The Last Hurrah

I know that there are some people out there who think we are serving on a 'mission-cation', but, hey, when the temple closes for its two week's of maintenance, what are Don and Linda to do?!
Take a trip!

First Stop - Porto Alegre
Porto Alegre, which means “happy port” in Portuguese, has the distinction of being ranked 43rd among the world's 50 most violent cities. 
That wasn't the reason we chose to go there! 😟
Sitting on a hill overlooking Porto Alegre from the east is the Porto Alegre Brazil Temple, the third temple built by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Brazil.

 And for us, it completed our tour of the six operating temples in Brazil.

 It's a beautiful little temple.

Not wanting to spend a lot of time in such a scary place, we scheduled a mere 24 hours for this visit. Our Uber driver was LDS and took us on a quick tour of the city on the way back to the airport. 

 The best place for a panoramic view of the city was at the top of 'cemetery hill' - and through a favela. The police at the lookout told us to take a quick look and then hippity-hop out of there. We looked. We left. (You don't have to tell us twice!!)


Next, it was on to Fortaleza. 

 Located in northeastern Brazil, Fortaleza is Portuguese for fortress. It is a city of 3,000,000 people and lots and lots of beaches. 

 

They had a great breakfast.

 We enjoyed our ★★★★★ hotel.

(I enjoyed my Mother's Day gift from my Donald!)


So much to see and do!!!

 

We took in a day at the dunes.

One of the regional dishes is Baião de Dois (rice, black eyed peas, cheese and herbs).

                                  We liked it ↓                                 

Our grandsons Seth and Alex have a friend serving in Fortaleza. We just  couldn't pass the opportunity to look up Elder Connor Eliason and bring 'grandma' goodie bags to these two cute Elders!

Hope they know how much we love them!

Bishop Cleto arranged for us to spend Sunday (Mother's Day) with the Nogeiras - his daughter-in-law's parents. They were so very gracious! And what a meal!!

Plans for the Fortaleza Brazil Temple were announced October 3, 2009, by President Monson. The original design of the temple had two spires but the city denied it and a new design was finally approved. They have been waiting for this temple to be completed for a loooong time. It's getting close! 

Next, on to
Rio de Janeiro
Rio, located between the mountain and sea, was worthy of a second visit.
This time we stayed at the beach and visited the temple site.

This hotel wasn't a 5-star (we couldn't afford that!) But we did enjoy the Copacabana Beach right out our front door.

 The Rio de Janeiro Temple was announce on April 6, 2013, during the Saturday morning session of General Conference. It's located in the Barra da Tijuca neighborhood on the Atlantic Ocean. (About an hour from downtown Rio.)
Work began in March 2017.

Meanwhile, back in Curitiba, the big news is the Angel Moroni's 'makeover'. 

After 10 years atop the temple, he was getting a bit hairy-scary. So down he came to be cleaned and 're-golded'. 

Now you see him. Now you don't.

And what a difference a week makes.

 He returns to his perch tomorrow - all shiny and bright.

Now, not that anyone's counting, but we only have 13 more days left in Brazil.
We return home May 30th.
My heart is full.