The Amazon is full of amor.

Some of our new friends!  Luis (bottom left with thumbs up), his wife Giovana (tallest one in the back)
with their daughters Lousey and Paula who are the same ages as Hayla and Jerica.
Also Junior (bottom left above Luis), and Vanya (in the back with glasses.)

We are here in Itacoatiara and love it so much!  The people of Brazil are so beautiful and everyone has been so kind and generous! 
 

The Brazilian airline staff were all super friendly and cheerful!

It was a long few days traveling here. We first took an overnight flight to Fortelza with a layover in Brasilia. We tried to pack light, so each of us took only a carry on, and then we checked a few bags of family gear. It still felt like a lot to lug around through airports, but many people helped us.

Little Jerica was such a trouper at first,
but eventually preferred napping on her suitcase to dragging it.

Fortelza was a very big and tall city! In the brief afternoon we had there, we enjoyed food and a stroll along the beach front where people kept stopping to ask us about our many girls. They were always so congratulatory and interested.

The view from our 19th floor hotel room.

As we flew into Manaus the next day, the girls were thrilled with their first view of the mighty Amazon and the thick rain forest around the city.

The girls took turns having a window seat on the airplanes,
Livia got the best view of the river.

 
We had many delightful and accommodating taxi drivers picking us up and taking us to airports, it took multiples to carry all of us and our luggage and they worked to fit us all in. And when we learned that the first available bus from Manaus to Itacoatiara wasn't going to be until late at night, a few kind fellows offered to taxi us in caravan right away, which was much faster (a little terrifyingly fast, as they drove most of the way at about 90km/hour over the bumpy, jungley roads...) so we made it in only a few hours.

Gratefully, when we arrived after dark, the hotel had rooms with enough actual beds that everyone had a very comfortable place to finally sleep.

We really liked the hotel we called home for a few days,
the staff we so good to answer our many questions about how to find things
and we appreciated the air conditioning when we weren't walking in the city.

And while the electrical water-heating showerhead seemed sketchy,
we were grateful to get cleaned up!

And there were very impressive street entertainers we could see from our balcony! 
This one is juggling machetes while spinning a ball in his teeth.

Another juggler and a fire thrower.

The next morning we took our first venture to explore the city. Within minutes on the first block we met a sweet family at the doorway of a church building, we exchanged smiles and greetings and their little four year old girl and our four year old Jerica giggled at each other. On the next block we found a chapel of our own church! And there were people there!  What a tender mercy, it turns out that weekend was a conference for the district (all the local congregations gathered together) and some had come to prep the building and gave us all the details so we could attend that night and the next day where we met so many people so fast! One of the first we met was Luis, who told us later that he hadn't been feeling well in the morning, but felt he should go to the building to help anyway, and then while he was inside working on the sound system, suddenly felt a clear impression he should step outside, which was right when we arrived. We could feel God watching out for us through him and others. Luis and his family are full of light. They have been an immense blessing in so many ways and have become very dear friends.

The girls learned how to prep veggies Brazilian style.

Luis took us right away on a long walk past the other chapel of our church in the more north part of the city where we got to sit in some air conditioning for a minute (yes, the heat and humidity are as intense as you imagine!!) and then on further to his own home where his wife taught the girls how to make a delicious lunch while Luis introduced David to others who all began looking for houses for us. The leaders of the various branches (congregations) of our church were kind of competing over who would get us a place in their area, and they were all so generous to give us rides to see different spaces and tell us about the different areas.

The District President and his family helped us see a house after the conference.
Quick story of their goodness:
they borrowed a car (almost everyone just piles their families onto a "moto" --the streets are full of motorcycles) to get us home and it broke down, and then we couldn't get the doors open and David finally figured out how to get a window down to climb out of the sweltering suffocation. These good people just laughed and laughed and laughed, and their young son was quick to help push the car out of the road.
They are another family full of light.

We also walked around a lot getting to know the city and meeting strangers who we'd ask about housing, they were all so quick to offer directions or give us a lift to other people they knew. Such amazing people and a beautiful city.

That first day happened to be a holiday like Memorial Day, the cemetery was full of flowers.

We tried out the equipment at this outdoor kind of park/public gym.

By Monday afternoon we were already moved into such a lovely casa just a few blocks from the river, rented to us by a very attentive young landlord who has gone out of his way to see that we have everything we need over these last few days, including helping us get hooked up on wifi, which took some doing. By the time we got our stuff moved over from the hotel, thanks to one of our friends with a truck, several members of our church showed up offering all kinds of help and lending us things to set up house. The president of our new branch came over with his family and several other members of the branch, including the leaders of the primary (children's organization) and other youth who have accompanied our girls to seminary (weekday scripture study) every night since.

One night the girls taught the other kids who were gathered at our house to play "human knot",
and the adults thought it was fun, too, calling out help to untangle them.

We have very close access to the markets and have loved making friends with the vendors who have helped us know which things work best as we've gathered what we need to settle in. We're really feeling at home now and already have work to do--we've been asked to teach English classes which we are excited to get started next week. Gratefully, the people have been very patient and understanding with our Portuguese, which they are also helping us to learn.  We are super happy here and feel surrounded by love!