Granada Girls: The Balls Keeps Rolling

Saturday

Today was awesome! We did service in the morning and ate and shopped at a Japanese market for lunch. Here we had sushi, crab, fried cheese, salmon sashimi, you name it, they had it and it was fresh! After we went grocery shopping at the accompanying market. Here I discovered new fruits and vegetables such as the 2 shown below. I still don’t know what that green fruit it, but the red and yellow one is cashew (caju), the fruit juice I discovered exactly one week ago, and it’s delicious! I bought some fresh ingredients for the upcoming week. After a nap we met the afternoon group. The first call we go to do is an Italian woman who answers the door in a towel. She invites us in and we sit and talk for at least an hour. We drink coffee and share our beliefs. Literally share. She’s agnostic and a materialist. After pleasant conversation and a few scriptures, which she read and compared with her bible and the New Word Translation, we parted ways. But before saying goodbye she gave us her email to help Naomi teach the Italian course because she has years of experience translating from Portuguese to Italian since she has lived in Fortaleza for 24 years. This woman has also established 2 schools in Farfalas. I will try to take a picture of this type of area so you can see. But it is an area that is very poor and snakes back and forth behind properly built storefronts or housing. It is sort of an unseen world that is very dangerous and I would not even be permitted to speak English inside of, much less take a picture. We’ll see what I can manage. Since it became dark we did one closer visit and then ended for the day. We received a phone call that Vera and Thiago were waiting for us at our home. Naomi helped Thiago with his pronunciation since he has to do the reading of the Watchtower tomorrow. We went out for Gelato after, yum!

Sunday

Today has been nice and relaxing. A brother from Bologna gave the talk about God’s eye’s seeing everything. Very deep! After we had a festa at Marcia and Dima’s house. I made my secret punch to share. Any in my home congregation knows what that entails. Of course this one was Brazilian style and featured fresh young coconut water, mango pulp and coconut gelato… We talked and laughed over tons of Brazilian treats, sausage, red meat, rice and beans with cheese, salad, white rice and 2 delicious homemade desserts. I don’t know all that ate; I just know that I was very satisfied afterward!

Later, in my poor Portuguese I made plans with a delightful couple that is visiting from Sao Paolo to go out to dinner with some in the Portuguese congregation after the meeting. Here I got to try a Pastel, a Brazilian “fast food” that is like a fried hot pocket that you can fill with all sorts of treats. For about $3.50 USD you can have a Pastel filled with 3 items, I choose Carne de Sol and cheese only, and a natural fruit juice, I got my Caju!

Monday

Finally a day off! A pioneer sister we worked out in service with on Friday, picked us up at 7am and brought us to the house of a sister who drove us to Beach Park, a famous water-park in Fortaleza. But we didn’t go to Beach Park; we were right NEXT TO it. We hung out at a 4 star resort, sun bathed, tested out the strong waves of the ocean, participated in a water-aerobics class and basically chilled ALL DAY. It was great! After we went to Tapioca Land, (that’s not really what it’s called). But it’s a place where there are 20 Tapioca Restaurants all in one area. I got shrimp and cheese tapioca, Naomi, chocolate and the sister, Tuna. Yum!

Later, we went to dinner at a bible study’s home who is married to an ITALIAN! This was huge because the sister who studies with her has never even met the husband before! So we were friendly and ended the night on a nice pleasant note!

Tuesday

Back to the hit the street! Today we had a nice group of Italians out! We canceled a ton of business addresses and did return visits in the afternoon. Italian class was at 7:30pm. Naomi did an awesome job and everyone was so engaged that when the English meeting finished with prayer at 9:15pm- we were still going! We played a game where we used our homework assignment to find theocratic words for each letter of the alphabet to compete with each other to see who found the most unique words. My last minute attempt to find words using the Watchtower Library did not help us win. L Man, did it get competitive! Also we learned Italian definite and indefinite articles. Not as easy as in English, I can assure you that!

Wednesday

Today we did Portuguese service and I started a study, this time with a girl! I used the Good News Brochure and we did the first question about God’s Purpose for the Earth- she chose the topic herself! Let’s hope I am able to communicate with her as the study goes on! We ended up at an elder’s home to wash clothes and were treated to a surprise anti-typical Brazilian dinner- SASHIMI! It was soooooo good and so simple! We had Salmon and Tilapia!

Thursday

Today I did Portuguese in the morning and English service in the afternoon. Both were great! In Portuguese we did a lot of businesses and Naomi started her first Portuguese study with a shop-keeper. Later in English I met a sister from Holland who speaks Dutch and helps out with the English congregation here. (See there’s need for all language in English because they cover ALL the foreigners.) A funny story from English service was that the brother asked me if I could speak with a guard in Portuguese to ask for this Dutch guy, and I assured him that I could. I get to the complex and ask to see Joao Walter. I ask him several times in fact.

As I started to get a little frustrated because I’m pretty sure that my pronunciation is pretty good, I find out that Joao Walter is the STREET that we’re on! Pretty embarrassing, then to make things worse, when he asks what apartment number, I keep repeating 2200, but guess what? That’s the # of the building that we’re at! I was a hot mess but he took the territory from me and figured out who we were trying to reach. Whew, just when you think you know a language, the rug gets snatched out from under you!

Tonight at the meeting, I commented for the first time in Portuguese. Since we only have the Jeremiah Book in Italian I refuse to keep silent for the remainder of the meeting for I got myself together a simple bible-highlights comment and I said it! Ironically it was on 2 Corinthians 10:13, which I’m not exactly applying since we’re preaching in Italian, Portuguese and English lol. J

Friday

2 new changes have occurred to allow us to have our own meeting for field service in Italian…Francisco a brother from Napoli arrived and Alex, has moved 13 blocks from the Kingdom Hall, a far cry from the 40 minutes away he used to live. So we did our own thing today. We did census at 2 shopping malls and found Italians! It was a bit different but fun and productive none the less. Later we did our usual beach witnessing at night and afterwards got to experience Brazilian Pizza! Way different than Italian style. The Brazilians like to heap tons of toppings on their pizza which requires you to eat it with a knife and fork. Some toppings were egg, ham and cheese, while another pizza had potatoes, broccoli and cheese. Very tasty!