Week Ten

Birds by a pond

Here are a couple of things we enjoyed this week as we walked in the vicinity of our apartment in Orlando. There are several colorful building complexes in MetroWest, but this one by Veranda Park is notable. Also, Kirk just can't get enough pictures of birds. We had heavy rains every day this week, but most mornings and some of the evenings were clear.

The Veranda Park area in Orlando's MetroWest

Senior Missionaries in the Florida Orlando LDS Mission

The Gebs are returning home this coming week (left) after 23 months in the Orlando Mission, and the Gordons just joined us this week, so we took this picture of the 'Seniors'.

We attended the Mission Leadership Council meetings this week, where Sis Nielson did a presentation on medical care and distributed Health & Medical manuals to be placed in each missionary apartment. She continues to field medical calls every day, but the manuals may help answer questions to pre-screen some of the calls. Prep-day injuries still occur nearly every week ...

Trainers for the new missionaries

Thursday evening the senior missionaries had a chance go to the Orlando Temple. Friday was a training orientation for the trainers for the new missionaries who will arrive next week. Sis Nielson gave her 'Stress' presentation to help in the adjustments. 

T-shirts for the American Heart Assoc Walk

Saturday morning was the American Heart Association 5k 'Heart Walk' at the University of Central Florida campus in Orlando. We joined with the stake south of us  because they registered an LDS group to participate and got T-shirts for us. 

Berrys, Nielsons, and Busaths in the balloon Heart

Pre-Walk pictures with our senior missionary friends. We had a great time! 

LDS YSA and some of the missionaries at the Am Heart Assoc Walk.

Missionaries at the Am Heart Assoc Walk

We arrived while it was still dark, and had trouble finding the "green pole" where we were supposed to meet. We finally figured out that the pole was the thing made of green balloons in the back of the large picture above.

Near the starting line by UCF's Memory Mall

There were about 18,000 people at the walk, which raised about $1.5 M for the heart association.

Sister Nielson at the finish

Sis Nielson with new friends

Sister Nielson hasn't changed much from her running days. She couldn't bear to just walk despite the best advice from Elder Nielson, so she jogged most of the way & she came in at ~37 min, if we kept time, including the wait to get to the starting point. As usual, she made a lot of friends along the way. The three with her in this picture found her after the 'walk' and said they tried to keep up with her, since she should have an easy pace because she used a walking stick. But every time they got close, she ran again and they lost her. Elder Nielson just advised her to not trip anyone with the stick. As in the finish picture, she just carried the stick most of the way.  

Elders Nielson, Delgado, and Costa

Saturday evening we went to a celebration of Brazilian Independence Day (September 7) with Brazilians from the Orlando area, both LDS & non-LDS. Our Portuguese elders organized it, and had Elder Nielson prepare and present a power-point presentation on the history of the LDS church in Brazil, in Portuguese. He's been working on it for a couple of weeks, but it went well according to our english-speaking friends who were there. Elder Destro helped him by telling a couple of the stories about early missionaries and some early converts.  They also had a presentation by our Portuguese-speaking high councilman and afterward served a nice Feijoada dinner, furnished by a member who owns a Brazilian restaurant on International Drive. 

Our Brazilian friend Fábio
with Elder Nielson

Some of the LDS members brought green & yellow memorabilia, soccer balls & uniforms, hammocks, pictures of Brazilian beaches, etc. They also had a DJ to play lots of traditional Brazilian music, one of the sisters sang a song, and we began by singing the Brazilian National Anthem. Lots of fun and good visiting!