One of my favorite stories from living in Brazil is the one about the thousands of Brazilians who regularly made the most amazing temple trek I know of. There are actually a lot of members (more than 60,000, according to the Church) who live in Manaus, Brazil, which is a city of more than 1 million people in the middle of the Amazon jungle.
There were no permanent roads to Manaus, so members would take a boat downriver to Belem. The boat took two to three days. Then, they would take a bus from Belem along the coast of Brazil all the way to Sao Paulo. The bus took about a week. Total travel time: 9-10 days by boat and bus.
These people are our modern-day pioneers.
Click here for a map of Brazil.
Church members would travel in groups of 20-30 members. They would stay for a week, attending several sessions a day, and then make the 9-10-day trip back to Manaus.
Since then, temple boundaries have changed. These days, members in Manaus are part of the Caracas, Venezuela temple district (it still takes several days to get to Caracas). Several more temples have been built in Brazil: Campinas, Porto Alegre, Recife, Curitiba (under construction).
You’ve got to admire the Saints who were willing to give up a month of their time to go to the temple. And thousands of them did so. And when you consider the cost, which might be equivalent of a year’s salary for many people, the faith involved in such an endeavor is overwhelming. It certainly makes my four-hour trek from Miami to Orlando seem painless by comparison, although of course I complain about it all the time (you should see Friday night traffic from Miami to Orlando — it makes you want to cry).
Well, the faithful Saints in Manaus will have a much shorter commute now. The Church is coming home to them.