Walk, and walk, and walk

January 3  Saturday

Refurbished rake at
Wilson's

After a light breakfast, we walked to the church with the plan of helping clean it.  It was evident that it was cleaned the night before (difficult to keep up with schedules that continually change).  We put all the chairs back in place in the class rooms and chapel.  All the floors are tiled, so the chairs are stacked so the floors can be swept and mopped.  I scrubbed a few stubborn spots on the tile.  We picked up all the bags of Wilson's clothes that had been put in the library - and started our walk.  We climbed up and down hills to get to his house and delivered his clothes to him.  We had hopefully planned to help clean out the kitchen upstairs so he could have a better place to stay in out of the weather, but his mother had been there and had padlocked the door shut.  Wilson hopes to get a key again so we can proceed on the cleaning process.  It is a bit sticky as the house belongs to his mother who doesn't live there anymore and has left him behind.  We don't have permission yet to do some reconstruction to  make it safer for him to be there. 

Cognone home (in the back)

So we left and walked all over the area and eventually stopped at the home of Katusha Cognone, Primary President, to present our idea for the primary bulletin board.  She and her husband have been working in preparing to go to the temple, and David challenged them to be ready before we all go home the end of April.  I forgot my sunscreen, and the sun is hot today.  I'm never content - either too rainy or too sunny!



We passed a home that had a simple tree house in it.  Merl thought that the design would probably work for the first landing or our tree house to-be at home- and attach the slide to it. 
At the furthest point of our walk (before we turned up towards the cathedral, we passed the local newspaper building, Nova Epoca,



As we neared the cathedral, we could hear beautiful violin music being played.  It immediately brought back memories to Ann of the violin player on the street when they were here before.  They had purchased a couple of CDs from him then.  Turns out it is the same man, Jurgen Wentz.  We visited with him for a while learning that he had recently been in Athens playing in an orchestra there.  He is an accomplished musician and plays beautifully.  We purchased some CDs from him and visited some shops up in the high-end tourist district.  Found a couple of places I might go back to for some Canela memorabilia.


We always stop to see the beautiful flowers that grow randomly along the streets.  The variety of sidewalks has always fascinated me here.  Each home or business is responsible for putting in their own front sidewalk.  Most are an assortment of pavers and cobblestone, but others are more decorative.  This walk is in front of a hotel across the street from Wizard, our language school. 


We finally arrived at home where everyone else rested and I tried to catch up on the blog.  I am finding that I don't know how to get pictures positioned and keep them there.  If you read this and have any tips for me please let me know.

The missionaries called to request I play the piano for a baptism today at 5:00 pm.  We are not sure who they are baptizing, but we will be there.  Haven't missed one yet - and it seems they baptize someone a couple of times a week.  Then it is our responsibility to help keep them active.

We went to the baptism of Angelica Janaina Pereira Borgoes and her son Wellington Yuri Borgoes Friedrich.  Angelica is the last child out of nine children of Irara, a long time branch member.  All have been baptized now, but several are not active.  It was a nice service.

This evening we watch a DVD of the 2013 Natal Luz (Nativity Lights) show in Gramada.  We enjoyed the great music and lights as the nativity was re-enacted along with current Christmas music.  It was beautiful.  D&A went to the 2012 performance and said it was a completely different program of aerial acrobats, but still based on Christmas and the nativity.  We have tickets for a performance this week.  It will be interesting to see what the theme is this year.

Went to bed a little early - Fast Sunday tomorrow.  Good Night!