Our trip

On Friday morning, April 13, we gathered all of our suitcases and headed of to the MTC to catch the shuttle for the airport. We each had three suitcases. The best deal was that to Brazil the luggage limit is 70 pounds instead of the usual 50 pounds. Because of space limitation I had to jettison the Stars and Sprigs quilt so I ended up with just the Lollypop trees project. Anyway back to the story. We managed to get all the luggage in one car but then there was no room for Brad and Alisa who were taking the car back home. We ended up taking two cars.
After checking in with Delta and going through security we had three hours to wait. Mike and I pulled out our computers and started indexing the 1940's US census. I am having a kick with the Arizona one. I have been doing a bunch from Clifton. Mike prefers Utah. At noon we went looking for food. The SLC airport has changed vendors and many of the places we thought would be available were closed and the ones that were open were very crowded. We decided to walk to another concourse where there aren't as many people. I wanted to walk and not do the moving walkways. As I was going along I felt my skirt hitting lower and lower on my legs. Strange, I thought, I know this skirt is not that long. I looked down and my slip was about down around my ankles. I started to laugh and headed for a quiet corner where I just pulled the thing down and completely off. I stuffed it in my purse and went on. I  thought removing it was better than trying to pull it back up. That would involve exposing more than I cared to. My saving grace (if there was one) is that there weren't very many people around. Mike thought that I should recreate the episode with photos. I declined.  We have laughed about it so often since.

When we were boarded for Atlanta I pulled out my Kindle ready to read a novel I had been saving just for the trip. It was one I looked forward to with great anticipation. When I turned the Kindle on half of the screen was scrambled and the other half was an ad. I tried turning it off and on several times and nada. No change. Argh! Well, the movie was the second Sherlock Holmes movie which I hadn't seen. I love Robert Downey Jr. I dug out my earphones, plugged them in and nothing but static. The flight attendants were of no help either. Whole row out? Nothing can be done. Too bad. Argh! So I dug out my computer and did indexing while Mike read on his Kindle fire. I was so jealous.

The trip from Atlanta to Sao Paulo was better. I was able to watch "The Artist." It was a fun movie. The flight was 9 hours and I didn't get a bit of sleep in. I was very envious of the guy in front of me who slept the whole time. I pretended to sleep and hoped that would count for something. It really didn't help. We arrived sleep deprived, jet lagged and exhausted.

It was with great joy when we saw the two men holding signs for Elder and Sister Stephenson. They had been sent by the temple president in his wife's car that held all the luggage and four passengers. Driving the roads in Sao Paulo can be very exciting. I was so glad I wasn't behind the wheel. Listening to the two converse was interesting. I caught a few words here and there. Mike could keep up with pretty well. I try to speak when I can. It is really a lovely flowing language. The people seem to appreciate it when I try.



After we settled into our apartment we went exploring. We tried our hand at self photographing. I think the sleep deprivation shows on our face. Also note the curling hair. The high humidity is making my hair curl. So much for straight hair. This was taken outside the temple. Ned always does so well. I guess I need more practice.  We discovered the temple has camellia bushes and they are just now forming buds. Mike's mom loved camellias. We are looking forward to the blossoms.

 We wandered around the temple grounds and then noticed a Walmart was just down the block so we went to check it out. While exploring there a young woman called out to us. She noticed our name tags. She and her husband are LDS and they visited with Mike. She used some English with me. Her English was much better than my Portuguese. They were so kind.

I am glad to be here, be unpacked, and I am looking forward to sleeping in a bed. Man was not meant to sleep upright.