CTM Visit

 Today Todd and I were able to travel with the senior missionaries to the CTM (that's the MTC for you Americans, and the "Missionary Training Center" for you non-Mormons!) In our church, when you are 19 years old, you can choose to serve a 2-year mission for our Church. Young men are strongly encouraged, but never forced to go. It's simply AMAZING to be in a building full of young men who have put their lives on hold to serve the Lord. Many of them are Americans, although there are a lot of Brazilian missionaries as well.  Many of them have left families, school, and the comforts of home. Serving a mission is absolutely not an easy choice, and not an easy thing to do sometimes, but these boys are down here willingly, strengthening their testimonies, and learning how to humbly share what they know with others.

 We went to the district's sacrament meeting, and then I went to Relief Society with the ladies, while the guys went to Priesthood meeting. The third hour the districts meet together, and Todd and I ended up in a room with 10 boys about to leave this week for their areas. They bore simple testimonies of the things they knew, and they talked about their transformations in the last 9 weeks at the CTM. They will continue to transform as they head into the field. I was as proud of them as a little mother hen, and I hope their mothers and fathers and siblings are proud of the choices they have made.

We learned lots of fun things about how the CTM works. The Brazilian missionaries only spend 3 weeks there, because they don't have to learn Portuguese. The American missionaries stay for 9 weeks. They spend a large part of the day learning from Preach My Gospel or in language study. I've gotten to know the faces of several of the sister missionaries there as well. There are not as many of them as Elders, and they normally only serve for 18 months, but they get the same training. The CTM is right in the middle of the typical Brazilian neighborhood, and they send them out onto the street to practice talking to people and to use their Portuguese. Many of them attempt to say their prayers in Portuguese (sometimes switching to English when their vocabulary fails them), but they all sing enthusiastically in Portuguese. They have to prepare 4 5-minute talks, because any given Sunday, they may be randomly picked on to get up and talk during Sacrament meeting! Branches are only about 20 missionaries large, and so they have to speak often. There is a lot of changeover in the branches, and missionaries are always coming and going!

We also got to eat in the cafeteria and enjoy the food. The senior missionary couples told us that the American missionaries generally like the food, and work so hard that they don't have time to think it's weird (it's not really that weird, but you can find odd dishes in rural areas!) because they are so hungry (and most of them are boys, c'mon, most boys will eat anything when they are hungry!)

Again, it was such a testimony builder for me to see all these young kids working hard and learning to teach the gospel. I don't think I could ever do it, but it is missionary work that brings good people to know more about Christ. I am so grateful they are willing to do it, and am VERY EXCITED to have a brother preparing to serve...I saw him in every young man I observed at the MTC and I hope he finds his experience as rewarding as these young men and women already are.

What a great way to spend a Sunday!

Guaruja

 Yesterday, the Woffindens drove us and the Wilkinsons down to Guaruja. It's a small port town on the coast of Sao Paulo State. As you can see from the picture, it was a pretty overcast day, but after our two-hour drive, the weather cleared just enough for the temperature to be really perfect.

 We spent some time just walking along the beach and observing the high rises along the coast and the other beach goers. We sat for a while on the beach under an umbrella and talked while we enjoyed some batatas fritas (french fries) and frango passanheiros (probably butchered that spelling, but its just mini fried chicken). It was fun to watch all the vendors come by, hawking things like fried cheese, peanuts, beach balls, DVD's, and earrings.

 We went in search for a clean bathroom, which we only found after our second attempt. The first bathroom we found had no light, no toilet seat, and just a small amount of toilet paper left....no bueno! Luckily, we found a very clean bathroom. When we came back, it had started to rain a bit, so we waited for our ride under the hut :)

 We drove down the beach a bit to the fishing beach. You can see all of the little boats behind us getting their catch for the day :)

 This little old boat was sitting on the shore. A few minutes later a guy carted it out to the shoreline, pushed it in, and jumped in. He took his boat out to a larger boat, and anchored the small boat. It seems like most of the fishermen did it this way because there wasn't much of a dock :) They just had two boats, one to get to the larger boat, and one to fish from!

 Here you can see the fishing boats all lined up, with clouds and forested mountains in the background. On our way home, we got to ride through the green forests and through a LOT of tunnels cutting through mountains. Brazil has it all!

 As you would expect anywhere in Brazil, there was a game of soccer going on the beach. As the tide came in, their playing field got smaller and smaller :)

 After the fishing beach, we headed to get dinner. We stopped at this busy, but really nice restaurant that had some of its wares on display! I like squid, but not like this! We ended getting a delicious salmon, and also sampled some bread and cheeses. Brazilian cheese is really quite good, but it's expensive (like everything here!) It was fun to look out onto the beach from the restaurant and smell the fresh ocean air!

This was the restaurant. It was a perfect, fun day and we are so grateful for our new friends who are willing to give us rides, advice, and a good time! It will probably be the only time this year I am near the beach, and I miss it a lot in Kansas. So I got to dip my toes in and walk on the sand and hear the relaxing crash of the waves, and that will tide me over for a while.

Dinner Time!

Somebody please tell me why they don't have pasta bars in the US!! Maybe they do, and I just don't know about that. Thursday night, we were invited along with some of the other missionaries to go to dinner at the club house of the Woffindens. Bro. Woffinden was who Todd got into contact with in order to come down to Brazil. They are seated next to us on the left.

 The first couple on the right is the Wilkinsons. Elder Wilkinson also works in the church's legal office and they have been awesome to show us around and answer our questions. The Hills are next to them. Sis. Hill is my Tuesday temple buddy :) and Brother Hill is one of the local medical advisors. They are going home tomorrow and everyone is really sad to see them go. We can totally see why because they both are just the nicest people. Really, every senior missionary we've met has been so kind!

So here's the pasta bar. You pick your pasta, they warm it up, you pick a sauce, and then what you want to go in it, and they heat it up, mix it all together, and you've got dinner! It was really delicious, and it was a really fun night!

Teatro Municipal

 On Tuesday, Todd and I went downtown again to see a dance show at the Teatro Municipal. I was itching to get inside that building and see a show, and we made it happen. We bought $4R tickets, which are about $1.50, and were told we wouldn't be able to see much, but at that price, I didn't care!

The theatre at night.

 We got there early because you just never know with those busses! Plus, Todd wanted to take me to a juice shop that he had been to a couple weeks earlier. It did not disappoint. I wanted coconut and pineapple for a nice little pina colada mix, and our waiter said he had never tried that combo. Oh, what a TRAVESTY! I almost offered him some of mine, it was so good. As you can see in the picture, all the juice comes straight from the fruit. It was really good! They give you these mini pitchers that they combine it all in, and then you pour it into your cup. Todd got some combination of fruits that I can neither pronounce nor identify right now, and he liked his too...although not as much as my pina colada!

 We walked around the mall across the street a little bit, and couldn't resist this little cupcake kiosk. We had a nutella cupcake. It was filled with nutella, frosted, and then dipped in hazelnut chocolate! It was SOO GOOD! 

One of the advantages of being married to Todd is that he LOVES massages. Now, why is this an advantage? Well, when you walk past a small oriental massage place in the mall, he stops and inquires over prices. Which led us to snag a 15-minute chair massage before the show. It was wonderful (yes, we love massages. We currently have two Groupons for massages that we need to redeem. We are massage JUNKIES!)

We then headed to the theater to check out the inside. There were a lot of people there, and we couldn't use our flash, so the quality isn't great. But hopefully you can get some idea of how beautiful it is inside!

There are five levels in the theater. I think we were on the third. Our seats really weren't bad...totally worth the pittance we paid. We just had to lean forward to look over the balcony, which was no big deal at all. The stage was one of the biggest I've ever seen!

This is a terrible picture of the flamenco dance :) No flash, slightly uncool camera :) We saw lots of ballet, some modern, some tango, and a hilarious mashup of the Flintstones and that motion of the ocean song from Hairspray. Apparently there was a prima ballerina from the US there too..I don't know my ballerinas but the audience went wild after her performance, and it was really good. All of the dances were great, we had a ton of fun!

More Sao Paulo

In an interesting turn of events, Todd met a member of the church who agreed to take us around Sao Paulo and show us some of the sights. This turned out to be really great because they knew exactly which busses to take, how to get around the centro downtown, and they also took us some places where I am glad we had fellow Brazilians with us :)

We started out at Parque Ibirapuera, sometimes called Sao Paulo's answer to New York's Central Park. It is quite big, but having never been to Central Park, I can't make a comparison :) Below is a statue outside the park of the bandeiros, who settled Sao Paulo. Since climbing on this thing required Todd to give me a leg up (is that the right term?), I considered this picture to be quite the daredevil feat  (okay, we weren't breaking any laws or anything :)

 As we made our way around the outside edge of the park, we stopped and snapped pictures of a few more statues.

 In the area below, there were quite a few groups of people sitting and talking, and kids playing on the playground. This was a fun bench, with a really cool tree in the background. The other advantage of having a tour guide with you is that you have someone to take pictures of the TWO of you, which is nice!

 In the background of the picture below, the obelisk represents four of the country's heroes, who are buried there. I'm pretty sure they were bandeiros too. Also, going on in the background is the only field hockey game I've ever seen outside of the US :) (well, outside of Maryland to be quite honest!)

 This building was designed by a famous architect in Sao Paulo, Oscar Niemeyer. It's really a theater/auditorium. I guess people there refer to it as "a lingua" (the tongue). You can see why :)

 After leaving Parque Ibirapuera, we grabbed a bus and headed back downtown. Also, as a slightly related note, if you have light skin and blue eyes, people tend to stare at you. It's really awkward. One time in Embu, this kid had his mouth stuffed full, and when he saw me his jaw full of food dropped open, and he continued to turn and stare at me as I walked by. I felt like an alien. Like I said, awkward. On the bus, kinda the same thing. I try not to make eye contact!

 This is in front of the law school in downtown Sao Paulo (above), and below is a statue in front of the building.

 We headed on towards the Prace de Se, which is basically a big square block. There were preachers getting their Saturday preaching in, very enthusiastically, I might add. There were people playing music, and other people selling things, and other crazy people who will just walk up to you and tap you on the shoulder and start saying stuff in drunken Portuguese. But mostly, there are people visiting the church and milling about waiting for busses, or walking with their families.

 This is the church in Praca de Se. We didn't take any pictures of the inside, but it is really impressive. Beautiful stained glass and high ceilings and gold-leaf altars.

 This slab below points to the other main cities in Brazil. The ones you can kinda see are Rio and Minas Gerais.

 Us in front of the statue. Many of these churches have a patron saint, and I THINK theirs was Benedict or Peter?? Not sure, get them all mixed up!

 We would our way around more of the downtown historial area. Many of these areas were constructed in the 1500's. Most of it has been restored, although some of it is original.

 We were hungry, so we headed back to the Mercado for some grub. The last time we were there, we were too full to get their "famous" sandwich, so we got it today. It is basically a glorified baloney sandwich, with lots of yummy gooey cheese. However, the meat is better than baloney, that's for sure. It was greasy and delicious. I got another shrimp pastel (like last time), which was stuffed full with shrimp and cream cheese...a very yummy heart attack! While in line, we met a lady and her college exchange student who goes to Tulane. It was fun talking to them about Brazil and what she is doing here.

 We shot this quick picture in front of another church before we headed over another aqueduct. Our guides told us that a river used to below the bridge, and where the Mercado is, used to be a port where ships pulled in. It was fun to imagine it that way.

 These were our tour guides, Irmao Toposky (Irmao means brother, like how we address each other as Brother and Sister at church. But here, Brazilians usually follow Brother or Sister with their FIRST name as opposed to last name like Americans do. So in the temple, I tell the sisters my  name is Irma Megan). Oh, and his cousin Paulo. They were really goofy and a lot of fun, and traipsed around with us so I could find my Brazil jersey :)

 I just liked the big graffiti man on the side of the building :) There is graffiti EVERYWHERE! Some of it looks like chicken scratch, but a lot of it is quite creative!

 Another church. The darker-skinned Brazilians used to be segregated out (I think this was a REALLY long time ago, during slavery). This was one of the churches they used.

All in all, we had a fun but exhausting day. It was nice to see some of the more historical parts, but also see some things that were familiar as well. We are grateful Todd ran into Irmao Toposky and that he volunteered to take us around. I also have to thank my translator Todd!

New Names

 Have we mentioned our names are really hard to pronounce? Todd comes out more like "Todge" or "Todgy." He gets Todgy a lot because there is a chocolate mix (like Nestle) called "Toddy" and the Brazilians think its hilarious that his name is so similar :)

Most female names here don't end with an "n" sound, so my name comes out sounding like Maggie. In fact, in the picture below, I'm holding my key card for the association building. The secretary thought that's what I said when I pronounced my name, so Maggie I am :)

Avenida Paulista

Welcome to the Thomason's tour of Avenida Paulista :)

 This here is where we got off the bus. Last Saturday when we went, we rode one of those double-bus gizmos, where the bus has an accordion style contraption in the middle, making it extra long (are you getting the visual?) Anyway, Todd and I ended up in the accordion and it was very swingy and wobbly...almost makes you carsick! Anyway, it was our first adventure on a bus by ourselves, but we made it! Avenida Paulista is where most of the banks and offices of Sao Paulo are located. It wasn't quite as busy on a Saturday, but there were still a LOT of people there!

 We think they're telephone booths look like little pods (and yes, Todd did sanitize after touching the phone!)

 This was an old church. It didn't look like it was being used for anything anymore.

 The museum of art. It is a famous landmark in Sao Paulo, mostly because of its design. You can kind of see that it "floats." It stands on those red concrete pillars, and you line up to buy tickets underneath. We didn't go through the museum.

 This is parque trianon. It's one of the small parks in Sao Paulo, and was quite jungle-like. There were all kinds of...interesting...people there. I won't get into details, but they all looked quite happy :)

 A statue of a bandeiro. Bandeiros are all over the history of Sao Paulo.

 A building that looks like it houses one of the newspapers of SP.

 Looking down the street. A. Paulista is about 6-8 lanes across, so its very busy.

 I think this is a bank. We really liked the statues and the landscaping out front.

 A sign marking where we are. PHEW! We're still on the right street! We enjoyed a lunch of fries, juice, and a Brazil-style hamburger. It tasted a lot like those bulk hamburgers you get in the frozen section...not great, but  not gross either. A big improvement on a Guatemalan hamburger! We also sampled some delicious ice cream.

This is another cool building we saw. It looks like it gets thinner as it gets higher because of the perspective and how tall it is. But if you look closely, the bottom floor has five windows, and every floor after that has the same number of windows (4) that are the same size.

We had heard how this was supposed to be this huge bookstore that was really cool. 

 It did have a fun seating area where they were playing the movie "Rio." (They are selling Rio all OVER the place here, they love the Brazil love!)

However, maybe because we are Americans and we are used to Barnes and Noble, or because we are used to getting books for cheap at the thrift store or online...either way, we experience quite the sticker shock here. Right now, I can get Pride and Prejudice for free on my Itouch, and you can probably get it for 2-5 bucks in the states. Well, if you want your Jane Austen in Portuguese, you will have to shell out 25 reals, or about $18. That doesn't just apply to translated books either...if you wanted any book, whether it was old or new, originally in Portuguese or not, it seemed like the average price was 20-40 reals. I don't know about you guys, but I don't think I've ever paid the list price for a book, and there were no bargain sections in this store. We were looking forward to getting some books in Portuguese, but we may have to check out Amazon instead. Another reason I'm grateful for America. We did talk to some locals, and they said you can find books easily at used bookstores, you just have to know where they are :)

Anyway, we still had a good day on Avenida Paulista!