Eunapolis

Greetings from Brasil, we are back on schedule.

Some interesting experiences and reflections on our calling have made us think more these last few days than at almost any time since we have been here.

First, we met with the member of the stake presidency over seminaries and institutes and with the high councilman who has that same responsibility. The 1st counselor in the stake presidency is man named Davi dos Santos. Everybody calls him Brother Davi. We have been to his house for dinner before; we talked about it in another blog. As we met, we talked about what needed to be done for this next year. I explained that, as I had learned from our training in Recife, we needed to have more activities for the Institute students. One of the problems here is that many of the young people, including returned missionaries, do not have many opportunities to meet a lot of other active members. Because of this, many of them do not marry or they marry outside of the church. The church views the institute program as one way for these young adults to meet other active members of the church. As such, these men were very supportive of increasing the number of activities and the size of these activities. We are planning 2 regional activities that will involve all of the institute aged members of the 22 units for which we have jursidiction. Besides this, there will be an activity once a month for the institute members here in Itabuna and Ilheus. Janet and I are also planning on teaching 3 or 4 classes here at the stake center next year. It will be interesting to see how this goes.

On Thursday, we went to a family night activity for a number of members in the Itabuna ward. The stake secretary, who lives in that ward, invited a number of ward members to his home for a lesson, games and food. Although we are not members of his ward, we were invited. We had a very enjoyable time.

Friday night, the Itabuna ward had a ward dinner. There was a short program, then dinner and then some entertainment. Once again we were invited, even though we are not members of that ward. We were also invited to give the prayers. One of the dishes thay had was chicken breasts in a cream sauce. It was really good. Once again, we enjoyed ourselves. Janet does get a little frustrated at these events because she cannot understand what is happening.

On Saturday, we traveled to a city called Eunapolis. We don't know the origen of its name, but we decided it has to be Greek. The city is about 200 km away. it takes about 2 1/2 hours to get there. This is the same road we took to go to Porto Seguro, but this city is closer. We got there and couldn't get a hold of the branch president. We had a google map, but it was wrong and we we couldn't find the chapel. The bp was going to help us find a nice hotel, but since we couldn't get him, we found one ourselves, the Hotel Portal. It was really very nice; spacious room and a very nice bathroom. We finally got in touch with the bp and arranged to meet him. He took us to the chapel. It is a rented house, but it is very nice. The lady's bathroom was the nicest we have seen here in Brasil, in any house or hotel. It had a jacuzzi bathtub in it. That night they were having a class that is preparatory for PEF.

We had our training the next morning before church, then we had church. We were the speakers in sacrament meeting. There was a good crowd, about 70 - 75 people. We are quite an attraction. The church has been in Eunapolis for only 7 tears. It has been an independent branch for 3 years. The missionaries are working very hard - there were 6 - 8 investigagors there. One of the missionaries was a Sister from Orem who had been there for only 2 months. Janet talked with her a lot. They both talked about how hard it is and how much crying they have been doing. This trip was hard for Janet. It brought back all of the negatives that happened last month when we went to Porto Seguro. It is interesting that Janet now does not like traveling. Just a suggestion, buy stock in Kleenex.

Some thoughts as to what it all means. As I mentioned, it is interesting the reception we get when we do our visits, or even here in our own ward of Sao Caetano. There is a obvious curiosity because we are from the United States, but the members also seem genuinely appreciative of our willingness to serve a mission for the church. They are also very concerned that things go well for us. They are especially concerned when they see Janet having difficulties. It is very gratifying and humbling to be the recepient of this attention. It also makes us want to do a better job. All you old folks, makes some plans, it really is a great experience.