Lessons and Meetings

February 3   Tuesday
(Disclaimer:  Slow picture day -photos are from recent excursion to the Gramado Zoo.)

Today we paid rent – 1450 R$ (half for Merl, half for David).  Also added to the rent payment was December’s sewer, water, and internet (electricity paid separately - 15R$ each).  In U.S dollars, our share of the bill (and utilities) was $396.  David had the landlord make the receipt out in Merl's name this month as we will need to present proof of living here and financial stability (along with a copy of our plane reservations to leave the country) later this month to extend our stay here until the end of April. 

Merl and I then did our Wizard homework to turn in at our class today.  We have fallen into a bad habit of not getting our work done until the deadline.  After lunch, we walked to class and met with Camila.  The first part of class was Camila reviewing her edits to the talk Merl emailed to her.  Merl will be speaking in the Cisco Branch again this month.  We had a good lesson – the two new verbs this week are gostar de (to like) dormer (to sleep).  One word of interest is ‘desjejum’ – used by LDS Brazilians for the word breakfast (des=opposite, jejum=fast).  Also used is quebro jejum.  The real phrase for breakfast in Portuguese is ‘café da manhã.’ 

We then talked about the upcoming youth conference camp on February 14-17 – four days, three nights (sleeping on the ground in a tent in a beautiful park).  It is a District youth camp with youth from five Branches.  We are attending the camp and will need to round-up our camping needs (tent, sleeping bags, and hopefully a pad).  On our walk home, we stopped by the sewing shop to purchase nylon thread; then to the bank to withdraw some money for the month.

Ann had piano lessons late in the afternoon at the church; Merl, David, and I followed later – the men for MLS and audit training and Branch Presidency meetings, me for piano lessons.