Matthew stayed in Salgueiro when his mission had transfers a few weeks ago. Every six weeks they shift people around. Sometimes you stay in the same area for a few transfers sometimes you go to a new place. One of the four missionaries left and they got a new Elder from California. So Matthew is now the second newest missionary in the apartment instead of the newest. He seems to be getting into his stride. The older two left for a few days to some meetings so Matthew was ‘in charge’. He was pretty excited. He hasn’t gotten to decide what he is doing for a few months now, so he loved being the one making all the decisions for a few days. Where he is at right now there aren’t any other missionaries around besides the four of them so on P-Days they don’t really have a lot to do. That means that we get to talk to him a lot more. It won’t always be that way so I will enjoy it while it lasts. Another thing he was really excited about last time we talked is that they just got an air conditioner installed in their apartment. It is just big enough for their bedroom so they moved all their desks into their bedroom too so they can be in the air conditioning as much as possible when they are home. He says he sleeps so much better now.
He has been teaching a few people. One of them is a 12 year old boy that really wants to get baptized. His parents weren’t sure about it but after a few weeks they changed their minds and let him do it. His name is Enzo, and he is the first person Matthew baptized on his mission. He was pretty excited about it. He said he is a really cool kid.
Last week on their P-Day they went to the store to get some groceries and the store had set up their Christmas decorations. They ended up getting a small tree for their apartment. I mailed his Christmas package through a courier service a few weeks ago and they should be getting it to him at the beginning of December. It is a few small gifts and mostly some of his favorite treats. I also sent a few small decorations for them to hang up. I am glad they found a little tree to make their place feel like Christmas.
Here are more baptism pictures from Salgueiro that Matthew added to his photo album this week.
Ryan traveled a lot this Fall for work. He was in Omaha, Wichita, Vegas, Lake of the Ozarks, Branson, and Denver. He works hard for us. He gets to do some fun stuff when he travels too. When he was in Denver one of his clients took him to the Chiefs and Broncos game. The Chiefs unfortunately did not win.
Our church had the Relief Society Christmas dinner. They like to do it in November because December is always pretty busy. It was a nice dinner and they asked us to dress up as fancy as we wanted too. They also invited the teenage girls to come. Allison had a wrestling practice so she didn’t come but Emilee came with me. She dressed up by putting her hair up. 😜
Emilee became an official teenager this year! She decided to have a sleep over with her friends to celebrate. They came over and had pizza for dinner. She had cupcakes and we sang to her and opened presents. Emilee wanted to do a craft with them so after dinner we loaded up in the car and went to Hobby Lobby. They each had a frame and picked out little things to decorate the frames with. Once everyone picked out their stuff we stopped by Andy’s Ice cream on the way home. They decorated their frames and we took a picture of everyone together for them to put in their frames. Then they watched a movie, painted their nails and stayed up late talking. Emilee requested her dad make cinnamon rolls for breakfast the next morning. It was a pretty successful birthday party.
We went to K-Machos for dinner on Monday, which was her actual birthday. She loves her some K-Machos chips and queso with chicken nachos. After dinner we went to Grandmas. Instead of a cake she wanted donuts, and grandma had some brownies that we ate with them. Emilee loves sweets so she managed to get as many different ones over the weekend as she could. While we were at grandmas, Matthew called so we face timed with him while we sang happy birthday and she blew out her candles and she talked with him for a few minutes…that is why I didn’t get any pictures of the blowing out candles…we were using my phone to talk to him on. I will do better next time. But we did celebrate and have a fun night. Dad and I gave her a bow and arrow for her birthday. She went to a church activity and they shot some bows. Ever since then she has been saying she wants to get one so she can practice.
It was a fun weekend celebrating our Emilee. We are very happy that she is a part of our family and we love her a ton!! Happy 13th birthday Emilee!
It was a pretty quiet Halloween for me this year. Ryan was out of town for a work trip. Allison invited a friend over to hangout. They watched a movie and ate pizza. Emilee went trick or treating with her friend Harriet. They dressed up as skeletons. When they were all done she had 14 pounds of candy.
I snuck a piece of pizza from the girls and then decided to set up my Christmas tree. We have a big tree and it takes a lot of work to get it set up so I wanted to make sure that it was up long enough to enjoy it. So we have had all our Thanksgiving decorations and our Christmas tree this year. It is pretty and makes me happy.
My lovely sisters and I decided it was time for another trip together. It was a little last minute. We started talking about it at the beginning of September and we went mid October. We decided to go for easy travel for all of us to get there. We settled on Breckenridge Colorado. It was a direct short flight for all of us to Denver.
On my way to Denver
We arrived Thursday morning. We got a rental car and headed to Breckenridge, which was about 2 hours away. We stopped and had lunch a little outside Denver on our way. When we got to Breckenridge we walked around and explored the down town/main street area for a few hours until our place was ready for check in. We stayed in a little apartment two streets away from main street. It was a perfect place. It had one bedroom with a king and twin bed in it so we could all sleep in the same room and stay up talking as late as we wanted. We got a few snacks and some breakfast food at the grocery store. The rest of our meals we found cool restaurants in town.
Nestled in the crotch of the troll.
It is officially the off season in Breckenridge in October. There were still a good amount of people around but it was not crowded at all. We did a couple different hikes. Breck’s elevation is 9600. Olathe is 900. The first hike we went on was 10500. My mid 40’s self struggled a bit with the elevation, which has never been an issue before. I also think I was starting to get a cold but I know I am not as out of shape as I felt when we were hiking. It was I can walk, or I can talk, I can’t do both. I bought a hat I thought had bears on it but Sherri pointed out later, and was correct, it wasn’t bears- it was dinosaurs! LOL! On the last hike we decided to cross the river and walk back on the other side instead of the same side. I thought for sure one of us was going to slip and totally fall it (probably me) but we all made it safely and were just wet from the middle of our calves down for the last 30 minutes or so. There was still some orange and red Fall leaves, some ice starting to form in the rivers. It was definitely chilly or just plain cold in the evenings but it was beautiful. Fresh crisp mountain air. We even had a few snowflakes one of the days. DeAnna is usually the one that has a list of activities for us to choose from. We picked several of her hikes, and one of the days we went to a Paint and Fire place to let our creative selves enjoy a few hours of crafting. I painted some pottery, DeAnna did a mosaic, and Sherri painted a canvas.
After our hike THROUGH the river, DeAnna wore this lovely look to pick up dinner one night because her shoes were still wet. She didn’t think anyone would notice…but they sure did.
We tried a local pizza place, breakfast place, and burger place. They were all great food. The vibe is pretty fun. It looks just like a old western mountain village in a film would but it isn’t old. It is new and clean and well kept.
We almost tried out the hot tub but only the outdoor one was open and we weren’t filling walking to and from the hot tub in 40 degree weather. We played games and talked for hours at our place. One card game DeAnna and I fixed Sherri’s hand to finally bring the game to an end while she was in the restroom. We didn’t change any outcomes, just hurried it along. Sherri wasn’t going to win so she switched her strategy to sabotaging whoever was winning and while we were having fun, it was getting a little long. We stayed until Sunday late afternoon. It was awesome. I love my sisters and I love hanging out with them. It makes me sad that we don’t live closer.
We checked out Sunday and DeAnna found us a church to go to. It was in Golden Colorado. When we were younger we lived in Colorado and went to a building in Golden that was just down the road from the Coors beer factory. This building fit that description. It didn’t look familiar to me (it was 5th grade for me) Its hard to be sure what memories I have are from what place because we moved so often but it could have been the building 30ish years ago I was taking a picture of with the primary on the front lawn after the primary program. After church we grabbed lunch and then went to the airport. We waited with Sherri at her gate until she left, then I waited with DeAnna at hers until she left, then I caught my flight. It was a great weekend. I loved every minute of it!
After 6 weeks in the Brazil MTC, Matthew hopped on a plain at 3am and went to Recife Brazil. It was about a three hour flight almost straight north and a little east from Sao Paulo.
His Mission President Brother Martins and his wife picked him and the other missionaries up at the airport. The first thing they did was go to a Brazilian Steak house to eat as much food as they could. Matthew greatly appreciated that. He was very excited to have some good food! The MTC food was pretty bland and not very good. They had some training meetings and went over the rules and guidelines of the Recife South Mission. He was assigned to a new companion, Elder Waite. He is a zone leader and has been on his mission for about 15 months. Matthew also had to get his Visa changed from a one year to a two year Visa while he was in Recife. I believe he stayed just one night in Recife then at the end of his second day he got on a bus and traveled 11 hours almost straight west, overnight to his first area Salgueiro Brazil.
This is a cool kind of overwhelming picture of our home and Matthew’s new location.👀
When you google Salgueiro, it doesn’t have much about it. It is desert. Matthew said Recife was pretty humid. Salgueiro is a dry heat, and Matt arrived on the first day of the start of the hot season. The average temperature from September-December is 99 degrees. Last week when I talked to him he said it was 104 degrees that day. Pretty toasty. It is not humid though and it does cool down to the 60’s at night so they get a little relief. They are working with the mission finance person to get them an air conditioner but currently do not have one. The population is about 60,000 and it is Matthew and three other missionaries for the whole area. The city is surrounded by a whole lot of nothing. It is pretty remote. There is one other area two hours west of them that has missionaries, otherwise they are as far west as their mission goes. Matthew says there are stray cats and dogs everywhere which he wasn’t surprised about…there is also wild horses roaming around everywhere which did surprise. There are paved roads but a lot of dirt or cobblestone roads. They walk everywhere all day. Their preparation day (P-Day) is on Mondays. That is the day we get to talk to him. He usually calls me at 6am our time before I go to work. He talks to Ryan sometime during the day. And often will call right before he goes to bed to talk with his sisters or all of us again. Tuesday through Saturday they wake up and do their morning study, exercise and get ready for the day then they head out and walk around to find people to teach or teach people they have already found. They usually meet the other two missionaries they live with for lunch at a café area, it sounds like what we would call a food court. They get all you can eat rice and beans. Matthew says they have a new seafood restaurant he is excited to try, and he also likes the acai bowls. He says he craves water because they drink juices and coke most of the time when they are out. Sunday they go to church and try and bring new people with them every week. It is a small branch for their area that has about 40 regular members. That is the one day they usually eat dinner at a members home as well. It is tricky getting people to come to church. Most people they meet are catholic and even if they say they will come to church, on Sunday when it is actually time they don’t want to get up that early. Matthew says they have found a few people that seem genuinely interested and he hopes will get baptized.
They walk everywhere. He has some comfy, fashionable but probably won’t last long if you walk in them on cobblestone roads for 10 hours a day shoes he took. He wore them in the MTC. He also took some comfy but not fashionable-looks like my grandpas shoes- but every missionary mom I talked to said their kid loved them or wished they had taken them. They are made to last forever but in Brazil will last most missionaries about 6 months. He switched to those about two weeks after he got to Salgueiro. He saves the fashionable ones for zone conference or the temple. His feet are still pretty sore at the end of most days but are getting tougher. He also has a bunch of insoles he can switch every month or so to help keep his feet happy.
I think he is doing pretty good. Right before his birthday he seemed a little homesick when I talked to him. A few days later on his birthday he was in better spirits. Before he left I had as many friends and family as I could write him a birthday note and put them all in an envelope. Then I put a small picture book together for him of family and friends. I also made a banner that said Happy Birthday Elder Terry in Portuguese. That along with some peach ring candy all went into a little package that I hid in his suitcase for him to open on his birthday.
This is a compilation of the videos we sent back and forth on Matthew’s birthday.
In other areas there will be a lot more missionaries to interact with-especially on P-Days, since it is just the four of them in Salgueiro their P-Days are a little less exciting. It is a nice break and chance to rest. Sometimes they watch a church approved movie. The other three have guitars. Matthew is trying to find a good deal on one. He took a personal credit card for things like that. His card has not been working pretty much since he got to Brazil. It worked for three days in the MTC. I have been trying to get it figured out. The mission gives him a card that they add money to every month for food. Sometimes the money isn’t available on the expected day and takes a few extra days to arrive. Matthew is a big person and is walking in heat 10-12 hours a day so in case he is extra hungry one day or the mission card doesn’t work is another reason I sent him with a personal credit card. Long story short- the week he arrived was a few days before the end of the month. Between Matthew getting a few extra supplies needed from just arriving and the mission card not getting charged right away, and his personal credit card STILL not working after me talking to the bank 2-3 times a week for two months, Matthew had no money for food for about 4 days. By the time he told me about it, his mission card had money again and he was fine for food. That was the last straw for me for the bank though. I did not support Matthew going to Brazil to go hungry. Another long story short- Matthew’s credit card is now working and I have the personal cell numbers of our banks local and regional vice presidents if I have any further issues.
Here are some pictures from Salgueiro. All the missionaries have a cell phone but when they go out for the day, they are only supposed to take one with them. (The main reason I have heard is muggings aren’t uncommon, and then they still have a phone if one gets taken🤷♀️ ) The senior companion (longest time in the mission) is usually the one that takes their phone so Matthew leaves his at home. That is why for now the pictures are all pretty much taken from Elder Waites phone.
This past week Matthew went to his first Zone Conference. Every six weeks, all the missionaries in a big area of his mission get together and do some training, discussions, eat together, get a chance to socialize and see other missionaries from around their mission. Sunday evening they all took an 8 hour overnight bus ride to Caruaru. This one had a fun P-Day attached to it. There were about 100 other missionaries there. They had a blow up volleyball/football court. Not sure exactly what that was but Matthew described it as a giant blow up court that they could tackle each other and get a little crazy with. Each of the groups of missionaries did a little skit/dressed up. Matthew and his three companions did the three witnesses from the Book of Mormon. There were some amazing brownies, and lots of good food. They building they stayed in was pretty tall and they were on the 32 floor. It also had air conditioning so Matthew was super excited to have the best night sleep in weeks probably. They were there Monday and Tuesday and then took an overnight bus back to Salgueiro. Matthew has a hard time with the overnight but trips. The buses are nice and pretty comfortable but he is to big to curl up on his side so he has to lay flat and the seats recline about half way so he says it is really hard to sleep. Here are some pictures from the zone conference. Matthew will have to write the names of people in the margins of this book when he gets home. I am not sure who everyone is.
Matthew has been on his mission for about 2 1/2 months now. It still feels weird to not have him home. We miss him A LOT and think about him and pray for him all the time. We look forward to talking to him every week and hearing about what he has been up to. I am not a morning person but I happily set my alarm for 5:45 Monday mornings so I can be ready for work when he calls about 6:15 and talk to him as long as he can. I don’t know if Mondays will always start and end with a call from Matthew while he is on his mission, but I am grateful for it right now. We are all proud of him and what he is doing. He is setting a great example for all of us. I know sometimes will be harder than other times for him on his mission and right now seems like a good time. I am grateful for that and am glad he seems to be doing so well.
We tried a new softball team for Emilee this Fall. We went to a new team at the club level for Advanced Fast Pitch Academy. She is the youngest girl on the team. She seemed to like it and got along well with the girls. The girls seemed nice. They are not very good. They played in five tournaments. 4-5 games per tournament and one two games total. That is a little frustrating for Ryan and I. She seemed to lose skills she had because they weren’t taught or reinforced…and we are paying club prices now, not rec team. She had a fun season and it takes time for teams to mesh so we will see how winter conditioning and Spring go but I don’t feel like we have found ‘her team’ yet. One of the tournaments they did was the Monster Bash. Here are some cute pictures from after the game.
My sister Sherri and her family stopped in a few weeks ago. They were taking a road trip to see our Grandma June and were stopping at family along the way. When they left our house their next stop was Colorado. They were well on the way when they started to come up on an RV and moved over to pass it. When they did Kenny saw that it was one of our old RV’s that we sold when we closed our RV business. It still had our logo on the side! It was the one we called “Cowboy”. Pretty crazy!
Spring Hill had their homecoming dance at the beginning of September this year. Allison went with a group of her friends. They came over here after school and each of them brought some food. They had a potluck dinner while they got ready together to go take pictures. Then I drove them all to Heritage Park. Several of their moms met us there and we took pictures. After pictures were taken they changed into football game attire and I dropped them off at the game. It is a bit of a hectic night because they have the game and the dance on the same night. A little after halftime I picked them up again and they came back to our house to get back into their dance outfits. When they were ready I took them back to the school to attend the dance. They said it was fun and they had a good time. When I picked them up we stopped at McDonalds for some ice cream on the way home and then some of them went home, some of them spent the night. I think everyone had fun, looked pretty and made good high school memories.
Allie and AllisonAllison and HaileyAllison and OliviaAllison and Addison
Matthew can message people but emails and and phone calls to family are supposed to be done on his preparation day (P-day). It was 8 days after he left before he had a p-day. In the MTC it isn’t a full day, its just a few hours. That is a little stressful for me because some of the times he is available I am at work. Its only a few weeks but I still want to talk to him. It was so good to hear his voice and see him over facetime. All of us got to talk to him, and all of us were looking forward to it and anticipating it. Emilee even said she would skip her riding lesson so she could talk to him. It had ‘only’ been eight days but it felt like a month. We talked for a while. I think he is getting frustrated with the speed he is learning Portuguese. I’m sure its going to get a lot more frustrating before it gets better. Especially once he is in Recife and learning and figuring it out or not being able to communicate with people. I’m also sure that he will get it and then have the confidence and pride that comes with conquering a huge challenge and task. He likes his district and seems like he is already forming some pretty solid new friendships. It was great to talk to him and I am going to look forward to it every week.
Matthew started a photo album that he can add pictures to for us to see. We made one for him too. Here are his pictures from the Brazil MTC.
MTC CourtyardMTC foodCampinas TempleView of Sao Paulo from the MTCCampinas Brazil TempleSao Paulo TempleCampinas Brazil TempleElder Stewart and Elder TerryMTC District at Sao Paulo TempleElder Stewart, Terry and Patterson
This is Matthew’s first video of him bearing his testimony in Portuguese he sent us at the end of the Brazil MTC.
