Jardim da Amizade: {r}Evolution of A Quilt

The world is but a canvas to the imagination. –Henry David Thoreau

I've been wanting to show you/off this quilt for a long time. Let's pretend it is the beginning of September again. When we left off, I'd just shown the completed signature quilt that was for a wonderful lady who had just turned 100. A dear neighbor, who has a long-arm, offered to do the machine quilting, so we're going to jump back a little further to the last week of August while the signature quilt was out for quilting. I received word in mid-August that some very special friends were coming from Brasil to visit, that they would be here for only a short window of time and that there was going to be a get-together on October 3^rd. The gears in my brain began to turn and as soon as I dropped the signature quilt off with the lady who had volunteered to quilt it, I pulled out a bunch of half-square triangles I've had hanging about for a while and got to work.

Fast forward to October 3^rd, and voilà. Jardim da Amizade, which translates directly as Garden of Friendship, but it is more comfortable to say Friendship Garden.

I took my inspiration {and this photo} from Wendy Sheppard at Ivory Spring. She is a truly amazing quilter. When I saw her quilt, I knew I wanted to make one of my own. I adapted the design, making my quilt square {I love square quilts}, rather than rectangular and my HSTs are 2" rather than Wendy's 1½" {can you imagine!}. Here's another little tidbit about Wendy's quilt; it took her only 5 days from start to finish.

Color Burst by Wendy Sheppard
Image Source

Wendy was inspired by the quilt below, which is on display at the Daughters of the American Revolution Museum in Washington, DC. I did some quick maths and there are 1,200 small half-square triangles in this quilt, all hand-pieced. Wow!

Old Maid's Ramble on display at the DAR Museum
Image Source

When I got the newsletter from my favorite local quilt shop the other day, I was delighted by another variation of this quilt. Aren't the colors beautiful? It is done in Moda's Lakeside Gatherings fabric line, and I love this take on the design.

Ladies on the Lake by Suzanne
at Corn Wagon Quilt Co.
Image Source

I had the greater part of the half-square triangles I used in my quilt already pieced when I decided to make this quilt. Some of them were even pressed open. The rest were ready and waiting to be pieced. I finished piecing those while the signature quilt was out for quilting, and as soon as that quilt was finished and delivered, I started piecing blocks of half-square triangles. It was a crazy undertaking to try and get this quilt done in such a short amount of time while juggling a full-time job, full-time mom and wife duties and a busy volunteer job at church. More than once I said, I don't know if I"m going to get this done. But I have to try.

I worked color by color and tried not to repeat any one print in each block. I wanted to photograph each block as I went, but it was hard to align my crazy schedule with good lighting as the days grew shorter. And I decided that I'd better spend every spare minute working on the piecing.

I like to do an embroidered label on the back of my quilts, but there just wasn't enough time for this one. Instead I used a permanent, archival quality pen and wrote my label out. I included a quote from Alfred Tennyson, If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk through my garden forever.

Melissa Kelley at Sew Shabby Quilting saved my bacon again and did yet another rush quilting job for me. After an all-nighter, Mr. Bug dropped the quilt off on a Tuesday morning on his way to work and Melissa had it ready for me on Wednesday evening, just in time for Mr. Bug to pick it up on his way home. She did a beautiful job on an edge-to-edge computerized floral design. I love the way it turned out. I then spent every second I could getting the binding on and hand-stitched to the back.

That week is kind of of a blur, but I'm pretty sure that Mr. Bug and the Not-So-Little Bugs ate a lot of cereal and take-out pizza. I didn't get much sleep and I was pretty useless at work. It was close, but I finished in time to take it to the get-together on Friday night. These are my Brasilian "parents," João Roberto {John Robert} and Maria Lúcia. I respect, admire and love them so much and it was so good to see them again!


This is the first quilt I've done that came completely from my stash. Granted, I did a swap for about half of the little half-square triangles, but all of the fabric I used for the swap came out of my stash and the ones I got back have been sitting in a drawer for so long that they count as stash by default. I did go and buy a piece of Kona in a sort of grayish-blue for the backing, but when I got it home, it wasn't quite right. I had a large quantity of Kona in Coal from a project that will probably never get off the ground, so the blue I bought {I think the color was Rain or Fog or something} went to stash {and is now being used in the next project I'm working on, which is another quilt made entirely from stash and which I hope to show you sooner than four months after it is finished and given away!}.

Other fun facts about this quilt:
• It has 640 small half-square triangles
• The total number of triangles {large and small} is 1,344
• The quilt measures 68" x 68"
• I'm going to make at least one more quilt like this because I'm slightly obsessed with half-square triangles.

You Don't Know Beans

Baked beans were always the only fashionable meal for Sabbath noon in Massachusetts. A minister who is a very correct mathematician, and a bit of a wag withal, has computed that he preached regularly every Sabbath afternoon to fifty-five bushels and three pecks of baked beans, while their owners were asleep. –From a nineteenth century magazine as quoted at The Old Foodie

During the last few days before school began, I went to two different barbecues. I've now eaten my quota of hot dogs for 2013 and got to make my two favorite pot luck dishes. I took potato salad to one barbecue and my favorite baked beans to the other. These are the best baked beans you'll ever have. My aunt brought them to family gatherings and I loved them so much that when my mom planned out a little family lunch after I got home from my mission in Brasil, she asked her sister {the aforementioned aunt} to bring her baked beans. But after eating beans and rice every. single. day. for 16 months, I couldn't look another bean in the eye. Not even the best baked beans ever. It actually took a full year for me to like beans again.

While I was cooking up a big dish of beans for the barbecue {a double recipe}, I snapped a picture of some in a dainty little china dish I inherited from a neighbor to entice you to try this tasty dish. Trust me. You don't know beans until you try these beans.

Linda's Most Excellent Baked Beans

8 strips bacon
3 cans {15 oz. each} pork 'n beans — about 5 cups
½ cup ketchup
¼ cup molasses
¼ cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon mustard
½ cup onion, finely chopped
½ of a green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
½ teaspoon hickory flavored liquid smoke
¼ teaspoon pepper

• Cook and crumble bacon.
• Combine pork 'n beans, ketchup, molasses, brown sugar, mustard, onion, bell pepper, liquid smoke and pepper in a 2-quart casserole dish.
• For quick beans, cover and bake for 30 minutes; remove cover, stir and bake for an additional 30 minutes at 350˚.
• For slow cooked beans, cover and bake for 2 to 3 hours at 225˚, stirring every 30 to 45 minutes. Raise oven temperature to 350˚, uncover and bake for an additional 30 minutes.

I Must Ask . . . Are You A Picky Eater?

Pickiness, natural skepticism of new foods, prevented the cave baby from putting just about anything – like a poisonous berry – in baby’s mouth. –Stacie Billis, One Hungry Mama

Thank you to everyone who left a comment about last week's question on creativity. I loved what you all had to say and was really surprised that only one person declared themselves to be a color-outside-of-the-lines kind of a person. For a while there, it was a fairly close race between those who colored inside the lines and those who did a little of both, but at the end the color-inside-the-lines pulled ahead. I'd dare say that even the strictest of the color-inside-the-lines person likes to break the rules every once in a while, though. I thought my dad summed it up nicely by suggesting that if you draw your own lines and then color within them you are creative enough to make something beautiful and disciplined enough to see it through to completion. Thanks, dad. As a side note, I really hit the jackpot in the creative gene department. Both my parents are incredibly talented and creative people.

Now for today's topic. I'm sorry I'm a little late getting to the party. I got distracted. My question was sparked by a post by my wonderful friend, Jenna, on picky eating. I hope you won't mind if I recycle my comment on her post into a post of my own, because I really enjoyed her thoughts on picky eating. If you have a minute, click on over and see what she had to say.

I am definitely a picky eater and I think that stems from taste and texture. I find eating to be pleasurable as well as necessary and as far as taste goes, I like things to be "just right." I like consistency. I like to be able to count on my food not being merely familiar, but on tasting the same every time. If I've planned to make something and don't have all the ingredients, I usually will wait to make it until I can get to the store. No substitutions allowed and since I'm doing the cooking, I suppose I can be as fussy as I want, right? If the texture is weird {as defined by me} I'd really rather not eat it. If the combination of taste and texture is weird {like in the case of cashew fruit }, count me out.

My question to the universe at large is this: why do the things that are supposed to be good for you not have a corresponding good taste on the "yucky-to-yummy" scale? Take for instance vegetables. They are supposed to be really good for you, but in order to make them taste good you have to add all kinds of things that are bad for you, like butter and salt. Mind you, I do serve veggies at dinner every night, usually green beans or broccoli, because those are the two I like best as stand-alone side-dishes. But my favorite way to eat vegetables is in a casserole type dish, where there is a sauce and little bit of seasoning to disguise them. I love to make chicken or beef pot pie, which has corn, carrots, peas, green beans and sometimes lima beans in it. I also like to make minestrone, which has all sorts of vegetables I wouldn't eat by themselves, but with spices and seasonings and all the flavors mixing together, I love it.

While we're in the general neighborhood of vegetables, salad is another thing I don't care much for. When they ask, "soup or salad" I choose soup {I'd rather say neither; if you eat the soup there's no room for the main course} because I just do not like iceberg lettuce. You might as well go out in the back yard and eat grass for all the nutrition you're getting. And it is about as digestible as grass. In the interest of making more healthy food choices, I've been doing salads for my lunch a few times a week, and I like the "fancy" salad mixes {which, interestingly enough, have dandelion greens in them, but they call them by a different name so you won't know you're eating weeds} mixed half-and-half with spinach. I add mandarin oranges, cucumber slices, a little bit of Parmesan cheese and grilled chicken on top and then homemade poppy seed dressing, which is just yummy. I'm sure the "yummy" factor I add to the greens more than cancels out the "nutrition" factor, because in my opinion the only reason to eat a salad is for the dressing. Which, coincidentally, is another thing I'm picky about . Ranch dressing? No thank you. But I digress. I was ranting about iceberg lettuce. When I eat out, I ask to substitute spinach for iceberg lettuce and if they don't have spinach, I just have them leave the lettuce off. It's not really a matter of nutrition though. I just like it better that way.

Over the years, I've grown less picky about certain things like tomatoes and mushrooms. But seafood is something I have never changed my mind about. I just do not like it except for tuna fish, which is sort of ironic since it is the "fishiest" tasting fish there is. If we're at a party and there's a shrimp cocktail, I will eat one or two shrimp with lots of sauce to disguise the flavor, but the fishy flavor and rubbery texture are not my favorite. Sometime when I was between the ages of 14 and 18 my mom served fish sticks for dinner and I pretty much refused to eat them. She gave me the choice of eating the fish sticks or doing dishes {for seven} by myself. I picked the dishes. Now that I'm an adult I try to keep a more open mind about things. When Mr. Bug and I go out to dinner and he orders fish, I always try a little bite just to make sure I'm not being ridiculous about the whole thing. Every time I try it, it is confirmed that I do not like seafood.

On a positive nutritional note, I'm looking forward to the summer season, when fresh-from-the-garden produce is abundant. I am trying to be more health-conscious of what I eat. I try {but do not always succeed} to avoid simple carbs and instead have fruits and veggies for snacks. I love to munch on those little clementine oranges, grapes, or carrot and celery sticks. I'm looking forward to when the watermelon in the produce department are bigger than a softball and cost less than $7. I like to cut it up into cubes so it is ready to have at dinner or eat as a snack any time. We go through about a watermelon a week during the summer. Corn-on-the-cob, bought from the local farmer's produce stands, is another favorite summer treat I'm excited for. I can't wait for the nectarines on the neighbor's tree and the raspberries in my yard to be ready. I love zucchini dishes and have six or seven favorite zucchini recipes that I'll make throughout the summer.

On a not-so-nutritional, but still positively positive note, I love most sweets. There are a few exceptions. I don't like nuts in most things {banana nut bread being the exception to the exception} and I don't like raisins that have been cooked. No oatmeal raisin cookies for me or raisins in the cinnamon rolls, thankyouverymuch. I do like raisins on their own {I have a few little snack-sized boxes of them in my drawer at work, in case I get hungry} and I also like them in vanilla ice cream {something I discovered while living in Brasil; I know it sounds weird, but it is good}. And some days,chocolate ice cream with chocolate syrup and Oreo crumbs on top is completely called for.

Now that I've talked your ear off, I must ask . . . are you a picky eater? I think we all are on some level, whether it is about taste or texture, nutritional content, or based on principle {vegetarians choose not to eat certain foods based on principle and that is being picky every bit as much as people who choose not to eat foods based on taste}. Unfortunately, people with food allergies or intolerances are forced to be picky eaters, so I'm throwing a category in for that too, although I know it's not voluntary. Food allergies are one of those things in life I just don't get. I'm certain that if I had a gluten intolerance I would miss white bread most of any of the things I would have to give up. Vote in the poll and tell me if you're picky too.

Favourite Things Friday: Ice Cream

Ode to Ice Cream
by Vada Sultenfuss

I like ice cream a whole lot.
It tastes good when days are hot.
On a cone, or in a dish,
This would be my only wish.
Vanilla, chocolate, or Rocky Road,
Even with pie a la mode.

I love ice cream; it is something I inherited from my mother. Creamy and cold, the perfect texture and taste sensation; ice cream always makes you feel better. If Ben and Jerry lived in my town, I would be their best friend, because those boys know how to make ice cream. I would probably get a job at their factory and be contented to receive my wages in pints of their delicious ice cream. Half-Baked is one of my most favorite guilty pleasures. It is the perfect blend of chocolate and vanilla ice cream with chocolate chip cookie dough and brownie bites in it. Simply divine.

I'm not a big fan of nuts in my ice cream, but other than that, how can you go wrong if it is ice cream? Growing up my dad's parents would take us to the 31 Flavors and I would pick either rainbow sherbet or orange sherbet. On a sugar cone. Still two of my favorite flavors. One April Fool's Day my mom served us ice cream for breakfast. As a teenager, my sister and I would go to the deli counter at the grocery store and get a scoop as big as your fist for 50₵. I'd usually pick chocolate peanut butter. When I lived in Brasil I had guava ice cream several times and absolutely loved it. I also had vanilla ice cream that came with raisins mixed right in while I was there. I know that sounds really strange, but the raisins somehow stayed soft and were the perfect compliment to the vanilla ice cream. Yes. I love ice cream.

Two weeks ago I found my favorite ice cream flavor ever. Milk & Cookies. One glance through the window on the freezer case and I knew that this incredible concoction was coming home with me. It is vanilla ice cream swirled with chocolate cookies, not unlike cookies 'n cream ice cream. But what makes this ice cream so perfect are the little bits of chocolate chip cookies AND chocolate chocolate chip cookies mixed in. Even the name is perfect. Mr. Bug and I ate a whole container in one sitting.

Over the last several years, I have had to make serious cut-backs on dairy. I still indulge in ice cream, probably more than I should, but as milk is one of the main ingredients I try to stay away. In its absence, I have found something that looks like ice cream and tastes like ice cream but is not ice cream. Häagen-Dazs sorbet has no dairy whatsoever and is a little bit of heaven on a spoon. The peach, strawberry and raspberry sorbet flavors are all really yummy, but I think I like mango the best. Sorbet is less than half the calories of ice cream with no fat but you still get that 'feel good' factor that ice cream gives you.

And now if you'll excuse me, there is a pint of Milk & Cookies in the freezer with my name on it.

Today's post brought to you by:

Cook Once, Serve Twice

To the old saying that man built the house but woman made of it a "home" might be added the modern supplement that woman accepted cooking as a chore but man has made of it a recreation. –Emily Post

I'm a big fan of working smarter instead of harder. When it comes to food, Mr. Bug is not a big fan of leftovers. If I am making a large recipe, I will usually freeze half of it and serve it again in a few weeks. No leftovers to go to waste and I have a complete meal ready to put on the table with very little effort. Smart. Sometimes I make leftovers on purpose and do a makeover on them, serving an entirely new dinner. This is one of my favorites. It is great for Sunday dinner and then a quick mid-week meal.

Italian Seasoned Crock Pot Roast

3–5 lb. beef roast
1 cup boiling water
2 beef bouillon cubes {or 2 teaspoons beef bouillon granules}
or for dairy-free, substitute 1 – 14.5 oz. can of beef broth for the boiling water and beef bouillon
1 packet dry onion soup mix
1 can {15 oz.} Italian stewed diced tomatoes

• Dissolve bouillon in boiling water and stir in onion soup mix.
• Place the roast in a crock pot and cover with canned tomatoes and juice. Pour the broth and soup mixture over top of the tomatoes.
• Cover and cook on low heat for 8 hours. Slice and serve with Savory Rice topped with the tomatoes and broth.

Notes:
• I usually do a 3 lb. roast and this easily feeds our little family of four, plus there is enough meat left for Shredded Beef Burritos and almost always sandwiches, too.
• There is plenty of the broth and tomatoes to go with a bigger roast, so no need to worry about running short.

Savory Rice
2 tablespoons olive oil
¼ cup finely chopped onion
1 garlic clove, pressed or minced
1½ cups uncooked white rice
3 cups hot water
¾ teaspoon salt

• In a 3-quart saucepan, heat olive oil over medium-high heat; sauté onions and garlic until onions begin to turn clear.
• Add rice to the garlic and onions in the pot and heat for 2–3 minutes, stirring occasionally.
• Add the hot water and salt to the rice and bring to a boil. Cover and reduce heat to low; simmer for 25 minutes. Stir and serve.

Makes 3 cups cooked rice

Notes:
• This is how they make rice in Brasil. Once you try it this way, you'll never go back to plain rice again.
• When cutting your onion, make sure to remove any of the layers in the very center that are a slightly different color than the rest of the onion; they may be yellow, or even green. They are bitter and will give the rice a funny flavor.
• If your garlic has started to sprout, remove any of the green shoots that have started to come out. That part of the garlic is bitter and will give the rice a funny flavor.
• This recipe is enough to go with a 3 lb. roast and have left overs for Shredded Beef Burritos. For a 4 lb. roast increase onion to ⅓ cup, rice to 2 cups, hot water to 4 cups and salt to 1 teaspoon. For a 5 lb. roast double the recipe. And use a bigger pot.

Shredded Beef Burritos

1 can {15 oz.} black beans
plus, for each burrito, you will need:
1 large {burrito size} tortilla
1 oz. shredded cheddar cheese {omit for dairy-free}
⅓ cup Savory Rice
2 oz. Italian Seasoned Crock Pot Roast, shredded
Tomatoes and broth from Italian Seasoned Crock Pot Roast
Green Sauce

• Place black beans in a small saucepan; cover and simmer over low heat to thicken the sauce that comes with the beans while you prepare the other ingredients for the burritos.
• To reheat the leftover Savory Rice, place it in a covered microwave safe dish. Place the cover loosely on the top of the dish, allowing for steam to escape and microwave for 2½ minutes on power level 6. Stir rice, and cover to keep warm.
• Shred the leftover roast beef and divide into portions for each burrito. Heat the roast beef in the microwave for 90 seconds on power level 6.
• Place the tortilla on a microwave safe place, sprinkle the cheddar cheese down the center of the tortilla. Top with rice, black beans, shredded beef, tomatoes and green sauce. Microwave for 30 seconds on high and roll burrito. Use a toothpick to help keep it closed. Serve immediately.

Notes:
• The ingredients, as listed, make really huge burritos. You can use less of any of the ingredients, dividing out what you have left between the number of people you need to feed. Specifically, 2 oz. of meat is a very generous portion, so if you don't have that much for each person, you can definitely get by with less.
• These amazingly huge burritos are only 500–600 calories, depending on the tortillas you use and how generous you are with your shredded cheese and rice.

Woman's Work: Laundry Basket

I believe you should live each day as if it is your last, which is why I don't have any clean laundry, because, come on, who wants to wash clothes on the last day of their life? –Unknown

Of all the household chores, laundry is the one that I will never complain about. Or perhaps I should say it is the one I mind the least, because it is funny and dramatic to say, Mt. Saint Laundry is calling, or, I have to conquer Mt. Washmore today. But if the truth be told, the machines do all the work and we have it really easy. When I lived in Brasil, I did my own laundry by hand for about a year of that time, and washing jeans and towels {or really anything} in a stone sink basin and then wringing them out to dry is a very laborious process. I knew women who would start their day, every day, at the crack of dawn with their family's laundry, and not be finished until well into the afternoon. I count myself lucky that sorting a week's worth of laundry takes all of twenty minutes; that I can throw a load in the washer in less that five minutes {counting pre-treating all the stains} and come back 50 minutes later to find all the hard work done. With a few exceptions, all of that can go in the dryer and in 30 to 60 more minutes, I have a load of clean, bright, fresh smelling clothes which can be folded at my leisure while watching TV. Yes, laundry may take all day, but the bulk of the work is done by machines.

This laundry basket was really fun to appliqué. As I was selecting fabrics for it, I thought, this has to be the worst-sorted load of laundry in the history of laundry, because I sort my laundry not just into darks, mediums and lights, but by color. Then I realized that a monochromatic basket of laundry would have been very boring in this quilt, so I just had fun with it, imagining that this is what was left in the basket after several loads has been dumped in and picked through. I took inspiration from Lori's quilt, using red with big white polka-dots for one piece of laundry and choosing a really cool striped fabric for one of the socks. But for the most part, I picked fabrics that I thought looked nice to make up my basket of laundry. And the basket itself? Well, I searched high and low before I found this perfect basket-weave fabric and I absolutely love how it came out.

Over the years, I've honed my laundry skills and I think I do a fairly decent job. It is totally because I let the machines do all of the work. Here are a few tricks I've learned.
• Hot water sets in stains. I wash every load in cold water, which is good for several reasons; it is green {saves energy on heating the water}, it keeps clothes from fading, it keeps clothes from shrinking {if you don't put them in the dryer}, and if you missed anything in the pre-treat, it is more likely to come out in cold water.
• When treating clothes for stains, do it just before you throw the clothes in the wash as the water is running {rather than when you take the item off and put it in the laundry}. Also, most stains happen on the front of clothes, so if you're pressed for time, you can skip the backs of shirts.
• Let the machines do all the work — set every load to agitate for the maximum time setting on your machine.
• Don't overload your machine. Your clothes will come out better in two medium loads than one extra gigantic load. Also, use the right amount of soap for your load size. Too much detergent is just as bad as not enough.
• Contrary to popular belief, it is the washer, not the dryer, that eats stocks. Stick your head in the dryer and have a look around. There is no place for them to go. They slip down the drain in the drain/rinse cycle in the washer, so if the mis-matched sock pile drives you nuts, put your socks in mesh laundry bags in the wash.
• When drying sheets and blankets {or cuts of fabric for quilting} throw a set of dryer balls {or jumbo-size bouncy balls, which I like better} in with them. It helps keep the fabrics from wadding up into a giant ball and they will dry faster.

I hope that helps lighten your load a little. I'm off to conquer Mt. Washmore .

Missão Brasil Fortaleza: Cinco por día, mais um

True nostalgia is an ephemeral composition of disjointed memories. -Florence King

Yes. I'm going to talk about MORE mission stuff . I hope you'll indulge me just a little. I promise not to bend your ear for too long. I have a few odd memories that really didn't have a place in my other posts about my mission. This post is rather disjointed and these are things of little consequence, but stick in my mind nonetheless. It is an interesting thing to be thrust in a world that is so completely different than your own.

In my first post about my mission, I showed pictures of all of my companions. I only had one picture of my first companion, Sister {Rose} Soares, with her hiding way in the back. However, I found some old rolls of film that I had developed and I found a picture of us together on my first day in Brasil. The quality of the picture isn't super, but considering it sat in my suitcase in a tropical climate for several months, and then in a drawer for 16 years, I'm really glad to have it. She was so patient and kind.

The little monkey sitting on my shoulder here was someone's pet. His name is Chico. I thought he was cute, so I asked to hold him. He climbed on me a bit and then that cheeky monkey bit me on the neck. I was a bit worried about it for a while, but it's been 15 years and I'm doing pretty OK, so no harm done, I think.

Chickens were frequently kept as pets. Here and in many other countries, hens are allowed to be kept in residential areas, but roosters are not. And I totally understand why that is a law. In Brasil, there wasn't a law about where roosters can be kept and so when the sun came up {at 6:00 every morning} the roosters would begin to crow. And they wouldn't shut up. Look at this gorgeous rooster someone had living in their yard. The colors on him were amazing, which is why I took a picture of him. Unfortunately, the film didn't quite capture his beauty.

One rule for missionaries is that you are to write your family a letter every week. I have this 'thing' for packages and letters. I love to put them together and I love to make them pretty. On my second day in Brasil, I got a letter together for my family to let them know I'd arrived and was on my way. My companion and I went to the post office branch near our home so I could mail it. They only offered one choice of international stamp, and it was pretty boring. So the next time we went into the city center my companion took me to the main post office to get some pretty stamps. They didn't sell them at the main windows. We had to go into this little side office to get them. After that, I would make my companions go to the main post office to get stamps. I would buy enough to mail my letters for that week and the next because we would only make a trip into the city every other week. I asked my mom to save all of my letters and when I got home, I made a collage of all of the pretty stamps I'd procured during my time in Brasil. A few weeks ago, I scanned the collage in and was looking at the digital images. The quality is incredible and I can see details that were almost too small to see on the original stamps. I put together a little slide show of them, with that first boring international stamp at the beginning. One interesting thing about stamps in Brasil is that the cost of international postage fluctuates so frequently that they seldom print the value on the international stamps. You pay the going rate and if the rate goes up the next day, the stamp is still worth the international rate. It works like the USPS's Forever stamps.

I think I've just about wrapped up with blogging about my mission memories. I'll have some fun quilty stuff next Way Back When-sday.

Missão Brasil Fortaleza: MTC Memories

Nostalgia is a file that removes the rough edges from the good old days. -Doug Larson

I haven't posted about my mission in a few weeks. I'll bet you all thought you were safe from my long-winded reminiscences about that. But I have a lot of pictures I haven't shown you yet and I love a captive audience. As a matter of fact, I just got two really old rolls of film developed a couple of weeks ago and I know there's another one somewhere .

Every missionary spends at least two weeks at the MTC {Missionary Torture Training Center}. You brush up on the things you'll be teaching and learn what's most effective {working with current members} and what's not {knocking on doors}. If you need to learn a language, then you spend about eight weeks at the MTC, adding a crash course in whatever foreign language you'll need. You have morning, afternoon and evening classes with meals and breaks in between and a few workout/gym hours and laundry and letter writing days mixed in between. After a few weeks of staring at the same 10 or 12 people, it can get pretty boring.

{l to r: Sister {Tina} Jordan, Sister {Cassy} Moulton, Elder {Justin} Wilde, Elder {Ben} Blackson, Elder {Ryan} Hammerschmidt, Elder {Jarom} Eberhard}

It was hard to be cooped up indoors most of the day trying to put into practice the language you were supposed to be learning while surrounded by people who were as clueless about conjugations and tenses and pronunciation as you. I think the Elders had a harder time containing their restlessness than the Sisters did. These guys shaved their legs one night just because there was nothing better to do.

{l to r: Elder {Justin} Andrews and Elder {Jarom} Eberhard}

And here they are during a break pitching pennies against the wall to see who could land theirs the closest.

{l to r: Elder {Ben} Blackson, Elder {Clint} Barton, Elder {Justin} Andrews, Elder {Mason} Jacobs, Elder {Jarom} Eberhard and our teacher, Brother {Lúis} Belo}

Judging by the number of pictures I have at the MTC of a whole lot of nothing going on, I was pretty restless too. Don't get me wrong. There were some pretty awesome moments and some really great learning experiences there. But I was really anxious to get to Brasil where I knew there were some pretty fluent speakers of Português who could help me with my language questions, and to get busy with what I was there to do.

One of the best parts of the MTC was the friendship I formed with my companion. She was amazing; patient, kind, thoughtful, strong, determined. Towards the end of our time at the MTC, I was feeling a little down. She received a new dress in the mail. Her mom had made it for her and it was so beautiful. I admired it and she gave it to me straight from the mail to wear that afternoon, before she even had a chance to wear it. That really gave me a lift and I'll never forget how that truly unselfish act made me feel.

{l to r: dorm mate Sister {Cassy} Moulton {my companion is taking the picture}, Sister Me}

Here is my companion, Sister {Natalie} Davey, with the dress she shared with me packed at the top of her suitcase and ready to go to Brasil.

And this is our little group, or district, close to the end of our eight weeks at the MTC.

{l to r: Backish - Elder {Justin} Wilde, Elder {Ben} Blackson, Elder {Jarom} Eberhard, Elder {Mason} Jacobs
Middleish - Elder {Ryan} Hammerschmidt, Elder {Justin} Andrews, our teacher Brother {Kyle} Kraudy, Elder {Clint} Barton
Frontish - Sister {Natalie} Davey, Sister Me, Sister {Tina} Jordan, Sister {Cassy} Moulton}

This is me on the day that I flew out of the Salt Lake Airport headed for Brasil. The quality is horrible, but I suppose it is better than nothing, considering it was sitting around waiting to be developed for 16 years. I'd been at the MTC for a while and my family and some friends came to see me off. It is fun to look back at this picture because some of these people are no longer with us. My mom's mom and both of my dad's parents {who have since passed on} are there. My grandma {second from the right in the blue striped shirt} handed me a $20 bill inside a shoe polishing mitt from a motel and told me to pin in my bra. And besides family, my friends, Michelle and Robert {far left} came to see me off as well. They even brought gifts. Do you see that little guy in the center front? The one with the white arrow pointing at him? That is my youngest brother. He was 2½. He'll be 19 in a couple of weeks and today my parents took him to the MTC so he could start his mission.

{l to r: backish - Michelle, Dad, Dad's Dad, Mom's Mom, Linda, Mom, Mom's Dad, Sister Me, Cindy, Kathryn, Barbara, Dad's Mom, Cheryl
frontish - Robert, Andrew, Jill, Robin, Julie, Mark}

Here's to you Andrew! I hope the MTC is as wonderful for you as it was for me.

{l to r: LadyBug, Andrew, Grasshopper
Lunch just before going to the MTC.}

Missão Brasil Fortaleza: A Day in the Life

6:30 am: wake up
1 hour personal study (including scriptures, gospel principles and language)
1 hour companion study
Breakfast, shower, etc.
9:30 am: teaching
12:00 pm: lunch
1:00 pm: teaching
5:00 pm: dinner
6:00 pm: teaching
9:30 pm: arrive back home, time for writing in your journal, have a snack, prepare for bed
10:30 pm: go to bed

Last week I posted about my mission. It turned out to be a rather lengthy post, but I didn't say nearly everything I wanted to say. How can you sum up 18 months in 2700 words? Even when you factor in 1000 words a picture {there were 16, just so you don't have to go back to count and yes, I did the math: 18,700 words}, I still haven't said much on the subject.

The schedule I listed out above is roughly the same schedule every missionary in the entire world follows. There are variations to this, such as Sunday mornings, when you attend church from 9:00 to noon (or sometimes from 11:00 to 2:00 or even sometimes from 1:00 to 4:00 in the afternoon). Once a week you are encouraged to help out with a service project somewhere in the commmunity. And one morning a week you have a meeting with your zone {a mission is divided up into zones, the zones are divided up into districts and the districts are divided up into areas}. The schedule and rules are adaptable to each mission. At 4˚ south of the equator, an addendum was added to the 9:30 - 10:30 pm time frame at the end of the day and that was that you were to take another shower. It was a mission rule, not that I needed telling twice. And because the sun rises every day of the year at 6:00 am and sets every day of the year at 6:00 pm in Fortaleza, we were to arrange our schedules to that we had as many appointments as possible in the evening so that we weren't left knocking on doors after dark {it's not fun in the daytime either, but it's not fun and also not a super safe idea at night}.

The main purpose of a mission is to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. All other distractions are eliminated and you focus solely on learning and teaching about our Savior. There are lots of rules to follow, like no swimming and no TV and no dancing. It is difficult. It is a pretty rigorous schedule {Mr. Bug and I used to joke that it was my secret Wonder Woman training in the Amazon. That was before I had kids and totally lost my super powers}. But you grow and learn and become a better person.

In between all the teaching, you still have everyday kinds of things that you need to take care of, so one day a week {called Preparation Day, or P-Day} you have from 9:30 am to 6:00 pm to do laundry, write letters home {it's a rule; you have to write your family every week but it only makes sense. If you write them, they'll write you and getting letters on you mission is a good thing.}, get groceries, go to the bank {you and/or your family pay your own way, but it is parceled out from home bi-weekly}, etc. Since laundry was all done by hand {see illustration at right}, I would sometimes wash that day's clothes after I showered at night so that I didn't have so much to do on P-Day. See? The schedule is totally adaptable.

Not too long after I arrived in Brazil, my mission president arranged for a little day trip on P-Day for everyone. We went to the beach, which is a pretty strange place to go for a group of people who aren't allowed to swim. The first thing the mission president said to us when we got off the bus was that if we set so much as a big toe in the water, he'd send us straight home. It was enough to keep us all dry. We had a picnic and explored and climbed on the dunes. The mission president arranged us into the initials of our mission and took photos for us.

Leading up to this trip, I kept hearing that the beach we were headed to, Morro Branco {White Hill}, had areias coloridas. Being a little wet behind the ears {translation: completely inept. Oh, and I wasn't really wet behind the ears -- remember no swimming} with the language, I had to look this up in my handy dandy English/ Portuguese dictionary. It means colored sands. I was intrigued. I verified with my companion, Sister Soares, that I had indeed understood correctly -- the sands at the beach we were going to were colored. I envisioned pink and blue and green and yellow; a rainbow at the beach. I'm still scratching my head over that one, because all the sand was, well, sand colored .

Looking back, I spent an unusual amount of time at the beach for someone who couldn't go in swimming. My zone went to Praia do Futuro {Beach of the Future} about four months later.

I even went on a little river tour with my district in Aracati. The boat we rode on is in the background. While we were stopped at the mid-point of the trip, my companion {who, I must say, followed all the rules} had the idea to wade out to this little fishing boat and take a snap shot. It was near the shore and the water only came up to mid-shin. I took a picture of her with her camera and then we switched and she took a picture of me with my camera {I wish I'd have thought to take a picture of her with my camera too}. There's nothing like breaking the rules, taking a picture and then posting it all over the internet. It's been sixteen years. I wonder if there's a statute of limitations on something like this or if I can expect to be struck by lightning any time now?

This is another zone trip, this time to Cofeco Beach {no translation for Cofeco} six months after Praia do Futuro. Notice that all of the footprints in the sand are parallel to the water. A few come pretty close to the water, but none go in.

Our entire mission even went to the beach at Christmas (between the river trip and Cofeco beach). Volleyball anyone?

This boardwalk goes out over the ocean and continues out for quite a ways. This landmark is called Ponta Metalica {Metalic Point} or sometimes shortened to Pontão {The Point, but the 'ão' at the end indicates size. For example, the root word is ponta (point). Adding 'inha,' pontinha, makes the point little and adding ão makes the point big. You can do that with almost any word in Portuguese}. As beautiful as it was, it really didn't seem like Christmas.

Besides visiting the beach on Christmas, we stopped for ice cream and the mission president took us to another landmark in the city, a mausoleum. This is a postcard I bought of it.

This is me with the mission president's daughter, Lúcia Maria, under the mausoleum. Recognize her dress?

The president gathered us and his daughter took a picture of all of us together. He and his wife are in the bottom left corner on the front row. These are all the missionaries who were serving in our entire mission at the time. See if you can find me {click on the picture to enlarge}. It is kind of like Where's Waldo? I'm even wearing red and white stripes.