from a new area in Brazil...

Here's the latest from our missionary. I'm sending Christmas stuff by the beginning of next week. If anyone has anything they would like to add just call me or email me or leave a comment. Thanks!

Oí famíliaYes i did get transfered.... But now i´m in aparicida de goiânia. It´s about an hour away from anapolis and is just like how gilbert is to mesa, just about the same city. My new comp is elder moraes,he´s from são paulo and this is only his second transfer on the mission. the city is alot bigger than where i was. We have a super nice capela and is only one year old. The only bad thing is that the area covers about half the city. There used to be 6 missionaries in the area, but now only 2. My comp is still new and still is nervous while he talks to others. we have a baptism marked for this sunday, her name id taís and is a firm baptism. We are also teaching a teenager that is really cool and wil baptize nov 8. He´s 16 and about the size of trent, which is huge for a brazillian. The area here is good and has lots of potential. The bus drivers here are crazy and i´ve already fallen twice on the bus. Here´s a question for you guys. Did you know that cashews come from a fruit? It´s true, the fruit looks like a mini apple with the cashew nut on top. And you can´t eat the nut raw, it had to be toasted. I don´t have any cool stories. Just that the other day a drunk lady tried to eat my pastel, it dosen´t sound like anything much but it was hilarious. That´s about it for this week, anyone have question for me? See you later. Elder Lewis

finally finished a project

YAY!! I finally finished this cute Witch project! I got the wood for my birthday so I guess it's about time. But there's still a couple more things I want to do for Halloween... I guess I better hurry... so many ideas... so little TIME!!!

Trent's big adventure...

Like I mentioned yesterday... Trent went on a super activity date... I gave him a camera... he returned it with pictures. I don't know too many details, but I think the pics speak for themselves. The man himself...
The cute girls...

The cute guys.... (I know Trent wouldn't use the word cute here, but it's MY blog!)

The first part of the date was a drive to the caves, somewhere by Payson

The cave explorers... I love the headlights.

The silly cave explorers.... Trent took these pics himself... he has REALLY long arms!

more cave...

YAY! they made it out!

I just threw this one in cuz it was funny... Trent pondering!

So that was the first half. After cave exploring, they drove out to the desert to watch a movie! Trent and Quentin planned this way far ahead. First, they bought some couches... they took them out Friday night along with a generator, large TV and dvd player and did a trial run to make sure everything worked... They left the couches out in the desert with a BIG note on them to please not take, shoot or destroy them in anyway... that they were going to use them Saturday night. I thought the note thing was hilarious! I just thought... what are the chances of the couches still being there Saturday night... AND they were... safe and sound! So they watched a movie and roasted hot dogs under the stars. Trent even borrowed a NICE vehicle to drive (thanks big sister!) What great date planners and Trent said they all had a fun time!

MOM is glad everyone had a great time but even MORE relieved when everyone is home safe and sound!

rAnDoM sAtUrDaY sTufF...

I took a break to do a random Saturday stuff post ... for anyone that's bored and is wondering.... what is Joanna/mom/grammy doing today?!?

Well... I'll tell ya... I got up early and went garage sale-ing... not too exciting... then I made yummy chocolate waffles for Mike so he would have enough energy to keep tiling... He's almost got himself in a corner... Hmmmm... but the tile looks great... keep up the good work Mike!

In the meantime... Trent headed out for a BIG date that he has been planning for weeks. I sent my other camera with him so he BETTER have pictures for me to blog about when he gets back.

I still haven't finished up my Halloween stuff... ALMOST... pics later....

BUT...

The other day I got this out of my Halloween stuff... I made it a LONG time ago... it's cute... kinda like perms and fluffy bangs were cute when I made it... but even though it looks OK in the pic... it was pretty beat up and sooooooooo I decided to remake it.....

I wanted it to look a little more funky... kinda like my candleabra with the NON bleeding candles... so this is the AFTER... now I have to find a place for it....

AND... I am LITTLE behind in couponing... so I am catching that up and then it is OFF to the stores, errands and nail salon for me.... so there ya have it... my random Saturday ramblings... just in case you wanted to know. Have a GREAT weekend everyone!

How disappointing... not a single drop of blood

Well.... I ran across a really cute cheap Hollween decoration on a blog the other day. Some cheap thift store candle holders and red candles were spray painted black. Very Halloweeny looking... BUT ... the best part was when the candles were lit the red wax melted, dripped and oozed like blood. COOL idea I thought! So I went to the thrift store on my lunch hour the other day and found a very cool old candleabra and red candles for about $3... I was SO excited.... I was going to make bleeding candles! I took the candleabra apart and spray painted all the pieces and the candles. I put it all back together and it looked great. I made sure I didn't put the spray paint too heavy on the candles cuz.... I wanted them to bleed LOTS! .... BUT....

to my GREAT disappointment... NOT ONE DROP OF BLOOD.... I couldn't even spill some out by tipping the candles.... my only theory is that I ended up with dripless candles... who would of thought I could buy DRIPLESS candles at the thrift store. Oh well.... on to the next project.

latest from Brazil...

Still no pictures, but it sounds like everything is going good!

oí família
how´s everything going? This week was a good week, we taught a ton of lessons and found a bunch of new people. The only bad thing is that only one of them came to church. Also this week we had an activity with president tobias. It had two parts, a missionary smart part and a waterballoon part. The missionary smart part the two zones were about even. But the waterballoon part, our zone kicked the other zone´s trash.We had to do stuff like say scriptures, say all the topics of the lessons, see who knows the missionary manual the best, say the attributes of christ the fastest, who had the best planner, who had the most scriptures marked and stuff like that. Then we had a waterballoon toss, launched balloons with a sheet for the other team to catch, and a bunch more. It was really fun, we also got to wear normal clothes. I didn´t take pictures because we were inside the chapel for the first part and i didn´t want the camera to get wet. That´s about it for the week, i don´t have any pictures again for you guys. This week has been deathly hot. After it rains it always gets like 10 degrees hotter. Transfers are this monday and i´m pretty sure i will be leaving the city, we´ll see if i´m right or not next tuesday. Here halloween is not celebrated. Yesterday was kid´s day and school is out for a week. The next big holiday is christmas, i think. One thing that is different here is that the parents don´t allow their kids to drink cold water. And also when someone is sick, they´re not supposed to drink cold water. Ice doesn´t really exsist, only a few people aren´t lazy and put water in the freezer.That´s about it, see you all later.

Ahhhhh.... FALL!!!

I'm back from my quick trip to Utah and refreshed from my FALL fix! Me, Kristin and Krislin left Friday afternoon and had a great plane ride. I actually stayed awake and watched the view.. (this is QUITE unusual for me cuz I ALWAYS have to take dramamine and I sleep through the whole flying thing) But it was so cool seeing the earth from so far above and I had one of those PROFOUND moments where you realize how great creation is and we are a tiny little speck on this huge grand earth! So after we landed we immediately went to EAT... absolutely stuffed ourselves (my family eats a lot! I'm not mentioning any names, but it wasn't me or my brother who ate the most!)...so we HAD to go shopping to walk it all off! We went to a mall and to Shopko, where I bought some fuzzy gloves and a can of gourmet hot chocolate. Take note that I bought hot chocolate. My brother Dan was kind enough to provide lodging, food and chauffeur services!
The whole reason I went to Utah... to see fall! Not all the trees were fall colors yet, but it was still pretty.

Our first stop on Saturday was the Wood Connection. They were busy and out of a lot of stuff, but we still managed to buy a few things.... we certainly weren't going to leave empty handed!

Then on to Gardner village! Besides all the Church places in Utah, this is my favorite place to go!

This is part of the main building which has a great store and a wonderful restuarant.
Used to be a mill in the old days.

It was so much more fun cuz we met up with some of our great friends there! Jana and Andra met us at Wood Connection and then we all went on to Gardner village.

Here's the rest of the gang we met up with. My friend Bev and her daughter Sarah and her daughters Brooklyn and Amberly.

Here we are waiting for our yummy lunch. This place has VERY good food and cute decor. My favorite was the sourdough bread and the fried green tomatoes and avacados.... It was worth the hour wait.

There were fake witches everywhere..

and real witches too!

There are all kinds of little shops.... and LOTS of people

pumpkins EVERYWHERE

Fall decorations and MORE pumpkins

The girls got their eyes SPARKLED!

aren't they cute!

I LOVE hollyhocks... I think I need to try to grow some of these here.

My witchy friend!

more cool stores and MORE people!

even witches gotta go....

While we were all walking around checking out the cute stuff at Gardner village the girls kept telling us about this place.... Tai Pan Trading. Never heard of it. We had a little time before our flight so we checked it out. I didn't take my camera inside but this place was amazing! It's absolutely packed with home decor! It was more like home decor brain overload!

We bought a couple things and cookie jars... hoping that we still had enough room in our suitcases! We definitely HAVE to go back here.. I feel another trip to Utah coming up.... but we will have to bring BIGGER suitcases!

Time to catch our flight... Only two suitcases and SO much stuff!

As we cramed all our purchases in our bags... we jokingly talked about security viewing this on the x-ray machine.... BUT it was NO joke to them... They hesitated about the cookie jar cramed in Kristin's backpack... BUT they pulled MY suitcase off and said we have to check inside. They looked at all the wood and crafty stuff... did a swab test and pulled out the can of hot chocolate. After a little diliberation about the hot chocolate... they said it was OK and we went on our way!

Me and my brother at the airport. He always has his home and chaffuer services readily available to me and my fam and friends. What a great big brother!

The flight home was smooth... I slept through it... the dramamine...

AND while I was gone...

Mike was BUSY tiling the hard spots.... like the laundry room/closet...

and the appliance spots in the kitchen...

the appliances were scattered about, but I nuked Mike a nice dinner anyway!

Soooo... the trip was great, the tile is looking great and I am ready to take on the holidays!!! Life is good!