Good Lookin' Bovine

"This is me outside of a butcher shop in a neighborhood near our house in Cruzeiro, Brazil. The funny thing is, on the signs for the butcher shops, they really try and make the cows physically attractive. Looking at that cow above me makes me want to eat it and take it on a date. Wow, im strange. Also, I'm pointing into the future..."

Sao Paulo Leste Mission Olympics

Curtis and his fellow missionaries participated in the Sao Paulo Leste Mission Olympics in Sao Jose dos Campos. They competed in basketball, soccer, leg wrestling, and stick pulling. They also had a trivia contest.

"All in all it was a good time."

Brazilian Soccer

Soccer is Brazil’s national sport. It was first brought to Brazil by a man named Charles Miller who was born in Brazil in 1874. He was educated in England and brought the first soccer ball and related equipment back to Brazil when he returned in 1894. That same year, the first official soccer match was played in São Paulo at the Várzea do Carmo, and was an immediate success.

Brazil has won more World Cups than any other country. Its first World Cup title was in Sweden in 1958; followed by titles in Chile, in 1962; in Mexico, in 1970; in the United States, in 1994, and most recently in South Korea and Japan, in 2002. Although Brazil’s national soccer team is very popular, there is also a great importance put on the local soccer clubs. Among the most famous soccer clubs are Flamengo, São Paulo, Corinthians and Fluminense, located in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.

Joseph Smith and Stick Pulling

Stick-pulling is a game in which the two contestants sit with their feet together and their hands grasping a stick suspended between them. The one who is able to pull the other up by pulling on the stick is the champion. Being large in stature as well as skillfully coordinated, Joseph seldom lost in this or in wrestling.


Missionary Trivia

1. What's the 11th book in the Old Testament?
2. Exactly how many Stripling Warriors were in Helaman's Army?

Makes Sense To Brazilians

"Here I am next to a cool sign in Guaratingueta. The best part of the sign is in English. But the funny thing is this sign is a promotion for a bar in Guaratingueta. What they are trying to say is Beer Stop and it makes sense to Brazilians but it just looks kinda dumb to us Americans. Oh well, we do lots of dumb stuff too. You just gotta learn to laugh at yourself"

Brazil in Guinness World Records 2005

I was surfing the web and came across Brazil's claim to fame according to Guiness. I'll ask Curtis to check into this. Be careful around that spider!

The Biggest Dance Festival

The Biggest Street Carnival

The Most Important Producer of Telenovelas

The Heaviest Oil Drilling Platform

The Biggest Collection of Cachaça Bottles

The Biggest Bag of Popcorn

The Biggest Polished Emerald

The First Full Length Animated Film Made by Computer

Record Number of Soccer World Cup Victories

The Biggest Group Parachute Jump in Peacetime

The Biggest Wedding Ceremony in a Prison

The Longest Career for a Stadium Announcer

The Most Poisonous Spider

The Shortest Couple

The Longest Undefeated Streak in Kumite Karate

The Biggest Seaside Garden

The Tallest Artificial Christmas Tree

The Biggest Floating Christmas Tree

The Widest Avenue

Alyssa's Birthday

Today is Curtis' sister's birthday. She is 10 years old. Alyssa sent Curtis an email and told him that she is going bowling and camping for her birthday. She also asked him if he remembers how old she is.

Zone Conference

Curtis and his companion attend a zone conference every six weeks. They spent the night with twelve other missionaries in Guaratingueta. The next morning they drove to Sao Jose dos Campos. He says that zone conferences are "the coolest".

Guaratingueta, is a city of Brazil in the eastern part of the state of Sao Paulo, 124 miles northeast of the city of Sao Paulo. Population of the municipality, which includes a large rural district and the villages of Apparecida and Roseira, is 100,000 people. The city, which was founded in 1651, stands on a fertile plain 3 miles from the Paraiba river, and is the commercial center of one of the oldest agricultural districts of the state. The district produces large quantities of coffee, and some sugar, Indian corn and beans. Cattle and pigs are raised. The city dwellings are for the most part constructed of rough wooden frames covered with mud, called taipa by the natives, and roofed with curved tiles. The Sao Paulo branch of the Brazilian Central railway passes through the city, by which it is connected with Rio de Janeiro on one side and Sao Paulo and Santos on the other.

Sao Jose dos Campos is one of the most important cities in Sao Paulo. It lies about 75 miles east of Sao Paulo; it's cut across by Via Dutra, the highway which connects Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. In 1950, Sao Jose was the place chosen for the construction of the Brazilian Aerospace Center; the Instituto Tecnologico de Aeronautica is today one of the most respected Brazilian schools of Engineering. Sao Jose dos Campos is one of the most important industrial and technological cities in Brazil. Embraer and most of the Brazilian aerospace companies are here; also, the following corporations have plants in Sao Jose: Petrobras, Johnson and Johnson, Kodak, Fuji, Pilkington, Panasonic, Eaton, General Motors, and Ford. The population is approximately 600,000 people and has an average income higher than most of Brazil. An infrastructure of commerce and services was created to cater for both the local consumers and the growing number of visitors.

Mission Videos

This is the link to the videos that Curtis has taken with his digital camera. There is also a permanent link on the right side of the page. I will upload more videos when Curtis sends new ones, so keep checking back. They are optimized for a broadband internet connection -- if you don't want to wait for them to load, right-click on them and save them to your hard drive.

Curtis' Mission Videos

Mission Pictures

This is an email I received from Curtis today:

"Hey,

Is there a link to my missionary pictures from the blogspot page? I hope so so everyone can check out my awesome Brazilian adventures, and yes, they are awesome. You could put the videos on the website once or twice a week to keep all the people anticipating them and coming back to the site. Me and Elder Pieper have been making cool videos on the new memory card, like a funny one of me shining shoes and today we are going to Antonio's and he is going to play the solo from Stairway to Heaven. I'm surely excited for it.

See ya later Webmaster Dad,

Love Ya, Elder Tonks"

So here is the link to all of Curtis' pictures. There is also a permanent link on the right side of the page. I'd like to know what you think so please leave a comment about them.

Curtis' Mission Pictures

Hawaiian Memories

We returned home from our family vacation last night. Being there brought back memories of the time Curtis and I spent together in Hawaii seven years ago. He was 12 years old. I was staying at Barbers Point with the Air Force and I arranged for Curtis to fly over and spend a few days with me. I met him at the airport with a lei. We drove over KoloKole Pass, swam at Sandy Beach, went snorkeling in Hanama Bay, and got ice cream at the Dole Plantation. I enjoyed all these things over again with my wife and daughters during the past week. The best memory I have of Curtis was when we visited the Polynesian Cultural Center. He got bored after a while and wanted to go across the street and swim in the ocean. He didn't have his swimsuit with him so he swam in his underwear. It was a fun time.