Baile do Chapéu February 11th

The Monday night dance, Baile do Chapéu (the hat dance) was the most talked about and anticipated dance from the day I got here.  The theme is a Michael Jackson/disco dance where everyone is invited to wear some type of hat.  Since Anders and I didn't know about the theme before coming we were at a loss for something to wear.  It was pretty fun seeing all the different hats and chapéus that everyone was bringing to the dance.  The set up, the lighting, and the disco ball all added to the awesomeness of the dance.  On the other hand, I noticed that a lot of people started leaving half way through because of the music, I don't think the disco theme,( which was pretty much all American music) fit in really well with the traditional Brazilian dance.  To be honest, I think people just didn't know how to dance to all the 80's and 90's songs! Half way through the organizers realized their mistake and after putting on some more forro and sertaneja/samba people started coming back on to the dance floor.  The dance went so well that it went well into the night, wrapping up only around 3:30 in the morning the next day!  That's what you call a dance!

Talent Show February 11th

Ever since growing up, I've always held a specific distrust for LDS talent shows.  It's never been my preferred young single adults activity, however, the camp out version of the talent show, completely changed my opinion!  From the beginning the main leaders rallied up the crowd, throwing out pieces of chocolaty goodness to any participant willing to scream loud enough!  Several "waves" swept the ranks of the crowd, later followed by some intense blood pumping music, and music videos.  Some of the talents included artists singing (Bubbly by Colbie Caillat, impressions of Michael Jackson, Roberto Carlos singing Cara Sou Eu) dancing, and even some forro and samba presentations.  I have to admit some of the talents weren't really good haha.  But the whole atmosphere had an electric feel to it, and everyone was just having a lot of fun.  I have to give credit to the organizers that were able to rally the crowd in such an way that just being there, despite the talent, was fun.  I realized after that moment that it wasn't the talent of any single performer that "made"the talent show, but all the performances put together combined with some savvy organizing that made the event memorable to say the least.  I came out of that talent show, floating above the ground, ready for the dance that was scheduled for that night.  If the organizers had just put on some music and moved all the chairs, I wouldn't doubt for a minute that everyone would just get up and start busting out some dance moves!

Brazil was Created that Way! Day 3 Part 1 February 11th

Even a good night's partying till 3 AM, apparently didn't overpower the instinct everyone had to get up at 9:00 to get some breakfast.  It was as if everyone including me had the power to just turn off any need to sleep for three days.  All because of the excitement and energy of being at the camp out (I just wish I could duplicate that energy every week in college!).  In the morning right after breakfast I was able to find some willing participants to play a game of some intense basketball.  Not surprisingly the majority of the Brazilians that wanted to play and were good at basketball had lived in the U.S or was very familiar with the American culture.  In the Brazilian culture, the big sport is of course, soccer or futebol.  Very few people play basketball or say American football.  I thought it was a miracle that I was able to find so many people to play basketball with us! Soon enough we had a crowd watching us play, probably curious as to why people were playing basketball instead of soccer.  

Later in the afternoon, there was a scheduled exercise routine that was put on at the pool.  With loud, awesome music, a leader and 50 excited participants, the exercise routine began.  I have to admit, watching everyone burning away the calories, I've never seen a more excited or happier group.  That moment was a perfect snapshot into the bright and fun side of the Brazilian culture.  

There's a saying that goes like this,

"The United States created Disney World to have fun, Brazil was created that way".  

Sertaneja in the Moonlight Day 2 part 2 February 10th

At night around 9:00 there was one final devotional and then a brief snack/treat waiting for everyone at the main office/socializing place.  What surprised me was the fact that literally no one went bed as the clock hand edged towards midnight.  I remember thinking, "When do these people ever sleep!?!"  Well after the clock hand hit 12:00 the party began.  Although there wasn't any official activity planned or even dance scheduled, someone whipped out a guitar and started playing some Brazilian music and Sertaneja.  Soon a big crowd showed up and there was a bunch clapping, jumping and dancing.  The spontaneity of the dancing and singing made this one my most favorite moments of the whole camp out!  There were couples dancing away to sertaneja and I have to admit I joined the mix and kept trying my best not to step on the feet of all the girls with whom I danced with!  It was hard not to get caught up in the moment, and for a second as I was dancing away to the strum of the sertaneja music, with the palm trees towering overhead I thought to myself "I'm really in Brazil right now!".  It was one of those moments when you realize, "this is what you call an adventure!"

Sunday Day 2 Part 1 February 10th

          Day number two! Sunday! I have to admit I was pretty curious as to how they would handle a Sunday on a single adults camp out.  It turned out to be pretty much how I expected.  Like usual there were three hours, one for Sunday School, Priesthood/Relief Society, and one for Sacrament.  I definitely did not envy the teacher who had to teach a Sunday School of about 400 people all crammed into one big room (the one used for the dances).  Let's just say that the bad audio and the heat got the better of a lot of people there. I have to say that the sacrament meeting at the camp out was the largest one I've ever attended.  I was one of the 18 men who passed the sacrament to the huge crowd, for a second there I felt like one of Christ's disciples who passed the bread and fish out to the crowd of 2,000 that came to hear him teach!
          After lunch, activities were limited to the screening of a couple of church films.  The majority of the people just chilled and socialized, while a big chunk went back to their rooms to sleep.  That's one thing that you can't separate a Brazilian from: his Sunday afternoon nap.  It must be a universal thing, probably due to the heavy lunches of bean and rice that everyone eats on Sunday.  I have to admit the most cruel part of my mission in Salvador, Brazil a year ago was just that, having to leave the member's houses to go work after a delicious and heavy meal.

The Rain

Coming from Washington I thought I could handle rain.  I guess i was wrong.  Let me tell you that if you get caught in the rain of São Paulo you'll take a sure beating.  In the Northweset of the U.S there's always a little bit of rain, it's always damp, and it seems like rain is your reliable best friend.  It comes to all of your beach side parties, jealously pushes away the sun and unless you're unlucky you can count on it to be with you through four seasons of the year.  However, in São Paulo it works a little bit differently.  You could say that the rain is slightly split personality.  One second it will be all sunny and then suddenly you'll here a lighting hitting and the rain will start to pour down really hard (There are some pretty amazing lightning storms on a consistent basis here!). The rain here comes down much heavier so don't expect to stay dry very long if you're running to get to wherever you need to get to.  You're best bet is to wait it out or buy an umbrella and hope it doesn't break!

Dance Anyone? Day 1 part 2 February 9th

The main activities in the afternoon at the camp out were soccer, volleyball, the pool and for those patient people who waited in line for a long time, zip lining.  Well happily I can say that I was able to participate in all but the soccer activity.  This is kind of how my day went down,

• Volleyball on the small court by the pool
• Waiting in line for a solid 40 minutes to be able to zip line!  
• Going back and forth between the cold and warm pools
• And then when it started to rain, played some volleyball in the freezing rain until the thunder convinced us to go inside. 

Later that day after dinner there was another fantastic dance the leaders put on.  It was Hawaii themed and so everyone wore flower themed shirts and pants.  It was probably the best dance I've ever been too.  Because it was Hawaii themed they played plenty of American songs (including many hip hop) and plenty of forro.  I love the Brazilians dances compared to many of the American dances because of the opportunity the guys have to actually dance with the girl.  The Brazilian traditional dances of forro and and sertaneja give you a great opportunity to meet new people and have plenty of fun as opposed to the dances in the U.S where the only couple dances are slow dancing (or swing and cha cha for the few that know it)  There is definitely a great advantage being in a country where the overall culture is the same for everyone (where as in the states everyone grows up in a different culture).  For example, for the most part everyone in Brazil loves rice and beans, drinks Guaraná, talks football and everyone dances forro!

Brazilian Culture

It's really fascinating as to the cultural differences between America and Brazil that I was able to spot at the camp out.  Compared to the more independent Americans, Brazilians tend to be very good at group activities as long as it go along with the flow.  I found that in the face of rules and obedience Brazilians tend not to get along too well.  For example, even after some of the dances at the camp out (like at 3 or 4) in the morning, a lot of the young adults would refuse to go to sleep and instead stayed up playing some really loud music and messing around! The adult leaders there had very little morale and respect and had a hard time getting things under control (I can only imagine what the youth camps must have been like).   In some ways this may reflect the general Brazilian distrust for individuals for authoritative figures such as politicians.  For instance, very few Brazilians (compared to Americans) actually put on a seat belt when driving.  In many cases Brazilians live in a world where many laws go unenforced, and consequently it shows in their daily interactions.   However, when an activity is well chosen and fits in well with the flow of the group, you'll  never see a more excited and actively participating group!

Giant Polar Bear...Ice Breaker Day Number 1 part 1 February 9th

8:00 - 9:00   Breakfast 

Even though everyone was partying till the wee hours of the morning, I was pretty surprised  how many people got up at around 7:30 to take a shower.  For breakfast they served rolls (hoggies as we called them at the MTC) with Cheese and Ham, along side hot chocolate.

9:00 - 12:00    Free time
What I really liked about the camp out was that it was relatively up to the individual to organize his time and do what he wanted.  If you wanted to stay inside and sleep all day you could (no way I was going to do that)   .  And so Anders and I made it a goal to take advantage of every moment of the Acampamento!  In the morning we played some tennis with some friends and got a sweet game of volleyball going.  We entered in a volleyball tournament and we ended up rocking the other teams and winning the championship!

At around 11:00 they had a fun icebreaker where the boys and girls got to mingle and exchange some 'information'.  I was actually really surprised with how many Americans there were at the camp out  and how many people spoke English.  There was a brother and sister from Salt Lake who had come to visit and another guy from Florida who was visiting some family down here.  

Acampamento February 8th

Around 10:00 we arrived at the resort Hotel Solar dos Girassois completely tired of the traffic (of everyone heading to their vacations spots).  When they told us that we would be staying in a hotel, I almost believed them.  That is until I saw the room where the guys were sleeping, the girls got the hotel part of the deal while the guys were lumped together in a huge room that fit about 100 bare beds!  Oh well I guess guys don't need that much more compared to girls on a camp out anyway.

After getting some food and getting some participant bracelets the leaders kicked off the acampamento with a surprise dance party starting 2:00 in the morning (the first taste that things were going to be different than in the states) !  The music was awesome and also the dancing.  It took some time getting used to but I got to a point where I can dance tolerably :)   Either way it was an awesome kick off to a 4 day camp out!   

Carnival/Camp Prep February 8th

What's the biggest party of the year?  Carnival!  And where's the party located? Brazil!

Pretty much during 6 days, non stop partying, a lot of drinking, loud music and crazy dancing all over the place.  The three main party spots in Brazil is in São Paulo, Salvador, and of course Rio de Janeiro.  While many people either go to parties, the beach, or one of these cities, others take advantage of this to go camping to escape the 'worldliness' of Carnival.   Which was the case of the young single adults of the stakes in São Paulo.  Annually the church rents out a special resort or camping place to provide a place for the all the youth to go.  Once Anders and I arrived in Brazil and got wind of the camp out we were really excited to be able to go!  We both heard from many of our companions on the missions about the legendary camp outs during Carnival.  It's a once in a life time experience and we weren't going to miss out!  Besides getting all the necessary paper work signed, the camp out cost definitely made our wallets a little bit lighter :(   And on Friday at 6 we started the ride to the camp out!

                                                    

Mercado Municipal January 28th

One of the must see tourist places of São Paulo! At the mercado muncipal you can find vendors selling you anything from seafood, all types of fruit, or hot sauces.  The stands of fruit, were pretty interesting to look at, so many different fruits I've never seen in my life before!  What really made me stop and take a better look was the pimenta stand selling hot sauces.  Maybe it's just what I got used in Salvador, Brazil on my mission, but food with a good hot sauce is the difference of terrestrial food to celestial food!  They were selling one of the world's hottest peppers in the world called the Bhut Jolokia. They let us sample it and after one drop I could feel my throat burning up!  Appropriately the bottled version is called Hell's Pimenta.  And yup we bought it, and you can bet we'll be coming back to buy some more bottles of it to take home with us!  For lunch we ate at a gourmet lunch place (a place that is famous for their pastels and great sandwiches like the bologna sandwich that we ordered.)   Recommend it 100%!

Catedral da Sé January 25th

Right near the bairro de Liberdade and 25 de Marco lies the Catedral da Sé.  Wow talk about impressive architecture, the Cathedral is said to be the 4th largest neo-gothic cathedral in the world and took over 50 years to build.  Walking inside the Cathedral brought back memories from my Senior year of humanities class with Ms. Ames when we studied architecture, flying buttresses, etc...   Right by the Cathedral, in the park was a 5 sided metal object, with the names of various cities of Brazil on it.  After asking around, I found out that each of the sides pointed directly to that corresponding city!  

25 de Março February 4th

We were invited to go to a place called 25 de Marco with some friends of ours.  25 de Marco according to what to our friends said, "You can buy and find pretty much anything that you want from counterfeit cellphones to crazy Halloween decorations!"  Walking down the streets was quite the adventure! Here's a list of some things we saw:
Dressed up people with a statue like paint coating to them.  Pretty much they look like statues that start moving and acting when you give them money.  Let's see we saw a European, medieval looking couple, a guy that played the guitar, and even Captain Jack Sparrow!
Walking down the street, street vendors were yelling out really loud trying to sell their products.  Some were yelling, water, water, water really loud, and others were throwing back and forth across the street some ball toy they wanted to sell.
 I even saw an incomplete poster with a image of a guy showing some serious pex and a six pack abb, with a label of $10.  And I was like, "they even sell six pack abs for a cheap price!"

To advertise a hand held back massage machine, one vendor was forcefully pressing the tool against the back of unwilling participants that walked by his "spot" on the street.  I was also one of those unwilling participants but I have to admit I was tempted to go back and try out the product again (you know just to see if it was working right)

Serão/Fireside February 3rd

Every so often there are devotionals/family home evenings that the church here puts on for the young single adults of this Sao Paulo region.  It was a really great devotional focusing on the steps we need to take to be happy.  I really loved the question the speaker made, "What do you want people to say about you at your funeral?"  He related how we need to live today in such a way to that we are conscious of our actions and loyal to our friends.  About this time, the quote came into mine, quoted by a friend of Magic Johnson (not saying that he's exactly the best role model), "Live in such a way, and be so excited about life and excited about what a new day could bring that you don't need a alarm clock to wake you up".  Now that's how I want to be!  The devotional ended scrumptiously with some fancy subway style sandwiches and pop.  We were even able to get a ride for the upcoming young single adult camp out that's going to take place during the biggest party of year here in Brazil called Carnival!  

- 4/5 story chapel where we met for the devotional

Wedding of José February 2

I guess one of the great blessings of teaching the career workshops is the enduring connections that we make with the people here in Brazil.  Just this last week, José one of our younger students invited us to his wedding and baptism.  I'd love to be able to claim that our amazing teaching skills and wonderful class convinced José to get baptized and married! However, the marriage and baptism were a long time coming and we were absolutely thrilled to be able to be a small part of it!  The ceremony happened Saturday night at the chapel.  It was a simple ceremony, not many people came (not even the family of the groom, neither of the families were of the church) but it was clear that José and his fiance were definitely having the time of their lives!  Right afterwards the two were baptized, something they had been waiting for for a long time.

Bairro de Liberdade January 25th

Did you know that the biggest concentration of Japanese people outside of Japan is in Brazil, and specifically São Paulo? When people found out on my mission in Salvador that I was part Japanese, the first thing they would usually say is, did you know that there is Japanese colony in São Paulo by the name of......

Liberdade 

Anders and I were invited by my mission friend to visit the district of Liberdade! Ever since I came to Brazil for the first time I've been wanting to visit this place.  When we first arrived it was obvious that we were stepping into a different world.  Red arches, Japanese Kanji written all over the stores and the smell of Japanese food made feel like I was in Japan.  I took advantage of the moment to buy some Japanese food like Udon, curry, and somen.  I felt like a little kid on Christmas morming!  For lunch we had some delicious Yakisoba.  I definitely recommend checking Liberdade out whether or not you can stomach sushi!

Career Workshop/Thursday January 24th

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness,
that most frightens us...

Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people
won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine as children do...

And when we let our own light shine,
We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

- Marianne Williamson

Last day of our first career workshop experience!  Throughout the whole experience it was really amazing at how receptive and how willing everyone was to participating in the workshop.  The interview training was probably my favorite part involving us drilling them about verbal and nonverbal communication.   For example, some of the individuals were gesturing too much and were too fidgety with their hands.  As a solution, we had them talk really slowly while trying to make fast hand movements.  They couldn't do it.  Since hand movements are directly linked with how fast we speak, when they spoke slowly the hand movements became less agitated.  A nice fix for anyone with the same problem ; )  !
I concluded the workshop with the quote "Our Deepest Fear", really emphasizing the importance for everyone there to realize the potential they have.  It's amazing how much we fall short of our potential and how comfortable we get with our mediocrity.  As it has been said, "Most people spend more time planning dinner parties than they do their own career."  And as the quote by Marianne Williamson also suggests, I think it's because we are inwardly afraid of our ability to do great things.  At the end of the workshop the participants thanked us with gifts and boxes of chocolates not to mention an scrumptious chocolate ice cream cake!  Didn't expect them to be so generous!