Saudações do Brasil

Greetings from Campinas, Brazil, the city of surprisingly few internet cafés (or 'LANhouse', as most of them are called here). The lack of internet access coupled with the frenetic pace of my travels so far have prevented me from writing anything here, but since I just stepped all weird in a hole in the sidewalk and twisted my ankle, I figured now might be a good time to sit down and relax a little.

The last week before I came down here I started to get really anxious about this trip - was Brazil really the magical and wonderful place I remembered from six years ago, or had I romanticized Brazil and I would come back and everything would feel different and disappointing because I´m not a missionary this time? The answer so far is mostly the former, with a little bit of the latter mixed in for good measure.

I took a trip to Piracicaba yesterday and it definitely fell into the romanticized/disappointing category. I still am in love with the downtown area, but when I went back to the neighborhood on the outskirts of the city where I lived for six months I could only think of one word: depressing. I remembered the neighborhood being really green and safe and beautiful, but maybe I had on a big fat pair of rose-colored glasses on when I was a missionary because yesterday it looked so ugly, all the grass was dead, all the sugarcane fields I used to love were cut down, all the houses looked totally ramshackle, and I couldn´t get into contact with anyone that I knew there because their phone numbers were all different and they had all moved away. To top it all off, I stepped in some dog crap in the middle of the road.

On the bright side, Campinas itself is just as awesome as I remembered it. I feel completely at home here, and I am surprised at how well I remember everything about the city. I brought a big old map of the city with me to help me remember my way around, but I´ve hardly even used it because I remember pretty much every square inch of the city. With every single street that I walk on brings this whooshing feeling in my brain and I can suddenly remember everything that ever happened to me on that street.

The church has grown so much in Campinas since I left. There used to be three stakes here in the city itself; now there are four plus a little city right next door (Hortolândia) that used to be a part of a Campinas stake now has an entire stake to itself. Every single chapel I´ve gone back to visit has has been completely rebuilt and has doubled in size. It's been amazing to see.

But even more amazing has been seeing all the church members that I knew and loved all those years ago. I came down here without getting into contact with anyone because I couldn't find phone numbers and addresses after so many years, plus I feared that many people would have changed phone numbers or moved (I was right on both counts, but fortunately most have only moved a street or two away from their old houses). I was worried that maybe the whole week would go by and I wouldn't see any of my old friends at all.

Fortunately, that hasn't been the case at all. I'm staying at the housing they have at the Campinas Temple for church members who come from thousands of miles away (I think Michigan qualifies) and the first morning I was there I asked the receptionist if a man named Olavo still worked at the temple as a gardener. She said he did and that he was actually right outside. Olavo and his wife Mirian were a family that we baptized near the beginning of my mission and in the last month of my mission, just after the Campinas Temple was dedicated, I got to attend their sealing. He invited me over to his house for dinner that night. Moments later I strolled out of the parking lot and saw that the security guard was Claudio Campos, a good friend of mine from the Planalto Ward. And it has gone on and on like that - I've seen dozens and dozens of the people I love from all of the areas I lived during the the entire two-year span of my mission.

There was one man named Oberdan that we baptized that I was a little worried about because his wife had just died and he lived in a really dangerous favela so I didn't know if I would ever hear about him again, but the aforementioned Claudio Campos told me that Oberdan had married his (Claudio's) sister, they now have five kids, and they have been sealed in the temple. I was so thrilled to hear that. Overall I've felt a little bit like Alma when he ran into the sons of Mosiah after a couple of years:

...therefore Alma did rejoice exceedingly to see his brethren; and what added
more to his joy, they were still his brethren in the Lord; yea, and they had
waxed strong in the knowledge of the truth; for they were men of a sound
understanding and they had searched the scriptures diligently, that they
might know the word of God. (Alma 17:2)

Well, my hour is almost up and my ankle is feeling a lot better, so I think I will be taking off now. When next I write it will probably be from Rio. I'm going to Rio - how cool is that?