CAFFEINE FREE

Hermanamiento Reunion
Most of the wards and branches here have this meeting.   It occurs on a week night and its purpose is for fellowshipping and gospel education.   An organization or a family is assigned to do the meeting.  And, there are refreshments after.   We have been going to this meeting Tuesday through Friday, attending a different ward and branch each night.  On Wednesday we attended this meeting at the Alameda Ward.  It was presented by the Young Mens Priest Quorum.   One of the priests did the gospel education part.  We were so impressed, he was well prepared, used the white board, and asked question of the group, and we learned a lot.  At the completion of his lesson, all of the priests came to the front and each one of them stated from memory an Articles of Faith, there were 12 Priests and the Young Mens President to complete the 13.   Then, we had hot drinks and rolls.  (we always have hot drinks because it is very cold).   We were so impressed.  The other meeting we attended were also good.  But, we thought this meeting was special.

Gary in Tights,
Gary was so cold in our house he was miserable.   He had three coats on but his legs were freezing in his dress pants.  So, Kathy brought out her spandex tights, 3/4 length.  He has worn them for a few days now and has been quite warm.

Elder Soares
Elder Soares is a member of the presidency of the Seventy.   He came to a city here in our mission to talk to all the missionaries.   For us, it is a long hard drive to get there and back.  So, we were complaining a bit about driving all that way and sitting for two hours not understanding anything.  But, we were obedient to the invite by the president and we drove to the meeting.  Well, it turns out that Elder Soares is from Brazil.  His wife gave a great talk in english with a Spanish translator.  We enjoyed it very much.  Then Elder Soares came to the stand.  He can speak Portuguese, French, English, and, is learning Spanish.   He gave his whole two hour talk in clear and not to fast Spanish and we understood the whole talk.  Another one of those repenting experiences.
He told us his story of becoming an LDS member.  It gave a lot of hope to all of us.  He was converted my Missionaries in his little branch that consisted of four families.   Now, there are two stakes in place of his branch and he is a President of the Seventy.

The Restoration
We of course are always struggling with the language and have experienced some very humbling times, but, when we are with an investigator  result:[] spirit takes over.  We went with the missionaries to visit a middle aged man.  His son of 22 has cancer and is in treatment and it is very serious.  The missionaries talked to him and then they turned to us, and, we went through the entire story of the restoration from the primitive church to now.  It was amazing.  We could never repeat it, but, it was a great joy that for a few moments were a tool in the hands of the Lord.

Caffeine Free
Our drive back from Elder Soares meeting was long and hard.  We stopped at a store and there on the shelf was diet Dr. Pepper.  Our favorite drink. And we have never seen it here before.  Now, we have tried very hard not to have caffeine drinks since there is this mission rule that no one can drink diet Coke.  But, we were tired and we had a long way to go so we bought the Dr. Pepper.  We had gotten some food to eat along the way, and, after we finished to food, we were both so excited to drink the Dr. Pepper.  Well, we opened the can and it did not taste to good so Kathy finally put on her glasses, which she did not have on when she bought it, and read the label.  It was caffeine free!!  Saved from breaking the rules by Kathy not being able to see up close!!!

Some pictures of the Sisters in our area at our house making a cake for the Elders for P Day