And then the banana flipped...

One of our success stories: Corinne the beach vendedora. First day of work :)

Pre banana boating with a group of friends that we taught the taller to

A unique cemetery in Guayaquil. SO COOL

Friends from our trip with the temple workers and their families to La Garza Roja

PIONERAS 2007!!!!

These girls were going to perform, but they hadn't started yet, so we chit-chatted with them. They were all super friendly and excited to talk to us.

This is us in our miliary hats that our military friends let us borrow. Yeah, we have connections. Si, tenemos conecciones jeje

This was at probably the cutest restaurant EVER called El Maiz. It's in Cuenca. We took a 5 hour bus ride there, spent 5 hours there, and then drove 5 hours home all in the same day. Long day, but so worth it.

Por Fin

So I realized the blog has had zero contribution from the Chapín region, so here we go:

This is one of our little classes. This was a self-employment class (we have been teaching a lot of those beacause our manager thinks they are more important).

McClain and I eat at Dominoes on special occasions. Here I am eating what is called the "Piza Chapín." In stead of tomato sauce, it is smothered in beans. As toppings, there are cheeze and onions and longaniza.

Perhaps you can see where my heart is. This is called Fiambre. I don't know if they make it there, but here they make it only the 1st/2nd of Noviembre. Traditionally, people would bring all of their food to the cemetery to share. So fiambre is the combination of everything on hand. They soak cooked veggies in pineapple vinager for a day and then mix it with every meat and cheese at hand. I loved it every day.

I was pretty jealous of all of your exotic-looking pictures. We live in a cold dusty little highland town (which I love to death), but this is NOT where we live, I just had to compete for the beautiful picture contest. This is lake Atitlán. We spent 2 days of vacation here. Beautiful.

On the way back from Atitlán, we passed this active little volcano (that is destroying its larger partner...) called San Tiaguito. There are volcanoes everywhere here. It is great.

Some pictures from Argentina...

Bowling at the brand new alley in Rio Cuarto

"Mira, columna... yo soy una persona..."

One of the best activities in the TAL is talking to the wall (or column as the case may be).

What can we say? This was yet another great group we taught at the CRE.

TAL participants in Rio Cuarto

El Paseo de Buen Pastor: a really cool art museum complete with music, fountains and a light show every two hours and the best part is it's only half a block from our apartment!

Well, we didn't exactly know how to light the oven. So we made pizza on the stove in pot. Let's just say we figured out how to light the oven shortly thereafter. And when Jill gets back ask her to make her highly acclaimed "weenie suprise" for you.

Jill and Pame are painting a wall (and themselves apparently) during the ward service project.

Thursday is feria day... the best day of the week!

FHE with the JAS (young single adults) at our house!

Our valient attempt to make American cookies with Argentine ingredients and our friend Berenice (aka la mexicana).

Tomando mate...

this week . . . .

We got back from Sao Paulo on Tuesday morning just in time to sleep for an hour before we taught our class. Our class this week was fun, we had a good group. On Saturday we taught a class in Campo Grande, which is about 1.5 hours away from us. That class was fun too, since it was all members so we could talk about some things that we usually don't bring into our class (like how to use callings in power statements).

Today when we went to church two of our non-member students were there visiting the ward, since they have started investigating the church as a result of the class. We are happy about this.

Sherry thinks I have dengue fever. I keep explaining to her that part of dengue fever is 'fever' which I don't have. I came back from SP with a pretty bad cold, but it is slowly getting better. Today I can talk, which is a good thing since it makes Sherry's life easier when we are teaching. I bought a thermometer (to make sure I don't have dengue), but Sherry broke it after I took my temperature twice. Okay, she didn't really break it, it fell on the floor. Apparently Brazilian mercury is not dangerous. She doesn't really think I have dengue, but she tells me I have dengue 20 times a day. I think it's funny. I laugh, but then I cough.

Sherry had a really good experience today. A kid she taught on her mission lives in Rio now, and he came to church with us today. We're going to work on reactivating him. He now has a goal to read 7 chapters in the scriptures this week, and we'll follow up next sunday and see if he did it or not. And we know some people who we think live in his ward, so we're going to make him be friends with them.

We also made brownies and banana bread this week. It was very exciting. And Sherry went to the beach. And finished a class. I just wasted time being sick. Oh, and I got a sunburn. And lots of borrachulo bites. Burrachudos do not carry dengue. But that was last week. This week I am feeling the effects of the sunburn and bugbites. LIFE IS GOOD!!!!

We hope your week was exciting as well.

Kali and Sherry

still exist

The time is flying way, way, way too fast!!! What are they to do? Work harder, and play harder.
As for Kali and Sherry, they started teaching a very fun English class called Super Rad English, notice the S.R.E. (initials for Employment Recourse Services in Portuguese) yep. It's pretty cool. The class is for the employees and volunteers at the center to get them to arrive on time, well the volunteers, at 8:00. We do lots of activities, are learning useful skills, a hymn and are focusing on a scripture that our manager wants us all to memorize in English, D&C 4:2.
We absolutely love the manager, Saul, the assistant manager, Carlos, and all around amazing other employee, Maria Jose, who pretty much does everything at the center. Without any of these people our experience would just not be the same. We are already dreading leaving them at the end.
As for our experiences of late, Kali has found much joy in the National Museum. She's pretty much enthralled with everything (especially shrunken heads), literally, very much an anthropologic nerd. it was quite funny.
Sherry, on the other hand, had fun ironing her foot. Don't try this at home, it is painful. Third degree burns hurt.
Together they enjoyed being denied entrance to the national library as apparently you aren’t allowed to bring your own books. Who would have guessed?
Together they learned to do contacts with the help of the great Carlos. Now they "confidently" are able to look for job opportunities to post at the center.
An example of one of these such contacts was today at lunch, when they mistakenly thought the restaurant accepted credit cards, when in fact it only accepted debit. With their wit, beauty, and loose change they managed to talk to the manager about the center and avoid doing dishes to pay for their meal.
Kali had an interesting experience as a transvestite commented on her pretty eyes in an enclosed elevator. mrr?
Fortunately both Kali and Sherry have recovered from their recent unrelated illness are feeling on top of the weather.
On the extra positive side, their current favorite student rang the victory bell this week! The victory bell is a bell with a pleasant chime. As pleasant as the chime is, even more pleasant is the meaning behind it. One of their students from the previous week applied their wise teachings to his job hunt and found work. yea! (Sherry)Woot!( Kali)
As for now, the adventure of Kali and Sherry will continue. What will happen next? Stay tuned.

our second group!

Our second group was a blast! Very energetic, yep, what can i say more. They were a whole lot of fun. And... i think they think we're psycho. They wanted to know if all Americans are

like us... how do you respond to that? until next time- Sherry

Copa . . .Copacabana . . .

Hey everybody! We are having lots of adventures in Rio. We have become expert cockroach hunters.

I (Kali) have gotten used to sleeping on a bed that is lumpy. Well, it's not really a bed, it's a rock-hard pull-out couch with 3 foam pads that we think are crib mattresses on it. We do our laundry in buckets. This picture isn't on the blog because of the coolness of our bathroom, it's on the blog to show the beautiful green bucket we bought for laundry purposes. Don't get me wrong, our apartment is actually pretty cool, it just has some funny little issues. Our neighborhood is really awesome. We're really close to the beach, and because it's so touristy there are different artisan fairs near the beach every night. On the weekends it's paintings, the rest of the week it's everything from jewelry to wood carvings to textiles to statues. There's always something cool to do or see near our apartment, so we haven't really branched out yet into the other areas of Rio.

We taught our first class this week! It was really fun. At our center students have to come back the next weekend and do some follow up before they get their certificates, so no one has actually graduated yet. It's a minor detail, we just hope they show up next week! Our class started out with 16, but by the end we only had eight. Hopefully the other people dropped out because they got jobs . . . The center is really cool. It's on the 25th floor in an office building in downtown Rio, and it's an amazing place. This picture is of the view from our classroom. You can't see it in the picture, but the 'Cristo Redentor' statue is on the hill just to the left of that blackish office building. Most of the people who come in to the center are not members of the church, although usually they heard about it through a member. So, at the end of each class the elders come in and give a short message and ask for referrals, which is really cool. This last picture that I'm going to post is of our first class, and the elders. Hope you're all doing well!!!

Llegamos

Take-off to Argentina! We are excited!

After the 10-hour overnight flight. We're not so excited anymore...

Tea for two, don't worry it's herbal.

Melanie demonstrating the thickness of our mattresses.

Jill demonstrating the slats of wood that are underneath the 1-inch thick mattress. (Notice the broken slat.)

Our first Career Workshop Group! We like them.

We finally got a shower curtain. It was like an early Christmas present.

training... yea!

Gateway Mall fun
Sherry and Jill

Jill is cool...
View from the hotel window

and the van rides....

Well, i don't have a lot of pics of the training, but i thought i'd start us off by posting the few i have. Good Luck all!