Boa Viagem

Tomorrow we are leaving at 2pm in the afternoon, from the church, on a chartered bus with something like 50 missionaries (including their children) for a two day bus ride. We will sleep on the bus (twice!) and arrive sometime Wednesday afternoon in Ara Cruz in Espirito Santo. That’s a pretty good place to hold a church conference, don’t you think? Yuk yuk. The conference is at a resort outside the city but near a beach. Hooray… I could really use a beach right about now. I think we’ll come back Saturday and arrive home next Monday.

I bought a book of Sudoku puzzles, easy level, and am gradually learning how to do them without cheating. I also will bring a required-reading book for my Culture class, and Portuguese study materials. I think I’m finally ready to learn the pieces I don’t know and have been avoiding (like how to conjugate the really important but impossibly irregular verbs, and how to say neither and even though). I also have been working on a curriculum for training the women I’ve been working with, and need to finish that and have the missionaries I’ve been working with give their opinion. Our first training will be November 20-24.

Pray for safety, for good eating experiences in unknown places on the side of the road, for good relationship-building with the other missionaries on the bus, for energy to be with people and always speaking Portuguese, for me to understand a good chunk of the speakers at the conference, and for fun times at the beach.