Family Snippets

I have been looking lately of all the online resources provided by the Church to help families and strength marriages and was impressed with the quality and quantity of what is available. Here it is my top 10 choices:   1. Happiness in Family Life   2. Family Home Evening   3. The Family - A Proclamation to the World   4. Family History - FamilySearch   5. Marriage and Family Relations   6. General Conference   7. Family Safety Wiki   8. Forever Families   9. Mormon Times - Home and Family 10. BYU - Marriage and Families Magazine

Valentine: A written or other artistic work, message, token, etc., expressing affection for someone. (dictionary .com). So here it goes for my dear wife an expression of affection in the form of a poem in the language of the great poet Luis de Camões. Happy Valentine Quando penso em todos estes anos não posso deixar de contemplar as alegrias que juntos passámos e tantos momentos que tenho para admirar Por causa do teu sorriso sem cessar fizeste com que tivessemos a felicidade que os bens do mundo não podem comprar mas que tu deste com toda a bondade A tua companhia continua doce e terna porque nunca perdeste o sentido de servir e amar que bom que nossa relação é eterna e nossa amizade e amor não vai parar. (Original poem created by José A. Teixeira on valentine's day of 2011)

Today as Filomena and I were walking in downtown Frankfurt we saw a Mercedes Benz of the same color and and style of the Mercedes Benz that my father-in-law bought in 1969 in the factory of Stuttgart, Germany . He traveled from Luanda, Angola in Africa to Germany to buy it as he was a fan of German cars because of their quality and reliability. As an Engineer himself he had a taste for quality and durability. This car has an history that is worth telling. In 1975 when the civil war of Angola forced thousands Portuguese families to return to Portugal, my father in law was not an exception, he sent his family first to Portugal for safety reasons and stayed longer to protect the interests of the customers of the bank he worked with, then the Banco de Fomento e Exterior and now part of the Banco BPI. Prior to his departure he gave is Mercedes Benz to a dear friend from the old days of primary school to help him take his mother to South Africa to receive needed and urgen...