Wednesday we worked on organizing Robert's office and some of the inventory in the distribution room. That alone is increasing my vocabulary as every book and video is in Portuguese. I was struggling over this one pamphlet though and finally asked Robert. He started laughing. It was in French. HA! The other thing I am struggling with is how to read their money. They put a period where we put a comma and they put a $ sign where we put a period. It looks something like this 4.357$00. The is 4,357.00 escudos.
At least I knew that much when Sister Oliveira took me shopping for a fridge, stove and washer. That was crazy enough but the hardest part was finding a bed. How do I describe this. Their mattresses here are slightly more comfortable than lying on a box springs. You can feel every spring. We finally found an adequate queen size but it cost half of what the washer, stove and fridge cost! Then they wanted that much more for a frame. The frame is nothing more than a wood box covered with fabric. I noted the frame was smaller than the mattress and the sales person shrugged and said,"It doesn't matter." Needless to say we didn't get the frame. Sis. Oliveria is having a member in the stake make us one.
The money system still confuses me. They do not recognize foreign credit cards so they are worthless here. Our US debit card is good for pulling out money but we can only get about $200 out at a time. We did open an account here and received a depit card but it is only good if we have money in the account. We haven't figured out how to transfer money. We can't just use our US depit card to deposit money asevery time we use it we get charge a nice little fee. The interesting thing is you don't pay for anything big at the store. You just get a receipt. then you take the receipt to the bank and have them put the money into the stores account, when the store is notified by the bank that the payment has been made, then you can arrange for the delivery or just go pick up what you bought. (that is what Sis. Oliveira did with me for the fridge, stove and washer) For smaller things and for grocery shopping you can pay cash. You don't have credit cards here.We are still working on the money issues.
Another strange money adventure was paying the electric company for all the missionaries electric bills from all over the county. It took the lady an hour to go through it all. Then we found out about an hour after we got back to the office that Robert had written the check out wrong. We had to go back the next day with a new check.By the way the church can get checks but the don't give them out to individuals. Strickly cash or a debit card.
So Friday we got up early to go back to the electric place to straighten out the mess. We also went to pick up new phones for the mission. The missionaries had gone down to the shop ordered the phone, taken the receipt to the band and all that was left was for us to pick them up. It was at the tiny shop. the first 4 feet was dedicated to watches and phone and a few other electronic gadgets. The back of the store was dedicated to all kinds of pet supplies from dog leashes to fish food. The phone were not in boxes. He brought them to us in a bag and in a separate bag was the chargers. He plugged each phone in to show they worked and then gave us the two bags. You just don't ask questions here.
The rest of Friday I spent working upstairs to clean up the mess there. Most everything from the mission office had been moved downstairs. All that was left were all of these odds and ends. And no one wanted to do it. So I finally took charge and got everything out of there. Now all that needs to happen so we can move in is for the landlord to clean up, repaint and do a few repairs. We hope to be in there by the end of the week.
Saturday was a very unsual day. Sister Cummings showed us a store that is there version of a super walmart. It sells everything from refrigerators to food but it is about 1/6 the size of a walmart. We found some good food there and now I know where to go for the things we will need for our apartment. Then dad and I went back to the office to do some work. Unfortunately the electricity went out and the generator was not set on automatic turn on. Trying to get it on in hopes of saving all the computer work we did we set off all kinds of alarms. The president is out of town so we had to call the office elder that has just been transfer to the other end of the island. He helped us out. After that we went to a baptism were 3 people were baptized. They have a baptism pretty much every Saturday at 4.
Just after that we saw cars coming down the street honking. It looked like a parade.In one of the first trucks was a group of young men dressed in white with light purple sashes at their waist. A few more cars passed and there was a truck with a group of young women dressed in white except for light purple accents. A few more cars passed and a convertible came with a bride and groom in it. Her vale was floating over the back of the car. Everyone on the street stopped as the procession went by and waved and cheered.
After that we went with the sister missionaries to teach a lesson about the importance of family. The women is a member but her "husband"" is not. She wants to help him now see the importance of marriage.They felt a couple married as long as us could help out on this subject. I even said a few things all though the sister missionary translated for me. Hopefully we will get more opportunities to teach and work with the missionaries.
here are a few pictures.
This is the view from our soon to be back deck with the ocean view.
And this will be our bedroom. They don't have closets here just built in wardrobes. Danielle would be in big trouble here. :)
And this will soon be our kitchen.
Well that is all we have learned this week. We still have had a day were we have had a normal schedule and a full day of electricity. But tudo bem!
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