John's Trip To Brazil

June 19, 2005
"John left for Brazil on Thursday afternoon. He had some stressful complications with his flight plans at the airport, but he made it down there just fine."

"I'm using his phone card to call him while he's down there. It's weird having to go by a schedule, but they're 3 hours ahead of us, so if he wants to talk to me he has to plan ahead to make sure he's home in time to answer my call."

"He was staying with one of his convert families when he asked me to call at a certain time. I was worried about what I would say if it wasn't him who answered the phone, so he told me to just ask for 'Elder Critch-y-fielj'."

"Sure enough, Pedro's Sister-in-law Cleonise answered the phone when I called to talk to John, so I asked for 'Elder Critch-y-fielj' and she rattled off in Portuguese so fast the only thing I could pick out was 'Templo! Templo!', so I said, 'Okay....' and then hung up the phone. Apparently John had gone to the Temple and hadn't gotten back in time, so when he called me back he was laughing about my awkward encounter on the phone and apologized for not being there. It was pretty funny."

"Another convert family he got to stay with while he was down there was Josalita and Roseli. He had the special opportunity to go through the temple with them as well and said it was a neat experience."

"The relationships that John built with his converts on his mission amaze me. I've never experienced that for myself, but he talks about them with such love and admiration, and it seems they feel the same way about him. 

 I'm really glad he had the opportunity to return to his mission areas and reconnect with those people who had an impact on him. It sounds like it's been an incredible journey."