Mission office work

We have been here or more than a month now, working in the Brazil Area office, Public Affairs. It's like working at the Church Office Building in Salt Lake City, except a little smaller. But there are four floors in the "association" building, about 300 workers, a distribution center, and a shipping area. We're centrally located, right next to the São Paulo Temple, the first stake center in South America, and just across the street from our apartment building. We can eat in the temple cafeteria, or in the food court of the large shopping mall (also just across the street). We are the main communication link with the Public Affairs councils in the 17 largest cities in Brazil--where they have "multi-stake" councils. We spend our days talking on the phone, writing e-mails, and sending out DVD's and other training materials for service projects throughout the entire country.
We are on the 2nd Floor, which is the main floor right off the parking lot, about 5 doors down from the Area Presidency. So the working atmosphere is terrific. Rather than putting a lot of photos directly on the blog, I'll open some photos on the picasa web album at the following site http://picasaweb.google.com/deanpackham

Draper Memories

It's been too long. Now is the time to get caught up a little. It won't work to go back too far...better to just realize we've missed making the entries on the BLOG. And, start from the present.
But, we can't resist putting a few photos still on our Picasa program, showing the last few days before leaving Draper. It's incredible to realize that just a few short months ago, we were still in our Draper home, in the middle of the snow, concerned about the sale of the house so that we'd have the money to get started on our mission. We've heard that Utah has been smothered in snow this winter, and we're NOT missing all that shoveling of snow from the driveway, nor fighting the slippery roads.
Now we're here in São Paulo, enjoying the pleasant weather . But we have great memories, and gratitude for the way Heavenly Father helped us with our "farewell" from that prior life. We can--and must--testify that God opened the way before us.

Babe and Duke's New Home

These are some photos of Babe and Duke and their new home. Adilson and Adriane Biondo offered to care for them while we're on our mission. He is the man who has the security company and helped us set up the alarm system for the beach house. They also have a little 4-year old daughter, Adeline, who had been afraid of dogs, but now loves Babe and Duke, and who is starting to ask, "How long can we keep them? Can they stay forever?"

New Beginnings

It appears that all of the photos from our previous posts were lost on the Packhams.com site. I don't have the heart nor the know-how to re-create it all. So I will pick myself up and begin again. And since there was a mix-up on Blogger/Blog-Spot with the change of e-mail addresses, we'll start over again here, too. New name, new site, new e-mail address.
Part of the reason for the change, too, is the easier way to place photos directly into the blog from Picasa: no "importing" or looking up URL's. And for me, the photos are the most important, memorable, and interesting part of the blog.