"Gooooooooooooooooooooal!"

This is what happens when you take 8 missionaries and 1 Mission President to the Fonte Nova Soccer Stadium in Salvador, Brazil for a tour on Pday. Come join us! Especially any of you soccer fans! (Thanks, Micah for helping me post the videos :)

First, we met the elders at the Church and walked over to the only form of Public Transportation other than buses that we have here in Salvador.  It is actually a really nice stretch of an above ground metro system that they built for the World Cup.  Right now it doesn't go to too many places but the plan is that eventually it will. 

It took us right to the recently re-built Fonte Nova Soccer Stadium where the World Cup Games were played here in Salvador. An interesting thing about this stadium's design is that the tarps on top collect the rain water and funnel it down to where it is recycled and used for plumbing at the stadium.

It was in this Stadium that the famous Brazilian Soccer player, Pele scored his 999th goal.  His statue is in front of the Stadium. Brazilians eat, breathe and dream soccer.  Brazil has won the most world cup games with five wins despite their very disappointing loss in last year's 2014 World Cup that was hosted here. (And we all know that was because Neymar was hurt.)

And then the tour began: The tour guide actually turned on a recorded sound of the crowd as they came down the stairs. They loved it! As you can see.

The missionaries really got into it and so did their President.

Even the Brazil World Cup 2014 mascot, "Fuelco" had to get in on the fun.  (I know I'm not exactly sure what he is either.  He's supposed to be an armadillo, but he looks like he is part bee to me.) I'm pretty sure it is the first time he has donned a missionary name tag.

But even with all the fun, our good missionaries never forgot who they are and what they are doing here in Brazil They presented a Book of Mormon to our guide and answered some of his questions about our Church. The guide even gave them his contact info and said he would like to know more.

Now that is something to cheer about!

As President Lisonbee and I were driving home guess who recognized our car and came running up to us as we were stopped in the slow traffic? It was Isak, Joaõ's brother who I blogged about last time who we met at McDonalds. We bought two bottles of water from him.

This last transfer we welcomed a sweet young sister from Washington state.  She reminded us so much of our oldest grand-daughter that I found myself feeling very protective of her. We love these missionaries so much. 

And I guess it's time for another BDIFS and SLM update.

The Boy Did I Feel Stupid moment came when an elder just told me that not long after we had arrived here I sent some elders home after a meeting at our house with some treats I had bought for their long bus ride home.  Only now do I find out that one of the snacks I gave them contains coffee.  I can just see them later in life explaining that the only time they had ever tasted coffee was when their Mission President's wife gave it to them!

And a recent Stupid Language Mistake came at a training I was doing in front of 120 missionaries when I pronounced "agua de coco"(coconut water) with the accent on the last syllable.  No big deal right?  Wrong.  With the accent on the first part of the word "coco" it means coconut. But with the accent on the second syllable of the word, "coco" it means poop. And the worst part is that I was suggesting poop water as something that is good to take for diarrhea.  You can imagine their reaction to that.

Life goes on here with many wonderful moments being involved in this great work.  I have so many experiences I want to share about the miracle of this work that I can't keep up. I will try to catch up  more on that next time.

Until then,

Até logo. Amamos vocês!