Brazil '07 - Emails to Friends

I sent an email out to friends this week, pretty much it was just a forward of the email I sent to my family of our adventures here. Susan Lloyd, a great friend at BYU, who is still there with her husband who is going to school to get a PhD I think, wrote me back, she said that when she was little she lived in Iran for a year and a half. I had forgotten that. Here is her email and my reply:

Tiffanie,
    Wow!!! When I read your e-mail the other day, first I was surprised about your move to Brazil. But then as I read on, the move to Brazil is a perfect fit for you and your sense of adventure, love of learning and love of people.
    I don't know if you remember me telling you, but as I child I lived in the Middle East. Our family lived in Iran for a year and a half. After, reading your letter, I had to call my mom and ask her if she had to light the stove and oven every time she had to cook. She couldn't remember, so she asked my step dad. He said, "yes." So maybe the thing to take from this is: See you won't even remember having to light the stove, the lack of hygiene facilities and the inconvenience of shopping every day! But I do remember having to go to the bathroom in a big lined garbage can because when they built the house we first live in, they poured cement down the drainage system. I don't remember how I managed to keep my balance without falling in the garbage can filled with "all the days events"!!
My mother actually gave birth to my brother, Garett over in Iran. She said it was a very interesting experience! Towards the end of our stay, an American housing base was finished and we had a lovely home. But by that time the revolution was in full swing and we lived under marshal law and we were evacuated from an abandoned Army base. My step-dad had to stay a bit longer. He got out just before they took those American hostages. It was an adventure! But our short stay there was long reaching. It taught me not only tolerance for other cultures, but love. And yes, even in my young years, I too appreciated all the amenities the US has to offer!
    I think you are brave, Tiffanie. But I already knew that from our first meeting at Wyview. I still get melancholy, every time I look at your apartment. I still long for a friend for Max like Joseph. But I guess that is the point, that there isn't another Joseph and there isn't another Wride family. You and your family are one in a million! How blessed we are to know you. Thank you for your example and goodness. Good Luck to Corey and his business adventures. Just like I know you are brave, I know Corey will be successful. Mostly, because he has the bravest women around!!
    Keep in touch. I love hearing of your adventures. And the kids love hearing about the frogs!
    Love, Susan

Hi Susan!
    It is so good to hear from you! I'm sure the things that are hard for me now will become more routine as we stay here, and then I'll forget that I thought it was a hard trial or issue. (So I'll ask Corey, and he will remember my complaining everyday the first two weeks here, and will politely say "yes" not even bringing up what a whiner I was.) I love men. Have you ever read Dr. Laura's book "The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands"? I read it at BYU and felt like such a wimp when it comes to life problems, always wanting to vent it out and complain, where as men just deal with it and do it and get done what needs to be done. Corey and I have been reading a lot and pondering a lot Lehi's journery into the wilderness, although our conditions aren't as extreme as theirs (8 years hunting in the wilderness... I would have never survived.) but I love what it says in the first two verses of 1 Nephi 17, mentioning afflictions and blessings almost in the same thought:
    1 And it came to pass that we did again take our journey in the wilderness; and we did travel nearly eastward from that time forth. And we did travel and wade through much affliction in the wilderness; and our women did bear children in the wilderness.
    2 And so great were the blessings of the Lord upon us, that while we did live upon raw meat in the wilderness, our women did give plenty of suck for their children, and were strong, yea, even like unto the men; and they began to bear their journeyings without murmurings.
    So usually when I read that and it says the women were strong, I thought it referred more to the words before it, talking of physical strength (physically nursing children and survivign up a diet of raw meat...) but more recently as I read it and was thinking that I was such a murmuring wimp, the statement after stood out to me... they "were strong, even like unto the men, and began to bear their journeyings without murmurings." Women are social and conversation loving creatures. (like on the flight down when Wesley was fussy and I was tired, It wouldn't have made a difference in what I was doing, but emotionally I would have been happier if I had someone to vent and complain to!) I'm sure that a bunch of griping women would not have done anything constructive to help the situation of Lehi and his family, it just would have been an outlet for the women. But they began to be strong, like unto the men, and found more helpful ways to get out their frustrations other than murmuring. I'm sure they saved that for their children and grandchildren after they got to the promised land and it was all a distant memory - they could look back and be impressed at the miracle the Lord had helped them do, and be glad they weren't there anymore!
    So those are my ramblings for now. I think I'll copy that for my journal though. I love sharing stories, thoughts, and experiences over email, it's made it easier for me to be a much better journal writer. :)
    So now I remember you mentioning Iran... and you were there for your step dad's work. Did you go to school there? I wonder what kind of things the kids will remember. Last week after I put Joe to bed, we talked for a while (the other kids always fall asleep before Joe, but they are all in the same room, just like at Wyview, and even at our big townhouse in Virginia the kids all migrated into one room. They started off in two, Joe Hyrum and Wesley in one, Melodie and Ethan in the other, but Melodie kept sneaking over during the night and in the morning we'd wake up and she'd be in there asleep on their floor, then Ethan started feeling neglected that he didn't have any bedroom companions, so after a few weeks of trying to tell them how nice it was to have 2 rooms and so much space, I figured "That's fine with me, now I can have a craft room!") ...little tangent there, so where was I... so Joe and I were talking about the pros and cons of living in Brazil, he started talking about how that day hadn't been a good day, and I had had a bad day too, so I thought we were on the same page, but the thing that made his otherwise good day bad was having a wasp fly around the pool for about 5 mintues when we had gone swimming, that was it. I was kinda bummed that he didn't want to complain about all the other things on my list, but that was it, the wasp. So that might be one thing he remembers, the bugs. I'm trying to record things on the video camera for a true family history of the happenings here, but in the chaos of packing and moving and traveling at the same time, Corey packed my film camera with the storage stuff, so I'm just doing the video for now, and taking an occasional poor quality digital camera photo now and then. I guess I shouldn't care that it's poor quality, it will be better than nothing. I think they'll remember swimming every day, and not ever having to wear seatbelts, and how our whole family plus two more adults can fit in a 2 door - 4 seat car! The cars here are so small, it's funny. We just got a car yesterday. Corey tried to get a mini van, but came home with a Volkswagon Stationwagon looking thing. It is a 1994 car and cost $4000 (if I've done the monetary conversion correctly...) cars don't depreciate here much. Anything technical costs a lot. We bought a cheap old fan to keep us cool (unlike the tons of snow you are getting up there, right?) and it cost $30 and broke within 5 days - the kids dropped it off the bed. So we bought another one for $50, a little nicer, but man, I think they'd both cost $15-20 in the US. We also bought a little tiny CD player thing for $60. So anything mechanical or technical costs a lot, so that is why a 94 car cost so much, I was a little disappointed when I saw it, I don't have much faith in it working regularly when we need it to work. This morning Corey was going to drive it into town to meet someone who would then take him to Sao Paulo. Corey got it out of the driveway and I think out the of the gated door to our street, but somewhere it died, I'm not sure how he got it back to our place, but he had to call his friend to come pick him up. Corey has always wanted to buy cars with no more than 30,000 miles on them so he doesn't have to worry about repairs or fixing anything cause he doesn't know how and doesn't care to learn how. But I'm thinking this car, the fact that he bought it and that it was all we could afford and that we are here in Brazil cause of him and his big dreams, will make him a little more handy with cars! I'd love to see him tinkering under the hood! It's never happened, he's changed flat tires before, but wasn't able to fix the tires on the kids bikes that needed repair at Wyview, and that we hauled to Virginia and then just gave away to Goodwill cause he didn't know how to fix them. He'd rather just buy a whole new bike. So like I said, I think this time in Brazil will make him a little more handy with cars, with the kids toys that need repair, and around the house that I hope we have someday. I just don't want me and the kids to be with him when the car breaks down, I'd rather have him just deal with it by himself and tell me the story of his adventure later. But I do want to see him get his hands dirty under the hood sometime. That would just be so funny!
    Ok, well I'm really done rambling for now, we will try to take some digital pictures with the camcorder that we can send along to you, and we'd love any pictures of you guys there at BYU too! Where are you going to be moving in June or April or whenever Wyview moves the married people out? How is school going for you? Hope you are having fun. I do look back on that time at BYU as a great time. We think we will be moving back to Utah when we are done here. We will fly back into Virginia and then get our stuff out of storage somehow and drive back, probably to move in with family for a while since we will be homeless and most likely broke! ...I thought I would be a pampered wife after putting him through graduate school! I've been jipped! Just kidding. I came to Brazil as a willing accomplice. ...but it was HIS idea. Lots of his business contacts are in Provo, so I think we'll be there again soon after we move back, and we will call you and get together, ok!
    Keep in touch, thanks so much for writing me back, and sorry this is such a lengthy email! Love         Tiffanie

And this below was part of another email to another friend from high school, Christy Chambers Knight:

    We are here in Brazil cause Corey's job in DC was about out of money so it just seemed like a logical time to take a risk and for him to jump into his own business adventure, which he's always wanted to do. He has a great idea for some language training software, he had some contacts here in Brazil that made this a good place for him to come to research it and test it out, and so here we are! We will be here for 4 months at the most. Our visas need to be renewed for an additional month in May though, and if they are denied then we'll change our June plane tickets and come home a month early. We will fly back into Virginia but then will most likely pack up our things in storage and drive across the USA back to home sweet home Utah, only we'll be coming in nice summer weather! I hear you are getting a ton of snow up there, where as I am so hot here I would love to just go take a quick run in the snow barefoot. I am sweaty and clammy all day, it reminds me of my mission in Arizona, I just had to get used to feeling gross all the time. Although the humidity has helped my skin and I don't get those nasty little cuts in the corners of the tips of my fingers by my fingernails which I always get in utah and more particularly in winter. So I hope you guys stay safe and warm up there, and as for us, I'll keep piling on the mosquito repellent and try to not to get too hot. We are in a really secluded place, no one around who can see us, so today (this is probably more information than you needed) it was so hot I seriously just walked around in my garments all day until like 2. I'd go outside, come inside, no worries about anyone coming over or seeing me except for the big lizards in the yard. (They are pretty cool, I'd love to be able to catch one of them, they are like 3 feet long).