Summer with Family!

Family has come to town and I've had the opportunity to spend some time with them!


I'm on the carousel with Nate at South Towne Mall!

Cute little Lana!

She wasn't about to touch the grass...

Lana found her shadow!

Summer Thunderstorms are the best! Double Rainbow! -Notice how the red color is on the top of the rainbow in the lower arc, but on the bottom in the upper arc!

My cute niece Maggie!

Unplanned putting on our best faces- haha!

Waiting for fireworks... We're all excited!

Double BOOM!

Back to Belo Horizonte...

(Continued from previous post...)

After surviving the highway of death we went straight to Paulo's house. We went to a nearby lanchonete and had a bowl of Acai! It was SO GOOD!

The next morning Natalia had a bad fever, so the older sister (Fernanda), who is a nurse, got out her needle and gave Natalia an injection to lower the fever. It worked...

Here's just another picture in the city.

We went back to the mission office and my old companion Andre Alves was there! It was good to see him. He hung out with us a few times during the week.

This is a view from the mission office.

Yummy Tosco Burger! We ate here a lot! They have really good Acai juice.

The old Bandairantes chapel is getting an extreme makeover.

Trevor is showing off a typical garbage receptacle...

She was the first member we visited in the Paraiso ward! She was really happy to see us.

She is making a mural on her wall of church posters.

This was part of my old area! I walked up those hills behind multiple times.

Karine and Andre! They help out the missionaries a lot.

Ipatinga!

(Continued from previous post...)
We have arrived in Ipatinga! A member now lives in the house where I lived as a missionary. I snuck in the bathroom to take a picture of the shower where a GIANT cockroach crawled out of the drain and up my leg on two separate ocassions while I was showering! It pretty much scarred me for life. :) This is the kitchen. Penha was making us a snack. As you can see it is open to the outside... One night ,when I was living in this house, I saw something flying at me in the dark and I ran out of the kitchen! It was a couple of cockroaches. They ran around the walls and then got stuck in the drain. We burned them. Me and Penha on the roof... This is Penha's neighbor Sandra and one of her kids. We started teaching her and her family, but we didn't get very far. They tried to give us a hug one night and we tried to explain that we couldn't hug girls because we were missionaries. Penha had to explain to her that we weren't gay. It was kind of awkward, but funny. When we went to her house I called up to her, "Would you like a hug now?" She said, "Of course!" I said hello and took a picture, but somehow we never did hug... Then we found Bernadete. She would make us lunch every week! We were happy to see each other. Our first night we stayed in the Bristol Hotel in Ipatinga. It was quite comfortable. This is one viu from our room. We had a balcony. You can see our lonely car in the parking lot... It was full the night before. That evening we visited Felipe and his family... Then we went to a Pizzaria with Rodolfo and his family! Rodolfo is on the far right side. His cousin (Fernanda) is next to him, then me, his aunt(Elaine), his mother (Luciene), his brother (Reuben), his uncle (Temistocles), his cousin (Pedro), then Trevor. Temistocles tried to convince us that all food is bad for you and that he lives off of light instead of food. He said it has been 2 months since he hasn't eaten anything... yet he ate pizza with us. -He had some odd ideas... :) The next morning (Saturday) we got up and played soccer on the Church's soccer court. After soccer we played some ping-pong. (Yes we are playing ping pong in the back of the chapel.) There is a small stage right behind me. Then we had lunch! - A Tasty Barbecue with rice and beans! Ipatinga was in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the most churches of different denomiations... They are everywhere! This one is called Assembly of the Living Word... We stayed Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday night with Rodolfo's family. They made us feel so welcome and comfortable! They were a lot of fun to be with. On Friday night Trevor and Rodolfo went to a night club. I didn't want to go so I stayed home with Rodolfo's older brother Rafael. Rodolfo told me I could just sleep on his bed since they would be late - So I did. (They left at midnight and returned about 2:30am). Here is looking down from their apartment- you can see the missionaries! Saturday afternoon we went to the mall and they had a SUBWAY! They didn't have Subways when I was there. It is really expensive... Later that evening we visited Rita. She was getting a pedicure. The people come to your house to do it rather than you going to the salon... Then we went back to Penha's and we ate some apple bananas (type of small banana) and she made us fresh passion fruit juice! It was SO good! On Sunday morning we went to Church. I took a lot of pictures afterward.




As you can see the outside wall has graffiti on it...

Lunch Time! Rice, beans, cornmeal mush, and chicken with okra! SO GOOD!


Then we rested for a while, chatted, etc... Then we had a snack for dinner and took a nice group picture.

Goodbye Ipatinga! On the way out of town I took a quick picture of one of the steel mills. Ipatinga is in the 'land of steel.' They have heavy, sooty air because of a HUGE steel mill. I think it's at least as big as Geneva was. It even has it's own bus system.

This is the Sandiego Hotel in the distance... I stayed here with my parents when they picked me up from my mission.

The road back to BH is known as the highway of death. There are many accidents each year- and probably daily. We saw two overturned vehicles on our way back. Here is a few pictures of the highway starting with a truck passing other trucks in our lane!
It's mostly a two lane road. We had to drive on the shoulder a few times.

Belo Horizonte!

(continued from previous post...)

The following is a view from the airplane about 20 minute before landing. I think it is a city just north of Belo Horizonte.

Then we had a super smooth landing. We took a picture of the 'big bird' and went through customs.

My friend Paulo met Trevor and me at the Confins International Airport, we rented a car from Hertz, and drove to Paulo's family's apartment. We were tired from our long trip and I was surprised to see that Paulo, his friend Paloma, and his sister Natalia had planned a little belated birthday party for me! I was happy, although I probably didn't show enough enthusiasm... I had just been on airplanes and in airports for 24 hours!
This is Natalia and Paloma.

This is me, the cake, and KUAT brand Guarana!

We then went out in the yard around the apartments to see the view.


Paloma, Me, Paulo
After resting for an hour or two we went to the center of BH (Belo Horizonte). Driving in BH is near impossible when you are used to driving in the US. Trevor was the only one that drove because I don't have a handle on manual transmissions...
This is us trying to navigate downtown BH.

We finally got to the Belo Horizonte East Mission Office! It has changed a little since I left it three years ago.

On the way back to Paulo's house...
We got stuck in a busses only lane for a few miles. We were lucky to not get a ticket. We also went the wrong way on one-way roads several times... I'm never renting another car in Brasil.

We also went to a HUGE grocery store. It was like a Super Wallmart. I bought groceries here when I lived in my first area on the mission.

Look at the ABSURD price for this Laptop.

We got back too Paulo's, ate dinner (rice, beans, egg w/onions, juice), showered, and got ready for bed.

This is what one showerhead looks like in Brasil. All the water in the house is cold, so the showerhead is electric. When the water is turned on, an electric heat coil turns on, which warms the water as it passes through and onto your body. Less water coming through makes for a warmer shower.

Here we are, ready for bed!

We watch a movie. To make a long story short, we fell asleep around 2am and woke up around 11am. I was the first to rise. I slept between Trevor (on the end) and Paulo. Paloma is on the other side of Paulo on the floor and Natalia is on the couch. We slept shoulder to shoulder - four people on two twin-size matresses. It was a little squishy to say the least. :)

We then got up, packed our bags, and got on the road to Ipatinga!

BRASIL 2009

I have decided to show the best pictures and describe what I did in Brasil over the past two weeks on my blog. I will do each place we visited as a separate post to make it easier on everybody...

Let me begin with the SLC airport!

It was fun to see these missionaries behind me that were headed to the Brasil MTC... Been there, done that. :)

Then we rode the People mover at the Dallas Airport. We had to ride it twice because our original airplane was broken after we were all ready to go - so we had to get on another one in a different terminal.


Luckily, we got to our final destination on time and didn't miss any flights.

Latest Forecast

Here's the latest forecast I did @ KSL. I'm improving - Let me know what you think!

If you can't see the video here, it's on my facebook. Click on the link below to see if it works...

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=106223455902

How long with that SMOG last?

Have you been wondering how long that SMOG will stay in the air? I'll let you know coming up in the forecast... Here is my latest and last video for a while. I've had a great time making these and I've been fortunate enough to make some great friends at KSL. There are some obvious things that I could improve on in this video and that is why I continue to practice. Let me know what you think!

Summer Canyoneering near Moab!

I know the pictures are from a few months ago - July 31 - Aug. 1, 2008 - but I just received these pictures, so thought I'd share this awesome canyoneering experience. I am lucky to be in a ward with connections to canyoneering experts and gear. I was also fortunate to be part of the Young Men's program because this was our summer activity.
DAY 1
We drove to Moab, set up camp at the Gooseneck campground, viewed a mandatory film to hike the "Firey Furnace" at the Arches Visior Center, and hiked to Delicate Arch.

DAY 2
We arrived at the "Firey Furnace" around 7:30am, geared up, and hiked Lommation and Krill slot canyons. We ate lunch and hiked back to the cars.









AFTERNOON
In the afternoon we hiked to the Power Dam Pool near Moab. It was a little farther than I expected and nobody thought to bring a water bottle... The water was quite cool and refreshing. I was surprised to see one part of the pool deep enough for some cliff jumping. Most of the pool was only 1-2 feet deep.
We went back to camp and had a dutch-oven dinner. I can't believe we went to Moab during the hottest time of the year. It was too hot to even sleep, let alone do anything else during the day. Luckily our campsite was in the shade by 6pm because of a huge cliff to our west.







DAY 3
On Saturday we woke up at 6:30am, ate breakfast, and headed out for the trailhead of "Midieval Chamber". We rappelled down and passed through the chamber, then almost immediately came upon "Morning Glory Arch". This arch was spectacular, especially the descent. You can see how wide the arch was - not very wide. Two people at a time went down, one one either side of the arch to balance out. We had to scoot over the edge to keep a balance. When we were finally free hanging we could go down as fast as we wanted, but we had to reach the ground together. We all survived and took a picture to prove it, then we started the hour hike out - luckily it was mostly downhill.

DalPal the Weatherman

Here's my latest video! Remember that I'm still a novice, but I'd still appreciate critique and suggestions! I hope you enjoy it-

Future Broadcasting Meteorologist

It's about time I updated my blog! This is what I have been up to-
(Sorry, the quality isn't very good.)

Do I have what it takes? The weather team at KSL has been gracious enough to give me an internship to boost my skills at becoming a broadcasting meteorologist. I'm getting some valuable coaching from Dan Pope and Kevin Eubank.

Here is another video of the same forecast...

Let me know what you think!