Vai Para O Brasil

Yesterday morning I got a text from Corey. "I need to go to Brazil." And this morning I got home from the morning carpool just in time to kiss him off. So kinda a last minute thing. He'll be gone until next Saturday. When Corey's gone, dinners are a bit more relaxed. We don't set the table and I don't dish the meal it into nice plates. We'll just dish it from the pot off the stove and eat at the counter. I usually end up relaxing a bit more, even though in my heart of hearts I wish I could actually stay up all night and get all the things done that I wish I could get done during the day. Cause with him gone there is even less of a chance of me getting things done during the day or evening. So, we'll see if I accomplish any of those things. I should make a to do list. I am enjoying reading a really good book though!...

There are many theories as to where people of the Book of Mormon lived. Heartland Theory, Mesoamerica theory (a few different version of that one), Baja California theory, Malay Theory... I, personally, have been of the Peru theory ever since I read George Potter's book "Nephi in the Promised Land" 4 years ago. This now, with this book by Del DowDell I'm even more convinced - it gives just a ton  of incredibly detailed and researched and footnoted information, it is awesome. I've been reading it every chance I get, so interesting. He has 3 other volumes that I wasn't interested in at first cause I thought it would be just about disproving other theories to people that lean in that direction, which I'm not anxious to do. But now that I'm about 1/4th into this one, and I'm interested in knowing how the people of ancient Mesoamerica tie into the picture and am pretty sure what that is what Volume 2 adressess. So, yeah, Volume 2 should be in the mail soon.

Two fun things: Did you know that there is evidence that the Amazon basin was underwater until very recently (recently for earth time) and there are references to lots of studies that propose that when the Andes were pushed up, the Amazon basin was pushed up to. Even now, after it's initial drop from the Andes, the Amazon river just travels 300 vertical feet over it's almost 7000 mile course, compared to the Mississippi which travels 1475 feet down in elevation during it's 2320 miles to the Gulf of Mexico. And so, before the Andes were pushed up, the Andean Plateau was an island:

And that fits very nicely with the Book of Mormon teachings where they say a couple of times that they are upon an island and an isle of the sea. DowDell has a blog that I've followed for years (here's a post of him explaining some of the Brazil underwater evidence, plus highlands in Guiana and Brazil), and I recently read this about what cureloms and cumoms mentioned in Ether 9:19 might be - part 1, part 2, and part 3. I thought that was cool stuff too, so interesting, I'm excited for the next life, when we will have all the truth available for us to know and understand any question we have. Until then, we'll keep studying and searching for more information and doing the best we can, it's fun