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To Daniela 29 Apr 2002
What does the ............. mean, I don't get it...
Shawn Christian Good Send Email
 
I'm sorry you feel that way. 29 Apr 2002
I never said I didn't have a good time on my mission. I loved it.

It takes two to argue. I never said you were fighting. Some of the remarks you made should have been saved for a private conversation. I doubt that Goold was trying to down Brazil. You both got upset by what was said as evidenced by your comments.

Whether you defend your country when it is put down is your perogative. Just don't share it on the public arena of this site. I am not an administrator and can't control whether you do or don't, but I am asking that you not so that those of us who are not part of the feud over who is better, Brazil or the USA, don't have to watch either country be degraded.
Ammon J Nelson Send Email
 
To Ammon and everyone else 29 Apr 2002
I apologize for continuing this conversation is such a public place. I also apologize for my remarks, if they seemed harsh or hurtful. I am a stubborn American and I admit that. I also love Brazil and it's people. Unfortunately, I've had some bad experiences there that left a bad taste in my mouth (not that I love Brazil any less), as Daniella has had here in the states. I should just bite my tongue sometimes and stop making generalizations, because not everybody is bad in Brazil (I can attest to that). You know what they say, one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch.

I agree with Ammon, let's try to make this an uplifting place from now on :)
Nathaniel Keith Goold Send Email
 
To those making contentious remarks. 29 Apr 2002
Enough already!
Do I need to sit in between you two? :)

Gosh! This site is supposed to be a place to come and be uplifted. Also to find out news about the mission and the area. If we could refrain from making this comment area an arena for literary boxing matches I would appreciate it.

For future reference refer to 3 Nephi 11:29 - 30
29 For verily, verily I say unto you, he that hath the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the devil, who is the father of contention, and he stirreth up the hearts of men to contend with anger, one with another.
30 Behold, this is not my doctrine, to stir up the hearts of men with anger, one against another; but this is my doctrine, that such things should be done away.

Let's remember we're all on the same side and start treating each other likewise.
Ammon J Nelson Send Email
 
RE: To Daniella 29 Apr 2002
I thank you for your input, but I never talked bad about Brazil while I was on my mission. I love Brazil and I hope that the people there still love me. I wish that you would not call me misinformed, because I was there and I know how it is. I have been to Europe also, and know how the Frech are. Please, stop jumping to conclusions about how I served my mission. I'm really sorry if you took anything I said out of context. I truely love the Brazilian people and I miss them dearly. I'm just saying that a joke is a joke. Americans rip on America all the time! So do many Brazilian TV shows. I'm not trying to burn bridges here. I know your family and I've eatten at your house a couple of times! I know that your family is wonderful and very generous, as most Brazilians are. Unfortunately, Brazil has some bad qualities, as does the U.S., that are usually the focus of much ridicule. No place is perfect. Case closed.
Nathaniel Keith Goold Send Email
 
RE: Going to New York... 29 Apr 2002
How about Russia? Things happen to missionaries all over the world!

We're not talking about what happens to missionaries, just tourists in general.

Rio is a dangerous place. The Cariocas complain about the drug dealers, the ghettos, the poverty, the corrupt police, etc., etc., etc. all the time! The same goes for Sao Paulo! They're not safe places!

Brazil, in general, is very chaotic and unorganized. What's worse is that you can't trust the police to do anything! Houses get robbed and people get killed all the time. In the northeast, people told me that they were living in fear and that we were crazy for being out at 8:30, 9:00 at night, because it was "dangerous."

I was mugged at gunpoint and my house was robbed. I became pretty paranoid. I don't live in fear where I live. There are a lot more safer places than the U.S., I agree. But you can't compare the U.S. to Brazil.
Nathaniel Keith Goold Send Email
 
Simpsons 28 Apr 2002
You think they would understand the point of the Simpsons but they don't: HUMOR!! Get over it. You think out of all the shows or celebs they have made fun of they would have had more problems. I guess that just shows the stubborness of the Brazilian people!!
Jaren Layton Send Email
 
"the simpsons" 28 Apr 2002
Letter From Brazil
Simpsons Go Home!
Rio Takes Spoof Very Seriously




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By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, April 16, 2002; Page C01


RIO DE JANEIRO -- You'd think that Bart Simpson had just landed in Rio and punched the Girl from Ipanema in the face.

The Simpsons, the politically incorrect cartoon family, have become personae non gratae in Latin America's largest nation. Brazil's presidential spokesman has personally denounced them as troublemakers. Rio authorities have threatened lawsuits and boycotts. Cariocas, as the residents of this city are called, are so furious they seem poised to brush the sand off their thongs and take up arms against Bart, Homer and the gang.

At issue is a March 31 episode of the Fox TV show in which the Simpsons visit this sultry metropolis and encounter an orgy of Brazilian stereotypes. Homer gets kidnapped by a taxi driver while Lisa goes searching for a poor child she sponsored at "the Orphanage of the Filthy Angels." Family members get mauled by monkeys on Copacabana Beach. Bart gets hooked on a racy children's show called "Teleboobies." The Simpsons also learn a new Brazilian dance, a successor to the steamy lambada -- the penetrada.

The episode did not even air in Brazil, but outraged Brazilians living abroad saw it, local newspapers and television networks did stories about it, and an immediate media frenzy was born. The cartoon was immediately treated as a national insult of the highest order, sparking a burst of anti-Americanism that suddenly made Brazil feel more like Baghdad. Or, at the very least, like France.

"These confusions you make with our culture, our habits and our tastes are outrageous," Roberto Pereira, an official at the city's Center of Sexual Education, said in an e-mail he fired off to the foreign press association in Rio. "Americans think we are inferior, ignorant, perverted, dirty animals!"

The anger took Fox by surprise. Spokesmen say none of the other overseas satires on "The Simpsons" -- which have featured France and Australia -- resulted in anything close to the uproar here. For Brazilians, however, the March 31 episode was the latest example of what many consider annoying U.S. cluelessness about their country.

They may have a point. Brazil is bigger than the continental United States and has an economy larger than Russia's, yet even those Americans who can find it on the map occasionally mistake Rio, or even Buenos Aires (which happens to be in Argentina), as the capital. The show did acknowledge that Portuguese, not Spanish, is the language of Brazil's 170 million residents. But most of the characters the Simpsons encountered had suspiciously Spanish-sounding accents.

"This is not a civilized way to be treated," said Laura Cavalcanti, a Rio anthropologist. "We are a major country."

Yet the most self-critical Cariocas admit that the strong reaction came, in part, because the show hit awfully close to home. Crime, unabashed sexuality and severe poverty are indeed part of the fabric of life in Rio, and actually in most of Brazil. This nation has never been quite sure of its place in the world, and still smarts from a decades-old quip, attributed to Charles de Gaulle, that Brazil is the county of the future, and always will be.

The well-to-do here often complain that the foreign media focus excessively on Brazil's shockingly large ghettos and disparities of wealth while ignoring its First World attributes such as a burgeoning fashion industry and cutting-edge aviation technology. Foreign criticism or misstatements of fact about Brazil are often dramatically exaggerated by the local press.

No place is more sensitive than Rio, which winces at its reputation, even domestically, as Brazil's beach bum. Yet this stunningly beautiful metropolis of nearly 11 million spent decades cultivating an image as a city of skin and sin, especially during Carnaval season when clothing becomes optional here.

Now, after the "Simpsons" episode, Rio is suddenly acting like a blushing bride. Despite its easygoing image, Rio is a place misleadingly uneasy with itself.

The monkeys marauding around Copacabana in the sitcom, for instance, struck many Cariocas as a low-blow reference to their status in the developing world. Some officials even took it as a racial slur against the city's Afro-Brazilian population. Yet Rio is indeed home to the globe's largest urban green space, with more than 80,000 acres of lush jungle whose creatures cohabit with cosmopolitan life. Spotting wild monkeys here is not exactly rare.

"I see monkeys in the trees in front of my office all the time, and there are monkeys in Copacabana, too," said Paula Gobbi, an Argentine journalist who has lived in Rio for 16 years. "I think it's fantastic, something to be proud of. But you listen to some of the authorities here who are now trying to pretend the monkeys don't exist and you just have to wonder what is going on in their heads."

And while some people found Bart Simpson's fondness for "Teleboobies" offensive, this is, after all, a nation where Xuxa, a soft-porn queen and former girlfriend of soccer great Pele, leapt to stardom as host of her eponymous kiddie show. She appears on the show in impossibly short skirts and skintight tops, and various of her male co-hosts have posed nude for Brazil's gay magazines. Another program for Brazilian youngsters was hosted by Tiazinha, a leather-clad dominatrix with a whip.

Average Cariocas themselves are hardly the height of modesty. Here, in the city that invented the "dental floss" bikini, there seems to be a competition over who can expose the most "bumbum" in public. Men, even strolling through business districts on the way to the beach, often sport tiny sungas, a sort of super-low-cut Speedo. What is risque abroad is simply normal here.

After a week, things have cooled a bit. Jose Eduardo Guinle, Rio's secretary of tourism, had threatened to sue Fox for damages. Now he is simply calling on the show's producers to donate proceeds from the episode to the poor of Rio, "whom the show's producers seem to be so concerned about."

He was also demanding an apology. And got one, of sorts.

"We apologize to the lovely city and people of Rio de Janeiro," said the show's producers in a statement. "And if that doesn't settle the issue, Homer Simpson offers to take on the president of Brazil on Fox's 'Celebrity Boxing.' "


© 2002 The Washington Post Company



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Dan H Sonntag Send Email
 
What's going on? 27 Apr 2002
First, yeah Hunter...I know you. How are you doing man? Now to everybody: I can't believe the old Recife Sul mission has a functioning website finally. Not bad. This is the first time in the four years I've been back that I can get a hold of you guys. I sent Schwanitz and Charles some messages already. I'll get to the rest of you. Go to my profile and drop me a line sometime! Peace fellas!
Jeffrey R Thomas Send Email
 
June Wedding 22 Apr 2002
I'm getting married June 1st in the Billings, MT Temple. All those I know who are interested in receiving an invitation email me. I'll try to contact those of greater importance, namely my group for that matter. Her name is Joanna Kaio and she's a beautiful Samoan girl from Butte, MT. and she plays Volleyball for a Div. II college called MSU-Billings. I'm currently going to school in Billings at Rocky Mtn. College and playing football. I asked her two weeks ago after my springball scrimmage. I had the team wear T-shirts that said "Joanna will you marry me?"
Christian Douglas Peterson Send Email
 
some more info 18 Apr 2002
I wish I would have gone to the mission reunion. I didn't think I would know anyone there since it has been 5 years or so. I can tell you what I know about a few people from the mission... I hope they don't mind. : Elder Barry Port married Michelle (my cousin in-law) and they live in Kansas. He graduated from BYU and have a little girl. Jeremy Anderson is graduating from BYU law school (with my husband) and will take the bar and go into the JAG (military attorney). Sister Nadia Chavez is in Rio and studying to be a lawyer. She works for Michilin tires. I think she has registered onto the site. Natalie Davey is married. Was living in Arizona but I think was moving back to Utah. Does anyone have info on anyone else from the mission? 1995-1996 were the years. I think a lot of people might not realize that we have a "new" mission sight. I know I had previously registered under the Recife South website and knew a lot of people who had registered there but who have not registered here. Was President Moreira at the reunion? --On the mission I was Sister Jordan...I'd love to hear from anyone!!
Tina Mecham Send Email
 
mission reunion 17 Apr 2002
Actually the last reunion went really well. I planned it and we probably had somewhere between 50-60 people show up. It was a lot of fun to just see old friends and all. If you have anything that you'd like done to the site email me or Elder Grider and we'll try to make it happen. We want this site to be a place where we can all keep in contact mainly. I'm just glad there's a place where we can all keep current on who's where and how to keep in contact with old friends. (But I don't think with so few people that we'll have any kind of interaction where people are on the site all day). Hopefully we'll have another reunion in October--Elder Cisneros is going to be in charge of planning it so make any requests to him!
Greg Dunn Send Email
 
Hello Hi 16 Apr 2002
Just wanted to see if anyone out there knows me.
Jason C. Hunter Send Email
 
That’s interaction! 16 Apr 2002
I'm just kidding, OK?
Marcelo Leandro Primon Send Email
 
Response to inquiry. 15 Apr 2002
Maybe it's because people have lives and don't sit on the internet all day long. That could be a possible reason.
Ryan Sean Lindsay Send Email
 
Response to inquiry. 15 Apr 2002
Maybe it's because people have lives and don't sit on the internet all day long. That could be a possible reason.
Ryan Sean Lindsay Send Email
 
That's not what I meant... 15 Apr 2002
This site is good, but no one ever posts any "novidades" about anything. It's great for finding people and maintaining contact with them. I'm thankful for having this web site.
Nathaniel Keith Goold Send Email
 
This site - Marcelo Leandro Primon 15 Apr 2002
This site is great!
Marcelo Leandro Primon Send Email
 
THis site 15 Apr 2002
This site has been a real good thing for me. I have gotten in touch with a lot of good friends thanks to this site and I am indeed grateful. Just because you don't have any interaction doesn't mean it isn't doing great. Sounds like a personal problem..
Shawn Christian Good Send Email
 
This site is DEAD! 15 Apr 2002
Why does no one ever contribute to the site or help with anything? I heard rumors that the last reunion was pretty lame, because not many people went, I guess. I wasn't there, so I can't make any real judgements (I live in Kansas, not Utah). I'm trying to help, but I don't have much information to share.
Nathaniel Keith Goold Send Email
 
Where's alumni? 15 Apr 2002
People sign up, but there's absolutley no interaction.
Nathaniel Keith Goold Send Email
 

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