The monkeys like to play hide and seek. It is hard to spot them up in the trees. They travel in groups. There were actually four in this group. Can you see three in one picture?

It is amazing how they survive in a city of three million people! We do live near the river and they probably use the folage along the river for their monkey highway. Time to say goodbye. We hope to see them again.
Love, Grandpa and Grandma

small monkeys come to visit us

This monkey came to enjoy a banana that lured him from the tree tops.

These primates are Saquinus. They live in the tree tops and travel from tree to tree by leaping.

They are kind of shy and very athletic.

Do you like the hair-do?

Samuel, lembranca de Suco de Limoes

Francimary Alexandre da Silva

Samuel do you remember eating at the Silva's in Suco de Limoes? They now live in Fortaleza, Ceara. She is the sister with an artificial leg, that asked me if I had a son who served a mission in Brasil.

A few of you will remember our 1966 Pioneer Day Celebration in Richmond, California.

A few more will remember using these costumes years later

What we do with our days...

This is where we live... we are in an apartment just to the left of the mango tree on the upper level. The building is long and curves to one side. The apartments for missionaries are in this end near the fountain and the lane with royal palm trees.

From our windows we can see the fountain, mango trees and part of the beautiful grounds. We get up early each day, read scriptures, study, and exercise in the apartment. After about half hour it is light enough to go walking. We walk on paths around the outside of the temple, along the roads on the temple grounds, around the fountain and down this lane with royal palms.

We turn around at the end and repeat the loop six times. It takes about half an hour.

It is the rainy season now and if we don't walk outside we can do laps in the corridor of the lojamento, but it gets boring. So Wednesday when it was raining steadily we opted to walk outside. We got soaked, but it was not cold and we could take a warm shower and change into dry clothes when we finished.The hard part was getting our shoes dry so we could be comfortable using them on Thursday morning. Dad took out the insoles and propped them all up in front of the fan. He dried our clothes in a dryer in the laundry room
Whoops! I thought I turned this picture... (Does anyone know how to do it after it is imported into a blog?) Grandpa fixes breakfast each morning and does the dishes for all the meals. Grandma gets a good deal!After breakfast and getting ready we have prayer together and share our testimonies with each other. What a great way to start the day! We go outside and see the temple on our way to the Family History Center, which is located in the other end of our apartment building close to the temple.
There are four computers and two microfilm readers. We often have all the computers in use with a line of people waiting. Sometimes both microfilm readers are occupied. It keeps us busy and we like being busy. That way we don´t fall asleep before nap time.

We go back to our apartment, up two flights of stairs, and get to see the gardens behind the apartments as we walk in the open-air corridors (they are like covered balconies).

After lunch and a nap, it is time to go serve in the temple. We really enjoy the spirit there. It is really like leaving worldly things and concerns behind and entering into the peaceable kingdom of God. In addition we get to help others. It is amazing how often we are in just the right place to guide or help a patron or we think there will not be enough workers or enough patrons to do the work, then more people come.

Sunday is a day of rest...

This is a Sunday after-church picture in the corridor of the apartment building. We know that all of you will be blessed with happiness, comfort and peace in obeying the word of the Lord. We love you... Dad and Mom, Grandpa and Grandma

I will always be grateful for the chance to go to Poland and see my grandmothers birthplace and will remember the great experiences we had there.

t was great to travel in Germany and to spend time with you and your family; whether in the salt mines or visiting castles, we had a great time with memories to savor.

You and Marianne are great helpers and a great team working together...
You love to help your daughters and take care of them...

You are also great with entertaining your nieces and nephews.

One more segment coming... I know you will see them all in reverse order, but I am just glad to finally get it all into blogs. I wrote the script first in Word and lost that when my computer crashed. And I have lost track of the number of attempts and downloads necessary to get the picture imports to work. (Changing some of them from tif to jpeg etc.)

At last I think I have it right... Can you figure out who was doing the major share of the extra-curricular activity?

Samuel, your attention to detail and patience have resulted in some great accomplishments.

You dove down and explored underwater caves, jumped off of high cliffs into a small pool of water, and swam with the sea turtles... always adventurous. and interested in the wonders of creation.

To be continued...

Now if the next picture will load properly, I will continue...
I was not successful.... I need to change the image type, which I cannot do here in the FHC. So enjoy the suspense.

Happy Birthday for Samuel

Dear Samuel,
Happy Birthday! Here are some lembrances:

I remember cuddling you and sometimes walking the floor with you. You did not like the transition to cow’s milk and would not drink it, so I gave you yogurt mixed with what we called strawberry guavas. They were naturally sweet, a nice deep pink color and about the size of strawberries. They grew wild in the hills above Laie. We would hike up there when they were ripe, pick all we could and then make a pulp and freeze it. You really liked the yogurt/guava combination.

I didn't know that you were trying out camoflage at an early age. I am not sure who was the face painter, but I assume that he who has the least paint on him did most of the painting.

Temple Refurbishment - Missionary Recreation

This first picture was taken in Natal, Monday, March 24, 2008. We traveled there with President and Sister Skraba to give a training session on new FamilySearch. We left Recife early (5:30 am) Sunday, attended meetings, gave a training session on new FamilySearch, and participated in a Fireside with the Skrabas. On Monday we did some site seeing in Natal and on the way home.

The first two weeks of April we have a "vacation" while the temple is cleaned, refurbished and we get acquainted with Recife's historic sites.




It takes a lot of work to set up all the scaffolding. It is impressive to see the work envolved in making the statue clean and shiney. They have been scrubbing and cleaning the temple inside and outside, the walkways too. They have trimmed trees, repaired places in the cement and are also working on the temple apartments.



Meantime, we learned which buses to take to get to various museums and historic sites. All the buses, at one time on their route, go through downtown Recife, where we encountered six lanes of buses (three each way) extending in both directions as far as we could see.



In this photo five lanes of buses coming from two streets are merging into two lanes to cross the bridge. Talk about traffic jams! It took us over half an hour to get out of the downtown area.

The views in Olinda are beautiful.

We went to Olinda, a half hour drive in a taxi... but a longer time by bus. There we walked up and down hills, saw old buildings, visited tourist shops (which are abundant), and saw old cathedrals. This one was built in the 1500's built by the Portuguese settlers; others were constructed during the Dutch occupation which started in 1637. There are 11 cathedrals in this small city. Olinda is also known for its celebration of Carnival before Easter (which we avoided).

Tuesday, we go back to work; we are ready!

Novo Jerusalem

Monday, we went to Novo Jerusalem to see a Passion Play. We traveled in a chartered bus with members of our stake, other temple missionaries, and the entire Temple Presidency. It was about a 3 and a half hour trip. It rained, so the play was delayed for half an hour.

The scenes were inacted on various stages. The above scene was at the temple. We walked from stage to stage as the play progressed. The attendance was huge, numbering in the thousands. It was quite an experience walking in that crowd from place to place and trying to get in a position to see the stage.

This scene was of the last supper.

Despite some obvious deviations from the scriptures and some doctrinal differences, it was a good experience that helped us review the life, the cruxifiction, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Our favorite scene was the resurrection at the garden tomb.

Have a joyous Easter and remember that Jesus Christ lives and is our Savior! Because of Him we will be resurrected too.

Lots of love,

Grandpa and Grandma, Mom and Dad

Temple and Family History Missionaries

For the first month that we were here, we only found time to take pictures after dark. It gets dark about 6 P.M. all year. It is the end of summer now, and soon the rainy season will start. This view is the back of the temple showing the stained glass windows. It is the first view we saw when we arrived in Recife caming over the bridge that is very close to the temple. We finally remembered to take a camera with us during the day! We really enjoy our service in the temple. We are there each afternoon, Tuesday through Saturday. If we leave the temple at 5:30, it is dusk and when we leave at six or after it is dark (even in the summer!)

It is a really beautiful temple.
Grandpa and Grandma