Fighting the Curse of Unemployment

Since arriving in Lisboa we have seen a threefold increase in unemployed brothers and sisters coming to the Lisboa Centro de Emprego for help. Most expect us to have a long list of job opportunities where they can pick the best one and off to work they go. (You know the song....Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, it´s off to work we go!) In reality the main objective is to help each individual to understand their career goals and dreams, build a plan and then take action to achieve the goals. It includes lots of steps, most require very focused and intense training.  

Céu Cavaco Teaching Specialists from All Over Portugal


First, we have to learn about coaching those that are unemployed. December 10th - 11th saw 20 individuals from around Portugal come to our center on Gago Coutinho for a Coaching Workshop. One of the two trainers from Spain suffered a heart problem and missed the whole conference ending up in the hospital down the street from the seminiar. She recovered well and returned home to Valencia the next evening. Céu, our direct manager in Lisboa, kicked off the meeting and helped organize the event. She is extremely talented, juggles many priorities and wears many hats.  

Bispo Sá Barros teaching the group

 Bispo Sá Barros is a former pilot for a large airline and has used his retirement to go back to law school plus help at the employment center....in addition to many other responsibilities. He brings great wisdom and knowledge to the center. Patricia at his right is over the Jovems-Adultos Center next door and works with the young single adults from 18-30. She is multi lingual and as bright a leader as you will find anywhere.


Céu, Paula and Eileen planning the Coaching Workshop

   Eileen works directly with Céu Cavaco and on Wednesdays, Paula Perreira rounds out the team. Paula is creating a mobile version of the employment center that we will be taking to each region. The first will be in Setúbal the first week in January. Eileen worked directly with Céu in planning the physical aspects of the coaching seminar. It turned out to be a huge success.

Getting the details on skills and experience

The real work takes place with the individual. Here, in our Centro de Recursos de Emprego (CRE) we teach basic principles once we have established a career path with the individual. Here Kent is working with a wonderful man from Romania that has been in Portugal for some time and just lost his job. The training has seen great progress already, including having this energetic fellow taking a night class in Portuguese 4 nights a week to make him more marketable. All in all, most days at the center have serious unemployed individuals in training for the entire time we are there. At times they bring their children along and Eileen turns into a pre-school teacher!

Thanksgiving in Portugal- Lot´s to be thankful for

Thanksgiving day found us deeply involved in a Zone Conference with 20+ other missionaries and the only vestige of a Thanksgiving Feast was chicken on the pizza at lunch. We found the Zone Conference exceptional with an incredible commitment from a roomfull of 19-21 year old young men and a handful of sisters. The meeting was virtually conducted and the training was given by these young people. President Torgan and his wife Rosa each gave some instruction but all in all, it was a meeting of young people teaching young people.
 You would think that on a holiday the traffic would drop off. But no, it was a busy day as you can see from the picture out the window of our apartment from 5 stories up. I suspect there is no respect for Thanksgiving in Lisboa.

Not to miss the chance to celebrate, Eileen put the best face on some elements of a Thanksgiving Feast for a big Sunday dinner (3 days after Thanksgiving) for the missionaries in our neighborhood. The missionaries that were native to Portugal found it entertaining (two young men and a sister, all from Porto). We had stuffing, mashed potatoes, yams, rolls, special jello arrangement, grilled chicken (cousin to the turkey) and brownies with ice cream. The Portuguese Sister liked the stuffing so much she took the leftovers home with her.Eileen pulled off a great feat as all the missionaries and guests loaded up their plates. Ryan Turner, red head on right, is a graduate student from Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh and didn´t mind joining in the festivities. Brownies are unique to the U.S. we suspect and thus the U.S. Elders didn´t pass up the chance to eat every crumb.

 Eileen also took the opportunity to get a haircut for the occasion and you can see, they do a good job here. The map behind shows Portugal and many of the cities we will be visiting as Kent was just called to serve in the Mission Presidency and will help call, train and help the branches in remote areas like Beija. Eileen was called as a training specialist and will help on all the trips. We will be visiting Beija twice a month and Santarém once a month.

It took four different tables in our apartment to create one long table. Yes, it was lumpy and irregular but as long as you put your drink down in the right place you were OK. Elder Ferreira (front) and Dias (third from right) were two of native Elders that were introduced to "stuffing". We ended the meal with each person volunteering their thoughts on what they were thankful for. Everyone was far from home and each person´s thoughts were amazing and left an incredible spirit of thanksgiving with us. It seemed that most everyone was thankful for a person that had a significant impact on their life....brother, parent, etc. And overall, we were all filled to the brim with thanks for the gospel of Jesus Christ that brings peace and joy to the world when we live his teachings to love one another.

Training in Spain, in Spanish

Opa! A couple of weeks in Lisboa and off we go to Spain for some employment coaching training....all of it taught in Spanish. Not too bad though since we still have trouble understanding Portuguese so it was all Greek to us. We did actually get some great value from face-to-face training with Greg and Montie Jones on the Perpetual Education Fund and then they did translate the coaching for us from Spanish to English. The training took place on Temple Square in Madrid where they have the Temple, Missionary Training Center, Temple Hotel and Stake Center. The best part was being near the beautiful Temple.

 To keep from overdosing on Spanish instruction Eileen ducked out and spent Saturday morning, November 14th, in the Temple. She found it very pleasant and even enjoyed the Portuguese. The whole square is so peaceful among a very busy and crowded part of town.

 While there we experienced the preparing of Temple Square for Christmas with lights all over the place. It just so happened that the missionaries at the training center had the service opportunity to complete some of the lighting. Many of the missionaries were from South America and were on their way to a mission in Spain like Barcelona.

 These two missionaries were so fun to watch....such enthusiasm. One was from Brasil (in black) and the other from Ecuador. The Mission Training Center is in the background.

 Eileen helped prepare for the conference and training by preparing packets with the Jones casal (couple). They are the employment center missionaries in Madrid and are on their 3rd mission. The last one was in Brasil....speaking Portuguese....ouch.

 Our first coaching session went from 6pm to 9pm and then dinner. At about 10pm the young adults were having an activity at the Stake Center and came over to polish off the leftovers. I'm not used to eating dinner at 9pm but I forced myself to eat.

The session had about 30 people attending from all over Spain. The director (Hermano Paco Serrano at the front left) set the training up and we had a great discussion. Eileen sat between the Jones casal so they could translate (back of picture in center in black). The Saturday session went from 9am to 2pm with a big pizza lunch to round things out.

Getting to know the neighborhood is a blast!

Cobblestone sidewalks are a pain for our old feet and living right downtown Lisboa means lots of tall buildings, traffic and congestion. We have found some great places for walks where we can see the old aquaduct (over my left shoulder) many centuries old while walking on a paved bike path (good for old feet). With windows open the traffic, airplanes, ambulances and dogs create quite the symphony. We are already used to it.

This beautiful park and monument were a great backdrop to a big "P" day ultimate frisbee game for the missionaries while Eileen and I watched. The last thing I needed was a shoulder or knee injury and Eileen was not in the mood for showing off. The good news is that we practice Portuguese while we walk hoping that we can communicate at some point. It has been pretty tough so far since the shushing and K'ing that is so different from Brazilian Portuguese is taking a big toll.

 The panorama out our back window shows the buildings that line the streets 5 de Outubro, Avenida da Republica and Avenida Antonio Serpa. We are directly in the flight path for all the TAP, EasyJet and Air France jets coming in to land, just 1,000 feet overhead....good wake up call at 6:00 am, when they start. Our building has offices for Mozambique Airlines on our right, VIP Berna Hotel on the left and a Kia Dealership across the street with the Juventude Communista kitty corner; all 9-10 story buildings.

Arrived Lisboa, Portugal October 23, 2010

Pooped and ready for a snooze we arrived in Lisboa. With toothpicks in our eyes we met with President Moroni Torgan and his wife Rosa and we were introduced to missionary life. Right after that we met with our manager, Paco Serrano from Madrid. He introduced us to the Centro de Emprego and Ceu Cavaco, the local manager....she is terrific. We were then dropped off at Avendia Antonio Serpa, 23 #5 where we have an apartment in the middle of the Lisboa business district. A pizza in the oven was dinner and we were ready for the first night in Lisboa.

Doing laundry is different. We have two automated dryers....me and Eileen as we hang the wet laundry on the rack on the back porch...or on the line outside, but if we drop a piece of clothing it falls five stories to the rooftop below.

We are trying to hang laundry like our neighbor out the back window and enjoying the local pooch on the rooftop below our window. He has quite the conversation with his dog friends as we try to go to sleep each night.

Teach Old Dogs New Tricks

Two weeks in the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah was quite the experience. Watching 2,400 young men and women preparing to go out into the world was amazing; each one committed to spend a significant part of their life to that point taking the joy of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world. Our big shock was going from a wonderfully comfortable home with tons of conveniences, daily TV news and any food we wanted to a small room with a bed and two desk chairs and no real news. We loved our two weeks at the MTC with highlights that included devotionals where the singing was amazing, especially "Called to Serve" and the miracle of feeding 2,400 people each meal was terrific. The smiles and appetites of the young missionaries were both huge. It will be two weeks we will never forget, especially our instructors that taught us about how best to go out and serve our brothers and sisters across the globe. We were part of 20+ senior couples learning their roles as service/humanitarian missionaries, doing everything for healthcare to delivering wheelchairs....and for us it is helping the unemployed, under-employed, untrained and those in despair. What a cool opportunity. We were the only couple going to Europe. The others were going to China, Indonesia, Nepal, South Africa, and many South America countries.

There was a small crew at the SLC airport to wish us bon voyage and it worked....we had a great trip!

The call to serve Jesus Christ

The whole family gathered to witness the opening of the call and to see where Eileen and Kent would be serving and what, specifically, they would be doing. It was late in May 2010 on a Thursday night that children and grandchildren gathered to celebrate the opening of the call from President Thomas S. Monson. What an amazing feeling when it didn't say Brazil but said Portugal instead. Everyone thought it was a joke until Kent cleared his throat and said they would be going to Europe instead of South America.

There was a big crew on hand for seeing where 'Mom and Dad' were going. 99% were thinking Brasil and a cool place like Recife where it is really hot. But it was not to be and the European culture will rule.