language you want. It was interesting to see this market place. On Sunday, we spoke in sacrament meeting in both branches. Afterwards, we ate with the district president and left for home.
On Monday, we invited the missionaries in the city over for cookies and drinks. We made cookies for the occasion and they turned out very good. We forgot how much they could eat. They wiped out almost all of the cookies and all of our drinks, but as I said it was enjoyable.