Day 27 and 28: João Pessoa

Ok, I have some time and some photos so let´s back trach just a little bit shall we?  So, João Pessoa means John the Person, nice eh!  Well we got there and checked into a different hotel.  Poor Doug, he is super tall and his feet were hanging off the edge of his bed, oh the joys of being short, hee hee, never really have to worry about that one.

 

    Anyway, we went to the beach and there was this ship anchored just off the shore called Pirata, the Pirate.  We were sorely tempted to go and comandeer the ship and then attack all the other ships in the harbor-but figured we would probably get in trouble or some such rubbish, and there´s the little problem that we don´t know how to man a ship...

 This is the beach where we went to and a view of the city.  The water was so pretty here, nice and clean, but the current was strong and kept pulling us away from the city and away from our group.  One could look at that as an analogy-we can´t be content with where we are in life and simply stop swimming, cause the minute we do we are slowly carried farther away from where we really want to be and if we don´t look to shore we can be swept away from everything-dun dun dun, deep huh!

This is Roger the crab, Natalia likes to name things about as much as I do and we always come up with really good names together, though Roger is all her.  A bunch of people in the group worked on this elaborate castle, some of the Brazilians even came and helped out, and then they found Roger and we pronounced him kind of the castle-only problem was he didn´t want to be king of the castle and kept trying to escape.  This picture shows him slowly trying to edge his way over the wall!



Only a few of us actually went swimming, here we have (starting from the right back) Michelle, Shawndeen, Cristina and I, and then in the front is Danilo, he is Vanessa´s 13 year old son and he sure does have a bunch of energy-he is fun to have around.

 A few people from our group decided to play a rousing game of football while we were there, Josh scraped up his knee unfortunately and we had some of our first bloodshed of the trip (well the first that I know of anyway-other than the horrendous blisters that Michelle McMurry got at the beginning of the trip)

After the beach we hurried and cleaned ourselves up, got real respectable and presentable lookin and all, some of the guys even washed behind their ears (though I have never understood the reason behind that, it´s not like anyone really looks there, so why should we wash it ;) ) and then we headed of to the pier so that we could get something to fill our growling bellies and also to listen to this guy play the saxaphone, he is pretty good.  Good enough that this other guy is willing to row him around for a long time while he stands there and does nothing but breathe in and out and blow air through this instrument.  It was really fun actually, he even came later and preformed Ave Maria at the restaurant where we decided to eat.

The last thing I want to mention about the trip is that I went absolutely crazy for earings (which I hardly ever wear but maybe this will be the start of something beautiful) and I bought 5 pairs-I know right!  These are some of the ones I bought and I just love them.  I also went a little bit crazy out in the sertão and bought a bunch of bracelets and stuff made from the seeds of the caatinga out there.  I know that I don´t really wear this kind of stuff, but maybe I will start, and if not then the money went to a super good cause anyway.  I think I mentioned this in a past blog, but the kids get together and make this stuff-first of all to give them something to do, second to give them an income and a way to help out their families.

A few of these belong to Carla-they just helped to complete my picture (the two necklaces on the right and the bracelet just to the right of them).  These are what I bought from the group of kids in the desert-no calling dibs on anything, I may or may not let anyone steal these from me (cough-Erika-cough)




A few more introductions now:

Cristina Cowley is the one on the right, sitting at the end of my chair in this photo.  She is super funny!  She is the proud mother of four kids, three girls-Tiffany, Vanessa and Jessica, and then one boy-John.  Cristina is getting her masters right now in Portuguese.  She really wants to use her native language-she was born in Portugal and so has a funny accent sometimes, especially with the letter s, she often turns it into a sh.  Her kids understand a lot of Portuguese but don´t really know it and she is kind of sad about that and so looking for a way to really leave a  heritage of Portuguese one way or another.

Cristina is a trouble maker, she is always in the thick of everything and always making everyone laugh.  She is always up for anything, one of the first to jump in the ocean everytime we get there, always involving herself in any game that we play and just making the most of everything.  She has a hard time sleeping and only gets a few hours a night so she is always up late talking and laughing and most likely causing trouble, and then she is back up bright and early in the morning.  I knew her a little bit before the study abroad because she taught one of the language labs that I had to go to for Portuguese 101.  She is just a really nice person, fun to be around and always enthusiastic.  One of her little quirks is that she does not like to put on sunscreen.  She will put protector on her lips, cause she hates for those to burn, but everywhere else she generally will refuse.  We keep warning her that she will probably get skin cancer and she bluntly informs us that everyone has to die sometime, and if she does then she wants white roses at her funeral!  What a kid huh!

This is just another example of how fun she is, aren´t we cute with our George Washington hair styles?
Oh, and if that wasn´t cool enough, she actually served in the same mission as Brent Bishop!  Elder Bishop (as she so fondly calls him) was one of her district leaders or something, how funny is that, the world is super small, especially within the church.



Next we have Joshua Barton- AKA The double dub- I have officially dubbed him, as of today, the walking wikipedia of the group!

Josh is a history major and knows pretty much everything!  He is one smart cookie, today Michelle came up to me today in a museum and asked me why some of the monks and stuff had marks on their hands like Christ did, if it was symbolism or if they had been crucified as well or what.  Well I had no idea, so I sent her Josh´s way and he was able to give her a text book answer!  And that is just one example, he is super knowledgable and a really great guy.  He served in Brazil as well, actually in the same mission as Natalia in Brasilia.  I think that they also live in the same stake, or ward or something so that is fun.  Her mom really wants her to marry him, but neither of them are very keen on the idea so it is super funny!

She´s the one on the left if you forgot what she looks like and he is on the right (if you forgot what he looks like as well!)  Josh has been growing out a moustache while here and took a vote the other day with our group to decide whether or not he should keep it.  At first I vehemently declared that he should get rid of it as all staches are disgusting.  But upon further contemplation I came to realize that he is one of the few people I have EVER seen that can actually pull it off and not look like a pedifile or something equally disturbing! PS-this picture has three of my very most favorite people of all time in it-I have made such good friends on this trip!

So that is a little bit about Josh.  Oh, and he loves Star Wars and in class he is constantly doodling pictures in his notebook, pictures of Darth Vader and other Star Wars characters!  He is super good at remember directions and landmarks.  He is staying in a house with three other people in our group and none of them have bothered to learn their way around or remember what stop is theirs or anything, they just follow Josh!  It kind of annoys him, but what can ya do besides ditch them and let them suffer-bahahahaha, but he is too nice for that!