The Adventure Begins!

So, my first post! The first couple days have been pretty interesting here in Recife, Brazil, so I guess I better let everyone know what's goin' on.

We got here on Friday (6/15), after 21 hours of travelling. It wasn't too bad, but being a 6 ft 3 in person can make plane rides pretty uncomfortable. I lost feeling in my knees during the last two hour on the plane. When we finally landed in Recife we walked down the ramp and got blasted in the face with 100% humidity. I kid you not.. I hoped that it was just the ramp but no, it was just as bad when we got out. Yeahhhhhh

We met out awesome family, The Jones', and can i just tell ya I'm glad we got them! Bonnie is the mother, and dang she is a good cook! I mean pork chops in Brazil! Oh yeah! Malorie and Morgan are way funny and speak better portuguese than I ever have/will. Yeah I'm jealous, I won't lie. They live in an apartment on the beach and this is what I get to see every morning/noon/night:

So yeah, it is beautiful and awesome to see every morning. Turns out we can only swim out to the reef and no further because they have A LOT of shark attacks and actually banned surfing because of it. They have signs all over the place saying to beware of sharks. I hope to find a shark tooth for remembrance sake.

Sunday was fun and the ward was awesome. The chapel was full and the people were way nice. I loved being around that many people. It was a necessary review for portuguese and it helped a ton. I look forward to it again next week.

Today was, well, interesting. I went for a run this morning on the beach and it started out as a beautiful day. Then ten minutes into my run, it started raining. It was nice because it was warm outside but got old after about, oh, ten minutes or so. When I got back, Cindy and I got ready and went to our school called ABA (Associacao Brasileira Americana) or something like that, which is where we will be taking our classes for the next 5 weeks. Bonnie drove us there in insane brazilian traffic and we then had an intro to the next few weeks of class. We then proceeded to the shopping mall and paid 25 bucks for a not-so-great lunch (bad choice on our part, live and learn!), then decided to go back to the apartment. Everyone thought it was roughly 3 miles back, but after an hour and a half we realized that it was most definitely not! Turned out to be a little over 7 miles. Oh, and the last four blocks of the walk it started POURING rain (yep, it's the wet season), and soaked us right as we got to the door. The great thing is, Bonnie and her daughters had Lasagna prepared for us and Pizza doce! Man they're awesome!

So this has been the beginning of mine and Cindy's adventure, we look forward to more fun and random things in the near future.

                                          This is the sign of the school where we'll be studying.

                                          This is from the top of ABA. A nice view of the city!

Hehe, yeah just havin' some shark fun!