Hey, We're here!

We've had quite few changes the last week and more and I want to keep people updated on them. We've finally made it down to Brazil, arriving Thursday Dec. 13th. The weeks before we left were scheduled busy and we knew that we would always find more to do once we completed our to-do list. Then, less than 2 weeks before we were to leave for Brazil Samantha got sick which caused a whole new to-do list. Thankfully she's acting better and now that we're in Brazil she is eating quite a bit of food.

The couple days before we left for Brazil were spent purchasing last minute things that we thought we would need, luggage tags for all of our luggage, TSA locks, misc. baby supplies, games for our Wii, you know, the important things.

Tuesday was a very busy day and if we ended up getting any free time we would have gone to Clackamas Town Center. Knowing what we found out later that day we're very happy that it was a busy day because that was the day the mall shooting occurred and we would have been there at the time it happened.

After packing everything but Samantha's pack & play which we were still using, we went to bed late Tuesday night only to wake up at 1:30 Wednesday morning (a little earlier than we planned) to tend to a crying Samantha. Thus begins the long day of travel. With all the luggage we had we discovered that we should have arrived at the airport more than 2 hours early as we barely made our flight. A big thank you to the guys who showed up at the airport to get us out of the country. I don't know if their motives were to help us or to get rid of us, either way we appreciated it.

Now that we're here we've spent a lot of time with Izabel's family (they love having Samantha with them), going through our luggage (all of the suitcases arrived, but not everything inside arrived in one piece). Friday we spent the afternoon shopping. We planned on first buying things to set up our kitchen, then our bedroom, then our living room, then our guest room. After doing some browsing we saw two couches (very comfortable for Brazil standards) and the pair of them was $500 cheaper than one of the same kind we saw at an earlier store. After negotiating with the owner we agreed on a price and he told us he had kitchen stuff at his other store down the block. Instead of getting kitchen stuff we saw a closet (there are no closets built into houses in Brazil) and we quoted a price we got earlier from another store and he dropped the price by a large margin to match our previous quote. Both our bedroom set and the sofa's will be delivered either on Wednesday or Thursday, along with our appliances which will be delivered on Thursday. When our things are delivered I'll post pictures

There is a lot more to share but I think I'll keep it for future blog posts when I have nothing better to write about. Thank you all for your interest in the ministry and for your prayers.

Happy New Year

There's a lot of times that I think it's good to have some new year's resolutions. A good resolution will be made to improve one's life and once someone walks into Costco they will see what the most common resolutions are. Work out equipment, dieting books and foods are all closest to the entrance.
I've been working on some resolutions myself, not for the new year but for the new stage in my life, which just happens to come at the turn of the calendar. My job at Costco had kept me active enough where I did not have to think much of diet and exercise when I got home.

Oh, how things will change now. I've been waiting for this for a long time where I can sleep later than 3:45 and not have an aching and exhausted body for the rest of the day. I now have the responsibility of disciplining myself to take care of my body while I have a less physically demanding job as a full-time missionary. My resolutions are:

1.  to keep my body physically fit.
2. To make more time in my day for prayer and devotions

One blessing from the ability to be home in the mornings is to spend time with Samantha

We are only able to start this part of our ministry on a full time basis because of those who are praying; and those who have chosen to partner with us in this ministry God has called us to work in. We thank you for each of your commitments.