Remembering Our Oregon Vacation

I have been writing to Curtis about the vacations we have taken while he's been gone. He wrote back and commented that he had been thinking about the Oregon vacation we took last year and he thought it was one of his best trips ever. He even stated that he might like to spend his honeymoon on the Oregon coast someday!

Click here to look at our California/Oregon vacation pictures.

Click here to watch a video of Curtis chasing gulls on the beach in Bandon, Oregon.

Wesley Snipes Challenge

(click on the image)

"We are some pretty funny dudes, eh?"

Wilson - King Of Converts

"We had Wilson´s baptism last Saturday, the 16th. It was so cool to see him get baptized. Elder Pieper had been teaching him since February, and he finally got baptized. We both had to baptize him because he is a big fella. Hooray. He will be a strong example to his family, and he has been a huge testimony builder to us. I love that man dearly and love his humor and his honest sincereness and commitment to the Gospel. Wilson shall reign as king of converts over all the world."

Baptism

"We have an investigator named Wilson, who is by far the coolest person in all of Brazil. He is making such awesome progress and he really is a true convert to the gospel. It's so cool to see him progress and his baptism is scheduled for the 16th of July. Everyone circle the date on your calendars."

"Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins is an essential covenant to make with the Lord. Faith and repentance precede this ordinance. Confirmation and the gift of the Holy Ghost follow baptism. Acceptance of these first principles and ordinances may obtain for us a remission of our sins and assure our salvation. In the ordinance of the sacrament, we regularly renew this and other covenants, and by complying with our part of the covenant, we receive the Spirit of the Lord to be with us."

-- A. Theodore Tuttle, "Covenants, Ordinances, and Service" "Ensign," May 1984

Festa Junina

"The other night we had a Festa Junina at the Soup Kitchen. It was pretty cool. It celebrates something about three of the Saints in the Catholic Church. So there we were, the Mormon Boys, eating hot dogs and drinking hot cocoa, gathered around a fire celebrating the saints with all of our Catholic friends. It honestly was pretty fun. They are way nice and we plan on baptizing all of them, even Paulo, the ringleader."

Brazilians celebrate the month of June with parties that can be even bigger than Carnaval in some cities. Those parties are called Festas Juninas and they celebrate saints Anthony, John and Peter with lots of traditional foods, drinks and a theatrical dance inherited from the French called quadrilha (a type of square dance).

However, the origin of this party is much older than Brazil itself. It began in Europe. The month of June being the beginning of the summer, bring crops that the population celebrated with parties and ceremonies. All over Europe, people used to make bonfires on hilltops and plains to dance around and jump over. Part of the ceremonies also was to offer the fire some of the crop and even live animals to bring luck for the next crop season. From this old practice, came the tradition of bonfires in Festas Juninas.

Nowadays, Brazilians do not thank for the crops because in South America this is not the crop season. As for the celebrations they extend throughout the month, commemorating Saint Anthony on June 13, Saint John on June 24, and Saint Peter on June 29.

Every Festa Junina has a tall pole with a Saint John image hanging on it. Tradition says that Elizabeth, Saint John's mother, used a tall pole to announce the son's birth to Saint John's aunt, Mary who was expecting Jesus. In Brazil, this pole was transformed into a special attraction; it is the so-called pau-de-sebo (greased pole). The pole is covered with grease and money or any other kind of prize is placed on its top.

When the French missionaries came to Brazil they brought the quadrilha, which is a theatrical dance that tells the story of a marriage in a small town. Due to its origin, even today you still see some French words in the quadrilha lyrics, terms like anavam, anarrié, granche, balancê, travessê, devaiê and tour. And the quadrilha became the official dance of a Festa Junina.

Great Friends

"Eric wrote me the other week and let me tell you it was a good letter and great to hear from him."

I also received a nice email today from Eric Leishman. He commented on Curtis' weekly emails and this website saying "I really enjoy them and it is just awesome to keep up on what he is doing! It is amazing to see the things that Curtis is doing and the progress that he is making with the people down there." As a father it's nice to know that even though Curtis is so far away from home he has a GREAT friend like Eric that expresses a genuine concern for him.

From Up Here The City Lights Burn, Like 1000 Miles Of Fire

"This picture is taken from a ridge overlooking downtown Cruzeiro and the greater downtown Cruzeiro area. I'm making Cruzeiro sound huge but it's not that big. Anyway, this ridge is near the Cruzeiro Futebol Clube and it's about 8 at night. I moved the camera right as I took the picture and put a sweet smudge effect on the stoplights, streetlights and houselights of Cruzeiro. And that's only about a third of the whole city. Yeah, Zac Lambert would love this photo. I hope everyone else does."

Seasons In Brazil

"Cruzeiro is freezing as of late. Not really freezing, but I think its because it used to be so hot, and now the slight drop in temperature is making me way cold, especially at night. The other night we decided, for some strange reason, to sleep with the window ajar. Well, about 4am I decided I was cold and the only reason I didn't get up to shut it was out of pure and simple laziness, I'm not gonna lie. So its chilly in Cruzeiro."

Although 90 per cent of Brazil is within the tropics, more than 60 per cent of the population lives in areas where altitude, sea winds, or polar fronts moderate the temperature. There are five climatic regions in Brazil: equatorial, tropical, semi-arid, highland tropical and subtropical. Plateau cities such as Sao Paulo, Brasilia and Belo Horizonte have milder climates averaging 19°C (66°F). Rio de Janeiro, Recife, Natal and Salvador on the coast have warmer climates balanced by the Trade Winds. Rio, for example, has an average temperature of around 26°C (80°F) which will climb into the high 30s-low 40s (over 100°F) during the summer months. In the southern Brazilian cities of Porto Alegre and Curitiba, the subtropical climate is similar to parts of the US and Europe, with frosts occurring in the winter months (July-August) when temperatures can fall below freezing.

Seasons in Brazil are the reverse of those in the US:

Spring: 22 September to 21 December
Summer: 22 December to 21 March
Autumn: 22 March to 21 June
Winter: 22 June to 21 September