Brian's car broke down while in another city

Our shipment arrived this week. It came to David's house on Tuesday. The driver said the company could deliver it to our house the next day, which is why we cancelled our Wednesday class. The next day, the company said they could not to our address without a change of address letter from David, so we expected it Thursday and moved our Thanksgiving celebration to Saturday. On Thursday the company said they had to ask the original shipping company, so I told them to just send it back to David's and that I would hire a truck and come get it. It worked out though, it took me all day to pay my rent, and Edson came over that night to help me hire a truck. After lunch on Friday Brian and I went out with the truck to get our shipments. Brian's wasn't there. Ours was. We were happy, but sad. It is hard to describe the feeling. Anyway, our shipment arrived, three months late, and nothing at all was broken or damaged. 

 Us with Sara, our Portuguese teacher

Thursday night, we attended a formal dinner with Sara. The dinner was at the Hilton Hotel, and was sponsored by our school, CCBEU, and the United States Consular Agency here in Belém. We met our consular agent and her co-worker, and happened to sit at the same table as our neighbor, Dr. Glen Shepard, a world renowned anthropologist. (check PBS.org, and do a search for Glen Shepard.) We also made some good contacts with other spiritually minded people. The food, the decor, and the entertainment was all very pleasing to us since we are missing home right now. 

 With Glen, our neighbor, and Christine the Consular agent.

Thanksgiving ended up being a wonderful day (we celebrated Saturday). Amy and Melissa worked hard to prepare some wonderful home style food like roast chicken, pork loin, mashed potatoes, pineapple casserole, green bean casserole, crescent rolls, deviled eggs, and apple pie. Every single thing was made completely from scratch. No cans, no boxes, no mixes, nothing! We had a great meal, after which, everyone laid down for a rest. We put in the only Christmas movie we had at the time "Charlie Brown Christmas" and ended the night with two games of Setters of Catan. It was a really, really good day. Amy and I also enjoyed unloading all of our boxes before we went to bed.