March 9 Monday
It looked like it was going to be a nice day, so I got up early to put in a load of laundry. Not long after hanging it out on the line, the clouds started coming in. Next the rain drops - so all the laundry was immediately gathered in and hung on our handy rack. Then it rained all day.
(Merl): Kathlyn has asked me to discuss the challenges and
experience of reading the Book of Mormon in Portuguese and I will add,
preparing talks. First of all, these first three months have been very busy with
meetings, shopping, visits, dinners, piano lessons, etc. and many mornings and days I did not
have a lot of time for study. It has been inconsistent. I think the shopping
has decreased recently so it seems now that I have more time!?
Ann read clear through the Book of Mormon without understanding the words just to practice pronunciation while she was here on her mission. I practice pronunciation after I prepare my talks in Portuguese – and practice and practice and practice saying them. While preparing talks and reading the Book of Mormon, I continually look up words that I don’t understand, which was all of them at first. But, I got so I could read and understand the introduction and first page of 1 Néfi pretty well. Sometimes I would only get through 1-4 verses at a time. It has been very tedious, but has been productive. I find that translation opens up a new way of seeing events, feelings, and ideas. Ideas are expressed very differently in Portuguese with terms and words that we would not normally think of using which broadens the understanding. Most of the words I am now familiar with have come from my reading and preparation of talks, prayers, and testimony, not from my organized lesson study. The lesson study gives me time to review conjugations, sentence structure, phrases, etc.
Because of the many conjugations of the Portuguese verbs, it is a huge challenge sometimes to even recognize what the verb is, but I am getting quite good at identification lately. Nearly every verb has no less than 104 different conjugations based on whether it is singular, plural, 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person and the tense or mood in which it is used. Many of the conjugations are never used in normal speech, but they are used in prose and poetry. The Book of Mormon is magnanimous for using the correct and more unused conjugations. I am only in the 9th chapter of 1st Néfi now, but I am now able to read faster and can even read some verses without looking up any words because the words are becoming familiar to me. I cannot formulate sentences very well yet, but I am beginning to read with some understanding. In reality, learning a new language is quite an exciting new challenge even as difficult as it is. I cannot yet understand speech except for some word identification, but the Portuguese people, as a whole, speak way too fast to be able to comprehend what they are saying. My ears don’t pick up the words very well, and I can’t translate fast enough to understand conversation nal meaning with the few words I do identify. So there you have it. I have a long, long way to go before fluency comes. Back to Kathlyn!
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| Lake with no overgrowth |
We like it when we have company for dinner and then left overs for lunch the next day. Ann put together a nice lunch for us. Merl and I visited the Papelaria store to purchase more contact paper for laminating the primary feet photos and Articles of Faith cards. We stopped at the bank to withdraw some cash - only allowed to get $R500. The value of the Real is declining causing an economic problem. It is a 3:1 ratio now. Good for us, but terrible for Brazil. We continue to add to our favorite places to go when we walk to town. Today we each had a churro for our after lunch treat on our way to our favorite Gaúcho store to look at hats. A couple of our boys have expressed interest in them.
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| Mouth to the lake |
By the time we got through our shopping/looking, we almost got home too late to walk to Chacrão with David and Ann - in the rain. Vilmar and Janete had invited us for dinner. I told David that walking three miles in the rain for dinner was a bit crazy. In reality it is only about three kilometers - but most of it is uphill on dirt roads.
We arrived and the meal preparations began. We made a pile of carne pasteis (empanada like) and a moist corn bread. Elisabete and Odete and all their girls showed up for dinner. 
As things were cooking, they brought out their teclado and hymn books, and asked me to play the opening song for Family Home Evening. They asked Merl if he would share some thoughts with them . . . and by coincidence or not, he had his Nexis with him with his fireside talk from camp. He shared that message with them, we sang a closing song and had a closing prayer, and then we had dinner.
Comment on the cornbread. Janete pulled out her blender and put a small can of corn in it. She then measured all the rest of the ingredients by using the empty can (half+ can of oil, 1 can of milk, 1 can of cornmeal, 1 can of sugar, 1 egg. . . blend until smooth. Stir in 2 heaping teaspoons baking powder, mix well and pour into an oiled pan. Cook 30-40 minutes at 200 C - 425 F. It was delicious!
We said our goodbyes around 9:30 p.m. and walked back home - at least the rain had stopped long enough to escape getting wet again. Usually we can get a ride home, but the two cars available in the area were both 'broken.' We walked passed the cathedral that is again changing colors at night and arrived home at 10:30 p.m. - a little worse for wear and ready for bed. |
| A piece of forest with houses on either side along the dirt road. |
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