I’m back home in Salt Lake City again and am enjoying a nice, quiet weekend with my honey. We had dinner with a friend on Friday night, visited my cousin and his fiancé  and another friend yesterday afternoon, went to see Xanadu at the Grand Theatre last night and had brunch with friends this morning.

Ok–not that quiet of a weekend.

My honey leaves for Dublin on Wednesday, and as far as I know, I am home for a couple of weeks at least. We’ll see what Monday brings…

My honey’s parents spent the night with us and just left to fly to LAX, where they will meet other family members for a cruise to Vancouver, BC. We were invited, but with my travel schedule (or lack of one) lately, it’s been kind of hard to make any plans.

I was in Minneapolis on Thursday and Friday and got to have dinner with my brother and his family. Always fun.

I’m heading back to Brazil this week, arriving Saturday. This will make six trips to/from Brazil since mid-January (in 14 weeks). In sheer distance traveled, I will have done the equivalent of circumnavigating the globe four times.

My boss on Friday suggested that if I wanted to move to Brazil, she suspected that the company would support it. My honey was not thrilled, but logistically, I could probably do it for a year or so. He said, “You need to at least be home for our 25th anniversary” (in March 2013).

I guess we’ll see how serious everyone really is. I suggested that perhaps a week-long trip once a month to Brazil might suffice….

I arrived back home Saturday afternoon and had a restful day and a half before returning to work on Monday, where I was asked to return yet again to Brazil that night, arriving Tuesday.

I’m still in São Paulo, have one more day, and hopefully flying home on Saturday, to arrive Sunday in Utah.

I’m exhausted! If I could just be in Brazil without the traveling to/from….

I was in Atlanta with three of my Brazilian customers as we observed another customer’s implementation of some new functionality, when I got a call from my boss asking if I could fly to Brazil to handle a critical issue.

“When?” I asked.

“Tonight,” I was told.

So here I am in Brazil for the fourth time in 2012 — in a period of 12 weeks.

Easter — that largely Jewish holiday (aka “Passover”) that Christians pre-empted in the 2nd century A.D. as their own — is being celebrated today.

Here’s a nice little quote that sheds some light on its first origins:

Pagan origins of Easter:

Many, perhaps most, Pagan religions in the Mediterranean area had a major seasonal day of religious celebration at or following the Spring Equinox. Cybele, the Phrygian fertility goddess, had a consort, Attis, who was believed to have been born via a virgin birth. Attis was believed to have died and been resurrected each year during the period MAR-22 to MAR-25.

Gerald L. Berry, author of “Religions of the World,” wrote:

“About 200 B.C. mystery cults began to appear in Rome just as they had earlier in Greece. Most notable was the Cybele cult centered on Vatican hill …Associated with the Cybele cult was that of her lover, Attis (the older Tammuz, Osiris, Dionysus, or Orpheus under a new name). He was a god of ever-reviving vegetation. Born of a virgin, he died and was reborn annually. The festival began as a day of blood on Black Friday and culminated after three days in a day of rejoicing over the resurrection.”

Wherever Christian worship of Jesus and Pagan worship of Attis were active in the same geographical area in ancient times, Christians:

“… used to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus on the same date; and pagans and Christians used to quarrel bitterly about which of their gods was the true prototype and which the imitation.”

Many religious historians and liberal theologians believe that the death and resurrection legends were first associated with Attis, many centuries before the birth of Jesus. They were simply grafted onto stories of Jesus’ life in order to make Christian theology more acceptable to Pagans. Others suggest that many of the events in Jesus’ life that were recorded in the gospels were lifted from the life of Krishna, the second person of the Hindu Trinity. Ancient Christians had an alternative explanation; they claimed that Satan had created counterfeit deities in advance of the coming of Christ in order to confuse humanity.  Modern-day Christians generally regard the Attis legend as being a Pagan myth of little value with no connection to Jesus. They regard Jesus’ death and resurrection account as being true, and unrelated to the earlier tradition.

I’ve just been listening to President Boyd K. Packer, who gave three separate examples of starving and/or poverty-stricken children he has encountered during his worldly travels.

In all cases, he noted the poverty and hunger he saw in specific children at the time, but didn’t seem to be able to actually do anything about it, other than to note it for this (then) future conference talk.

In the first case, He saw a child in Japan holding a can and spoon (he knew this meant the child was an orphan) as his train sat in the station, but “unfortunately”, the train pulled away before he could give the child any money.

In the next case he bragged about being in Cuzco, Peru, and seeing a young boy attempting to sneak in and steal bread from the sacrament table. The boy was chased out of the chapel by one woman, but soon returned. Packer said that he (alone) called the boy over and then held the boy on his lap. He was very proud to have been so Christ-like and seemingly couldn’t wait to get home to tell then leader of the church – Spencer W. Kimball – what he had done.

Strangely enough, no mention about giving the kid any actual food, but he assured us that President Kimball said more than once that he had “touched a nation”.

In another example, he saw a group of young boys running around Salt Lake City, one of whom had no coat and who was “jumping up and down” to stay warm. He imagined this boy returning to a small apartment and sleeping in a bed with a lack of covers. His response to this situation? He still “prays every night” for people like this.

My notes:

From 2006-2012, they LDS church’s “investment arm” spent a minimum of $2 billion on the new City Creek Center (some estimates range upwards of $5-6 billion)

“From 1985-2009, $327.6 million in cash and $884.6 million in commodities of aid was given throughout 178 countries.” LINK

That comes to an average of $50.5 million per year for 24 years (or less than $4 per member) — and the majority if that in “commodities” (blankets, used clothing, etc.).

Today a long-time good friend is moving into a room in our basement. He had put his house on the market and much to everyone’s surprise, it sold rather quickly and he has been scrambling to find a place to live, so we offered him a private room and bath — not to mention a dog and two cats who will appreciate more company.

Our circle of friends got together this morning and helped him move stuff into storage, Deseret Industries and his new home. He was completely organized and it was almost more of a social gathering than the older Elders’ Quorum guilt-induced moving obligations.

All-in-all, a good day.

Today is the first day of our 2012 spring and the weather has turned lovely, even though it snowed again overnight. Recently, we have had a slate of 70 degree days, followed by two or three of snow and blustery winds, followed by more warm days. Odd stuff this year.

I returned from my latest trip to Brazil (and third this year) on Friday and my honey and I celebrated our 24th anniversary on Saturday with a quiet day of just spending time together. We have now officially been a couple for half of his lifespan (and just less than half of mine). It is hard to imagine how time has gone by so fast and it seems to speed up even more year after year.

I look forward to many more years together and am very happy with the decisions in my life that have lead to this moment with this person.

And thunder here in São Paulo.

I arrived a few hours ago and was just woken up from a nice nap by thunder, accompanied by darkened skies and rain. I love this stuff, as long as I’m not flying in it.

I’ve made it as far as Houston, in spite of circling the airport for the better part of an hour due to thunderstorms and terrific rains. As we exited the plane, one flight attendant said, “It’s colder here in Houston than it was in Salt Lake”.

My flight to São Paulo departs in just under three hours and I am taking advantage of the layover to enjoy hot beverages, cheese and crackers and the power outlets of the United Club.

Hope my flight tonight does not suffer delays from the inclement weather. I hear thunder out there across the dark tarmac.