Zone Conference, American Lunch, and Beads

January 30  Friday

I came to the realization that our weeks are pretty much repeats of each other.  Sunday - church meetings and baptisms, Monday - area excursions, Tuesday - Wizard lesson and piano lessons (and Branch pres. meetings for the men), Wednesday - San Francisco de Paulo piano lessons and Integration meeting, Thursday - piano lessons and Canela Integration meeting, Friday - District/Zone missionary meetings and Gramado activities, and Saturday - catch up day before Sunday comes again.  We add in cooking, cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, blogging, feeding the missionaries, and studying as needed.  It sounds like a pretty mundane schedule, but we are loving it  . . . partly because the area is so beautiful and the people are so wonderful.  Can't think of a better place to be right now.

Today was Zone Conference in Gramado.  It was reported that the this Zone was the only Zone in the mission that had met its goal.  These Elders and Sisters are diligent, hard workers.  Elders Lagos and Oliveira reviewed the mission rules with emphasis on being back to their apartments by 9:00 p.m. 

After the meeting, there were a couple of places we needed/wanted to go to.  Ann needed to go to a clothing store where . . . . . works to invite. .. ., David . . . . . , Ann and I were in search of a store that sells beads.  We were successful on all of them.  On our walk through the city, we passed the Gaúcho store we liked from last week.  Merl (in his Gaúcho cap) posed for a picture.

We had lunch at a little hamburger place that had been recommended by the Copas.  It was a cute place with décor from the 50's in the U.S.  The food was good and the milkshakes thick.  The hamburgers and fries were served in little wooden baskets.  Merl gathered up the napkins and cups in the baskets to toss in the trash.  As he did so, he was holding onto the basket by one of the slats which broke off in his hand - the basket made a loud clunking sound in the bottom of the trash container getting everyone's attention.  Everyone got a good laugh - we Americans are quite entertaining. 
The server smiled and said she would retrieve the basket.

We were then off to find our bead store and stopped by to visit a  friendly gentleman. Ann and I went to a clothing loja where Ann found Simone - an appointment was made to come visit her and her family on Thursday,  David and Merl went to a document printing service and purchased a cartridge for the printer.  We also found tennis shoes on sale - reduced from 599,90 Reis to 399,90.  What a bargain!

We finally found Emporio Um.  Ann and I could have spent hours and dollars in this loja.  We walked out with a nice selection of beads for our necklace project.  Merl (having a little trouble with his hip after a challenge with Elder Lagos yesterday) found a comfortable spot while we shopped. 
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It was a long walk back to the bus station.  Merl and David stopped at the open-air Colonial Bakery to purchase two loaves of kuchen (apple and fig).  Might be a good treat for our guests on Sunday afternoon.  We didn't arrive back home until 6:00 p.m. - never expected to be gone so long.