I’ve been home from Brazil for a week now and am really enjoying the calm, routine and spending time with my honey and our animals.

I head back down there in two weeks, but until then will continue to enjoy a beautiful spring in Salt Lake City.

I keep obsessing over this “Former Mission President’s 80th Birthday & Mission Reunion” in Campinas on Saturday.

I signed up via Facebook to go — and have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to get there:

• I reserved a rental car and then cancelled the reservation because I really don’t want to drive in São Paulo traffic
• I checked flight schedules and no one flies between the two points
• I thought about buying a cheap ticket anywhere on Azul airlines because they have a “free” bus that runs from the Congonhas airport near where I work to the Campinas airport every hour or so — nah, too expensive and a waste of a good ticket
• I thought about the car service that picks me up when I arrive in Brazil, but figured since I would be footing the bill, I’d forego that luxury

I finally reverted mentally back 35 years and decided to head to the rodoviária early Saturday  morning and take a bus. That should bring back plenty of memories, as that was the only way we traveled between cities “back in the day” for conferences, transfers and visa renewals.

in addition to seeing old mission companions, former missionaries and my dear — now old — first mission president — not to mention dealing with the the religious throwback (or will it be blowback?) — I expect this to be a fairly stressful day.

But I am still looking forward to it.

I just accepted an invitation to attend the 80th birthday of my first mission president, along with a mission reunion to take place at the same time, in Campinas, SP, Brazil. Coincidentally, I was already going to be in Brazil for work (which is not that odd, since I am every month) and figured I should take advantage of this opportunity.

I have mixed feelings about this, but based on my conversation with my dear friend and former mission companion last week in Vienna, decided to confirm my attendance.

My friend simply stated that he feels that “my mission” is to challenge members of the LDS church by simply being myself and showing them that gay people are not the bugbears that they are taught and/or believe them to be.

This should be interesting.

And I refuse to wear a white shirt and tie.

Three weeks is a long time away from my honey and our life together.

I will return to Brazil only in April and aside from a week-long pleasure trip to Prague and Vienna to celebrate our 25th anniversary, have the pleasure of spending the next month em casa.

Spring is in air and this is my favorite season.

Good timing.

I arrived this morning for my 2nd trip to Brazil this year. I’m here for a full three weeks this time because my honey and I are taking off the last half of March for vacation and I won’t be able to be here again until April.

On that note, we are celebrating our 25th anniversary on March 17th and have planned a trip to Prague to visit an historical and storied city that neither of us have yet visited. When I posted that fact on Facebook, every single comment was positive about what a great choice Prague was. Good to know!

We are also planning a big celebration for our family and friends at the Salt Lake Marriott City Center in July to celebrate both our anniversary and my honey’s 50th birthday (Note that we have been together exactly half of his life — and just slightly less than of mine). This will be a large occasion that we wanted to share with all who wish to attend.

When I mentioned that the U.S. Supreme court may actually have cleared the way for us to marry by then, he actually commented, “That would be so cool. Wouldn’t that make a nice surprise announcement!”.

I agree.

Just back from Brazil to the worst inversion I’ve ever seen in Salt Lake Valley. The air is bitter and I haven sneezed several times. It is dusky even at mid-day and there is no hint of the sun even behind the low-lying clouds.

As we entered the soup to ready for landing, we circled over Antelope Island, which looked like something from the Arctic — totally snow-covered and surrounded by snow-covered ice sheets on the Great Salt Lake.

This morning, it was so foggy when I went outside to get the newspaper, that I couldn’t see half a block away. The fog has continued throughout the day so far.

I can’t wait for this to end — or to get back to the clean air of São Paulo — whichever comes first.

First trip to Brazil in the new year and probably not even close to my last. If 2012 is any indication, I can anticipate quasi-monthly visits.

I arrived this morning to warm, muggy weather and an afternoon of thunderstorms and often-times torrential rain. Tonight in the hotel’s restaurant, the lights went out and I saw sparks dropping from a power transformer across the street. The only light was from my iPad. The hotel is still running on generator power.

I left single-digit temps in Salt Lake City and a couple of feet of snow on the ground, so anything is better than that.

Something sparked an interest the other day and I made a mental note to check, but forgot until this morning: A sister missionary from my mission in Brazil who had ‘friended’ me on Facebook last year and then proceeded to bombard me with personal (non-viewable to others) messages asking, “What happened to you since your mission?” has indeed de-friended me. I assume she did not like reading about my happiness and normalcy in the midst of my supposed “wickedness”, as it kind of flies in the face of everything in which she has put her faith.

I am so sorry to disappoint her.

And so begins 2013.

I’m still in São Paulo and more than ready to head home, but my flight is not until 11:35 p.m. and the logistics of having to check out of the hotel and to kill time for many hours while schlepping a bag around is tiring.

I was able to talk the Renaissance Hotel into letting me camp out in the 23rd floor lounge and just had a nice nap in a chair, a light snack and am now taking advantage of the free wireless service to update the old blog.

I met an old mission companion for lunch today. We had previously lunched last month after communicating via Facebook for a year or so. Really nice guy. Never mentions the church in any form and that is actually quite nice. I suspect that he is not active, but am content to also not discuss the church.

He asked me to take an envelope of cash to his nephews in Utah. I would have thought either sending an electronic gift certificate or using PayPal would have been a better solution, but am happy to to haul the envelope to the U.S.

I start traveling back to Brazil in mid-January, after taking a couple of weeks of vacation and then working in SLC for a few days.

I’ve been in Brazil a little over a week and as always, have enjoyed my experiences at both work and play here.

I had commented on Facebook last weekend that a saleswoman from H.Stern jewelers had compliment both my young appearance and my Portuguese and I attributed that to simply being a sales person (she didn’t make the sale).

Today on the elevator, I entered a semi-full car and and spoke a few words to a Renaissance employee in Portuguese as he spoke English back to me. A Brazilian woman at the back made a comment about me that was obviously meant for all to hear, but I had missed it, so I politely asked her what she had said and she repeated, “You speak Portuguese perfectly” (I guess I can’t disguise the rest of the gringo in me).

Made my day.