been extremely busy for all of us here in Brazil. That shouldn't be news to any of you since Thanksgiving, Black Friday and all the preparations for the Christmas season make everyone's end of the year busy. Here is what has been keeping us busy.
- Aaron, Cris, Izabel and myself took a trip to the U.S. consulate at the end of November to file papers and have questions answered. Even though Cris and Izabel are Permanent residents, the U.S. powers that be expect their permanent residents to reside inside the States, since Izabel and Cris do not, we went to file papers to keep their residence. While there however we were all told that the U.S. Consulate couldn't help us because they didn't qualify for those specific papers.
- Believe it or not, in Izabel's case we were advised that the easiest and ultimately cheapest way to preserve Izabel's residency was to have her make a trip up to the States. We left this morning to take Izabel to the airport for her trip to Minneapolis. While she is there she will work on some of her documents and help Barbara Kochendorfer around the house (not that Barbara needs help).
- To tag along with the previous bullet point we have a visitor arriving tomorrow to help Shelly Fuehrer in her final week here in Brazil and her trip back. Instead of making two airport trips in two days I decided to find a hotel in São Paulo to stay at. So far Samantha and I have explored Walmart, a big shopping mall, drove through busy traffic to a zoo that didn't look like it was open...or fun, and checked into our hotel. We also explored a big outdoor shopping area close to the hotel but I got tired of holding Samantha and she got tired of the heat so we came back to the hotel.
- I've been on my own all day long with no one to help me with the language and I've done alright. Samantha interrupted me before this bullet point saying she was hungry so I successfully called and ordered some little pizzas to be delivered. I forgot to bring a straw with us on this trip so before I went to the restaurant in the hotel I typed into google "how do you say 'straw' in Portuguese?" I also successfully asked the front desk for a crib for Samantha that has now been delievered. Many times I still feel lost with Portuguese but other times I can look back and see how far I've come.
- We had Shelly move in with us a couple weeks go and we're getting her apartment prepared to turn back over to the owners. We are still looking for someone who knows how fill an air conditioning hole in her wall. Please pray that someone can be found shortly.
- There have been many other things going on and we appreciate your prayers during this busy yet rewarding time of year.
