Verae and the Banannas

A few days ago we went for one of our walks. Still on the temple property.  This picture was taken at the bottom of the temple hill and looks opposite direction from the temple.

 I always seem to catch Verae with her eyes closed, but you get the idea of the size of the tree.  There are quite a few of them in this area.  I bet you can't find the bananas in this photo.  They are just above the big leaf hanging down.  This is why I didn't see them the first time I went down to this area to take pictures.

This picture is a close up of another tree and as you can see there big stem hangs down with a purple bulb/ flower at the bottom.  You need to click on the picture to enlarge it and then you can see the bananas grow curling up from this stem.

Verae was so fascinated with this little flower/ bulb she took some pictures of just this part of the tree.



One more final picture of the temple on our way back up the hill.  It is about a ten minute walk to the bottom of the hill, but about twenty five minutes to climb back up it.  It is a pretty good work out for our hearts.

The Portuguese language is coming along pretty well, a bit faster than I thought it would. Verae can't see her progress yet, but I can see here becoming more at ease with it.  She can read and pronounce all the ordinances she is supposed to do and goes alone on sessions as a worker and helps at the veil.  I am being trained as a coordinator.  One difference I notice at this temple, from the other temples I have worked at, is that  buses arrive with officiators and patrons in the caravan.  We help those who come to do all the ordinances.  These caravans come and stay up to a week and then return home again.  For many it is a 2 day trip to get here and for others, it is longer.  There is housing for them here on the temple grounds.
The temple here in Campinas server members from 94 stakes and districts from 10 of the 27 states and the federal district.  They are:
São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Federal District (Brazilia), Espírito Santo, Goiás, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Acre and Tocantins.

The distance from Acre to Campinas is about 2000 miles or the same as from San Francisco to Chicago.

Settling in Here

Well we have been here for a week and a half now.  We love it here in the Campinas area, and our apartment is just great.  We had a good rain storm yesterday in the late afternoon and the temperature dropped to 69 degrees.  The power went out twice but came back on after a few seconds each time.  We have been shopping here at Wal-mart and Sams Club and have been to 2 large shopping malls.  In a way it feels more like home than Manhattan.  We have a Magic Jack phone connected to our computer with a Logan, UT phone number.  The internet connection here is faster than in our home in Utah, so the quality of the phone connection is great.
Other missionaries who have cars, or sweet members, have taken us shopping when needed.  We haven't used the buses yet.  We went for a walk with some of the Brazillian senior couples around the temple grounds which are grand and had a fun time visiting with them on an informal basis.  The church owns the whole mountain on which the temple stands.  The temple hill is just across the street from the Notre Dame college and the area had that name because of the school.  Since the temple has been built, the area is now called Mt. Zion and not just by the members.  The address is  Rua James Esdras Foust 400.  It is really quite a bit of exercise to walk up that road on the left.

Our schedule is 8:00 to 3:00 Tues and Wed. and 2:30 to 9:30 on Thurs and Fri.  Saturday is 6:00 to Noon.  We have one meal in the temple at the cafeteria and breakfast at home each day.  Verae went on a session yesterday with the headphones in English but finished the session in Portuguese.  I am picking up the Portuguese faster than I expected.  President Oakes asked me how our first week was and I told him, much better than I expected.
Some of the Brazilian couples have asked us to teach an English class which we will be setting up.  We have been welcomed so warmly here.  I hope to be able to serve these wonderful people here and learn to have more generosity in my service.
We love you all
Elder and Sister Hansen

Arriving in Brazil

 

Well the day of getting on the plane to go to Brazil finally arrived.  President Garff the Manhattan Temple President and his wife were so kind as to take us to the airport about 5:30 PM.  It took about an 1 1/2 in route through the traffic.  We did curb side check in and waited for about 2 hours at the gate.

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The Trip was  about 16 hours from beginning to end, but when we arrived at the apartment we were relieved that we had made it through immigration and customs.  This is the picture of the temple I took as the sun was going down behind it. I still haven't unpacked but I got the computers hooked up.

  We went to church today and I bore my testimony.  It felt so wonderful feeling the spirit and hearing the testimonies of these wonderful Brazilian members.  After church we were invited to dinner at the  home of the Temple Recorder with 2 members of the presidency and their wives along with the brother from the temple committee who is here for a few days.   It has been a wonderful day.

Regis and Kelly Show

While I'm on a roll, I'll just keep going.  After coming home from the concert at Carnegie Hall last night, I thought it would be nice to go see the "Live with Regis and Kelly" show this morning.  We have been planning to see a show while we were here in New York. The ABC building where the studio is for this show, is just outside our window.  It is literally across the street from our apartment building.  One of the guests today was Brook Shields.  You need to be in line before 8:00 to try to get a standby seat.  So I walked there in 2 minutes and got in line.  It was fun to see how they make these shows.

Verae's teeth are FINALLY done

For a while we thought her teeth might never get finished .  The ordeal following the loose bridge with her front teeth has been more than we could have imagined.  At first the school told us that it could take 2 months and maybe more to finish a bridge.  We thought that was plenty long, but our visas weren't here and probably wouldn't be for 2 months or so.  We were told it would cost about twice as much to have a regular dentist fix her teeth.  Not having excess funds for this helped us choose this route.

After 3 months and still looking like we would be at least another month, we had to do something else. I started to look for another dentist on the website for our insurance carrier.  I don't think it is the best way to find a dentist so I talked to the temple president and he talked to others to get a recommendation for us.  That night as we were leaving the temple, Verae was talking to a sister who was waiting for her husband. She told her of our dilemma, this sister said she had a great dentist who they had been using for years who was close by.  When her husband came he gave us the office phone and the cell phone number of Dr. Ayoubi.  I called the next morning which was Friday the 14th and was able to get an appointment for Tuesday the 18th of January.  When we saw the dentist he said we could have the teeth all done in 9 days.  We were SO HAPPY and Surprised.  He made us feel special.  He completed the work even with one setback by Thursday the 27th.

Wednesday night New York was pounded again with 15 inches of snow.  Trying to get to the dentist on Thursday morning was another ordeal.  We normally take 2 buses to get there.  After waiting for buses that didn't come, we tried to get a taxi.  The taxis wouldn't stop either.  We were ankle deep in slush in the middle of the street when I finally got a taxi.  The streets were so plugged that it took him 45 min to get close to the dentist office and I paid $17.00.  We then trudged another block in the slush. Within 15 minutes the permanent 6 tooth bridge was in and looks very nice. Then to get home was another 1 and 1/2 hour ordeal waiting for different buses that didn't come. We in desperation tried to get another taxi, which wasn't easy either.  We arrived home frozen but thankful.

We were invited to a delicious dinner at one of the missionary couples in our building, no traveling involved.  They live one flight of steps down from us.  Afterwords, we all had tickets to a concert at Carnegie Hall.  We thought that by evening the buses would be on schedule . Wrong again. It took 2 taxis for the 6 of us, but me made it there in time.  The piano concert was 41 year old Wibi Soerjadi from the Netherlands. The two hour concert was wonderful.  I didn't know that 2 hands could produce so much music from one piano.  It was a delight to listen when he played.  He demonstrated the 3 hand technique. Under normal playing the left hand might not be used to its fullest extent all of the time, nor the right hand either.  Therefore when you make use of this idle time for the hands, you have the equivalent of an extra hand.  When he played with just the left hand it sounded like most musicians using both hands.  We he used both hands it was incredible. After the concert we decided to slosh home because it wasn't too cold (35 degrees) and it was so pretty.  The streets are still lit up with Christmas lights in the trees.  We went by Central Park and it looked like a winter wonderland.

Central Park Earlier In The Day

We Changed Dentists

We have changed dentists now so we can get things going.  It was still going to be more than a month with the previous dentist at the NYU School of Dentistry.  After waiting 3 weeks during the Christmas shutdown at the school we find that they hadn't sent the impressions off to the lab.  We were under the impression that the lab was making the bridge during the school shutdown, but they weren't.  Needless to say we felt very bad.  We found a new dentist the next day Friday the 14th of Jan.  Dr. Ayoubi is the new dentist and he gave us an appointment for Tuesday the 18th and they began work for new bridge.  It will be completed on the 27th and by the 2nd of Feb. we will be ready to go.

Out travel arrangements are to leave New York the 4th at 9:30 PM on American Airline flight 951.  We will arrive in São Paulo at 10:15 AM on Saturday.

Visas Have Arrived

The phone rang yesterday and notified us that our visas had arrived.  When Verae's teeth are finished we will be able to go to Brazil.  That should be in a couple of weeks.

Snow in Manhattan

 Well we received almost 2 ft of snow in Central Park last night. With the drifts and snow plows, you can see it made for quite a mess.    The show house was closed because of the storm so we can't go to the movies.  Snow plows and snow blowers were working all night so it would be ready for traffic and pedestrians today.  I walked to the grocery store this morning and took these pictures.  Things were pretty much normal except not a lot of people, but you could get around.  I saw two cars stuck in the middle of the street because part of the streets were not plowed yet.
The cars that are parked will be there a while it looks like, but we are warm in our little apartment.  We were able to sleep very well because there were no fire engines and sirens going all through the night.

Buba Gumps

Looking out at Time Square from Bubba Gumps

Bubba Gumps at Time Square

Tonight, December 13th, we went with a group of about 16 temple missionaries to Bubba Gumps Restaurant for dinner before going to the "Donny and Marie a Broadway Christmas" show.  Actually 16 went to dinner and 14 went to the show. Another brother and I decided to save the the $110 for the ticket.  This was Verae's anniversary gift from me.  She said it was worth every penny to her.  She told me she didn't have words to explain how spectacular it was.  We will have been married 44 years on the 21st of December.  Honestly she only wants her 6 front teeth for Christmas, but she won't get them until January.

Yesterday at Church we had the ward Christmas program.  It was very special.  The musical talent here is wonderful.  The soloists were members of the church who are also professionals with wonderfully trained voices.  The final song of "Oh Holy Night" was sung by Michael Ballam who was just visiting and was asked the night before to sing on the program.  Tonight at dinner President Garff told us that Donny Osmond was there also, but we didn't see him.  Later in the evening there was a Messiah Sing a Long.  This is where they have an orchestra and opera singers perform the Messiah on the stand and the congregation sings along on some of the songs if you want to.

We are looking forward to Christmas here and New Years also. New York is decorated so pretty.  It is pretty cold now.  We went out and bought some gloves and ear muffs, and a scarf and hat for Verae.

Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving has arrived and we are still here in New York.  We are happy to be here .  Verae is most of the way through her ordeal with the dentist or should I say dentists.  She is very thankful that the drilling and carving on her teeth is over.  She has the temporary bridge and they gave fit her for the permanent bridge which should be ready in maybe 3 weeks, but most likely 4 weeks.  So we may be here for Christmas also. One of the largest holiday festivals in NY is here at Lincoln Square just in front of the temple.  There will be live music and the lighting of a large Christmas tree. Still no word on the visa accept that SOMEDAY it will just show up and they will call us.
We love serving here, the people are wonderful. Besides the temple missionaries some of the senior missionaries in the area work one day a week in the temple.  Many of the workers are young adults without children and give one day a week.  A few are even coordinators.  We have a new Temple Presidency who we love already.  We had a wonderful dinner with the missionaries and the presidency at President Garff's apartment. Everyone brought what they wanted to make.  Everything was delicious and there was more that we could eat.

Click on the picture for the whole album

I took advantage of the fact the the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade was just a block away on Central Park West street. So I went at 7:00 AM to the Parade to get a seat.  Many people were there since 5:00 AM.  The parade began at 9:00 AM.  The weather was milder than I thought it might be, but I bundled up anyway and I am glad I did.  The rain held off till the parade was over.  Here is a link to the photo album.  Verae decided to go up to the top of our building on the 37th floor and see what she could see from there.  Because of the other taller buildings all around, she could just see what passed between the building at the end of the street which wasn't much.  We then watched the last part on TV.  The picture at the left was taken after I raised my camera as high over my head to take the picture.  This is what it looked like if I didn't raise the camera.  It really was neat to see all the balloons though.

The week before we went to the New York Natural History Museum and walked and walked till our feet fell off.  We saw the Journey To The Stars show in the large planetarium sphere.  This was really spectacular.  This made it worth the walking and sore feet.  See the photo album here.