Learning to be nerds

 Wednesday December 17. This morning the power was out but strangely the fridge, microwave, and our chargers still worked. The water was running so we were able to take showers. But no lights anywhere. Good thing we had headlights tough to shave in the dark. Then down six floors of stairs. The whole building was out.we got to work and started learning how to access files to update them on projects currently in progress. The workers are mostly young women, very kind but only one very fluent in English. When I get confused we revert to Portuguese fairly quick. 

The workers had made a welcome sign and had a wall with everyone’s name on a paper stocking. There was a gift bag of candy and a cake. 

They took us out for lunch at Outback. We had ribs, the food was fantastic and they all talked so much and so fast it made me work at it but I held my own. Then back to work. I am not the quickest student but they are persistent. We finished the day early and went shopping. I was a little confused so we ended up walking back and forth past the corner where the huge supermarket is located. It used so much time we had to go back where we worked to use the bathroom. We spent a little time finding the food we wanted. But when we ate it was excellent. Price wise it was a little higher, the same as lunch was. We had to call the credit union as our debit card was declined as being in a foreign country and suspected of fraud. I guess not everyone got the memo that we were in Brazil. We work in a tall building behind the visitor center, next to the chapel, next to the temple. They have a Christmas village in the parking lot and on the yard of the chapel. I will get more pictures later.

We have a view of the temple from our apartment.

There are so many motorcycles it is difficult to describe. They speed and drive between the lanes of traffic. They run red lights and stop signs and are constantly beeping their horns. They get in packs of up to maybe a hundred. There are thousands of them. They do delivery and who knows what else. Pedestrians don’t have the right of way here so crossing without a stoplight and the green walking signal is stupidity.

I will get better pictures of this. You can hear them all night and even now while writing this at 4 in the morning one just roared by. But hey we aren’t in Kansas anymore. Walking down the street it is an experience not everyone gets to have. I am doing okay speaking and understanding the people for now, and grandma is doing better. I am still working at adjusting to the time change. It is 4 hours later here, which makes it easier to call home and take care of things when we get back home from work. The downside is when we needed tech support from salt lake in the morning it was 5 in the morning back there. Love to all.

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