President Lisonbee Speaks!

President Lisonbee with our great assistant, Elder Hollingsworth from Temecula, California

David:  I thought it was time that I contribute something to this blog. First of all I want to talk about Bianca a little. She has been fantastic. She is now speaking in Stake Conferences in Portuguese!  She's worked hard to prepare her talks and I've realized, even in Portuguese that she can make people laugh, cry and be inspired in the way only Bianca can.  After one of her talks a man came up to me and said that he'd never felt so much love from a speaker in his life.  One woman passed her a note saying what a wonderful talk she gave.  I have yet to receive any notes or comments on any talks I have given except when a General Authority corrected a mistake I made when speaking just before him.  I made the mistake of saying I loved being in Bahia when we were actually in another state.  Sunday, Bianca spoke at a conference where a General Authority was presiding and he ended up quoting her.  No one has yet to quote me either. She is also amazing at our missionary meetings.  We sometimes open the meeting up for questions and several times I have turned to her and watched her open up the scriptures on the spur of the moment and expound on them with perfect answers.  One elder said that something she shared in one of our meetings changed not only his whole mission, but his life. I have seen the fulfillment of the promise that President Eyring gave her when he met with us to issue our call.  He told her that the language would not be a problem for her. She has been the best companion I could ever want. At the MTC Elder Nelson told the mission presidents to " take care of your wives as if your life depended on it, because it does." I know that to be true.

This photo is after one of our Stake Conferences where the members gave her a rose

And she's been a great sport about being put in some very difficult situations.
I don't want her to drive here because it is too crazy!  And I'm not just talking about my driving. She hasn't argued with me on this. Just picture being on a ride in a carnival that is a combination of bumper cars and a ride in a spook alley where things keep popping out at you, like cars, bicycles, pedestrians, etc. and you will have an idea of what it is like here. So Bianca depends on me to take her to the store.  I have to confess that I've been guilty of the "Ikea" syndrome that I had on our mission in Italy because I've HATED going to the grocery stores here. One time we waited in the checkout line for over an hour!  Sometimes I'll just drop her off and then come back for her and that's worked out fine but she must have been praying that I would have a change of heart concerning food shopping because almost miraculously we found a wonderful Italian grocery store not too far from our house. Perini's!  And the miracle is that I actually don't mind going there.  It reminds us of our time in Italy. They have great parmesan cheese, bread and produce and even gelato and sliced bacon (which is hard to find) that we cook with pancakes for our missionaries on special P days.

Fixing pancakes and bacon with Elder Fatori, one of our great assistants on P day

This is President Mazzagardi from our Area Presidency.  He has an Italian heritage so it has been fun for Bianca because he enjoys speaking Italian with her. 

On the Saturday Night meeting of Stake Conference in the middle of his talk he had me and the Stake President and Ward leaders and the full time missionaries stand up and he told us to go out on the street and look for people to tell about the Gospel.  Right then and there during the meeting. We were instructed to come back in fifteen minutes.  In the meantime he continued talking to the members at the conference.  When we returned he had some of us share some of the great experiences we had. When he told us to go and do this a young man named Ramon jumped up and joined the stake president and me when we went out.  He was amazing and in fact led the way for us to talk to some strangers about the Gospel.  He is 13 years old and on fire with the missionary spirit. He cannot wait until he can serve a mission.

Ramon and me

There are several Stake Presidents here in their thirties.  Amazing men the Lord has raised up to lead the Church here.

This is President Teixiera - Born in Brazil then moved to the United States with his parents. When he was 32 he received a prompting he should move to a city in Brazil he had never been to.  Two months after arriving in Petrolina, Brazil he was called to be the Stake President.  He is now 34 with 3 children.

This is President Bastos, another very young and dynamic Stake President here in the mission

We went to his house for dinner after a Stake Conference and his son was so proud to show us this picture of himself that he had in his room.  Talk about a selfie! Such great families.

This is the Arena Fonte Nova not too far from us where the World cup games in Salvador were played

Before I sign off, I wanted to say that from the minute the former mission president handed the car keys and the phone to me, we've been moving at a pretty fast pace.  I was actually very surprised the day after we arrived when I really could speak Portuguese at our first Zone Conference to meet the missionaries.  All our meetings and Conferences are held in Portuguese because the majority of our missionaries are Brazilian.  I understand almost everything our missionaries say but I'm still having problems understanding the store clerks and people on the street with their Bahian accent. We have seen many miracles already and I am so grateful for the blessings of inspiration that I have felt.   When I served here in Brazil as a young man, just a few years ago, (42 to be exact) there were 4 missions, one stake and no temples and about 50,000 members. And now there are 34 missions, 6 temples and almost a 1,300,000 members. This work is true!

I guess I'll let Bianca take over now and finish and put the photos in.

Bianca:  My turn now.  I always like to have the last word.  I appreciate David's nice words about me and my talks, but I think the reality is that the people here are very kind and feel sorry for the American woman that speaks Portuguese with an Italian accent.

It really was a mission miracle that we found an Italian Grocery store not too far that isn't torture to drive to and is a pleasure to shop in. And David likes going there!

One thing we love making here are smoothies.  There are many wonderful fruits here and in most stores they sell little frozen pouches of the pulp of many different fruits to make smoothies out of.  The Brazilians are masters at making sucos and vitaminas.  (juice and fruit drinks)

This one I made from Coconut milk, Banana, Pineapple, Maracujá and Caja fruits. You may have KFC and peanut butter, but I bet you don't have Maracujá and Caja fruit where you live.

This is Nice (Nee-cee) She has been cleaning the Mission Home for over 20 years.  She is such a blessing to me.  And yes, there are a few people in the world besides childen that I am taller than.

It was like Christmas when the stuff we shipped from Utah with the things we thought we couldn't live without finally arrived this week.  Funny how we could hardly remember what all those "necessary" items were.

I was excited to see how good my Annie Henrie paintings look in the Mission Home

Until next week.  Até logo!