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!
4 comments:
It's so fun to see pictures of the beautiful things that you are seeing. Recife looks breath taking. We're sure that the two weeks off were deserved, but I have a feeling that you both probably missed the work as well! You are great examples to us and our kids. We love you!
Wow! Looks so beautiful! I think I need a vacation there for a couple of weeks too! Today it snowed here a couple more inches. Can't wait for it to warm up here! Hope your first day back went well! We love and miss you!
Wow what a beautiful country. I need to get back there. Thanks for sharing your vacation it looked like it was beautiful. I'm sure the bus rides were an adventure. I remember thinking on my mission, I wonder how much faster this bus would have to go to tip over arround these turns. It seemed like they were on two wheels sometimes. I'm glad you made it back safe. I've had some neat missionary experiences here and will share them with you in an email.
love,
samuel
I love the pictures! I wish I could come and get a tour from you now that you have figured out how to get everywhere. It looks beautiful! We miss you and Mckenzie tells me she misses you about once a week. Regardless, we are so happy for you and what you are doing!
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