Saturday – February
8, 2014
The Bingham’s picked us up this morning and we traveled with them to the “other mission”. This was perfect timing for both of us. Our main purpose was to observe how the “Open
House” for wards was set up and organized.
The other mission has the materials for six weeks, then our mission has
them for 6 weeks. It just so happened
that these presentations were happening in Mike’s areas that he had served in
many moons ago. It was very very hot and
humid today. Even I was sweating! After the 3 hour drive, we helped the Bingham’s with setting up a new
apartment for a couple that was coming in on Monday.
 |
| Still climbing ladders, no matter the model! |
 |
| Look familiar? No one else seemed to know how. |
We
helped them hang curtains and install washers and dryers and cleaned up the
apartment We checked on some missionaries in their
apartments and we drove a lot! What gorgeous
countryside. Everything is very green
and there are cows everywhere. There are
lots of crops growing too. God made
Uruguay for the cows, so the saying goes.
The open house was in a city named Paysandu. We were on the tail end of the evening, but
our group had probably 10 people that went through the presentation. They have a family history center and the
sister was very good. They still do
microfilm for research. Not sure yet if
that is because they don’t have records online for their ancestors yet or if
they don’t know how to do online research.
We finished up and stayed in a hotel for the night. We had our first milanesa meal. It is a breaded fried steak. Pretty good, but I took off most of the fried
stuff. I thought maybe we would get a
good night sleep. Mike did. He loved the bed and zonked right out. Our
window and head of the bed was right next to the street and the night life was
going full bore because the evening was cooler and it wasn’t raining. I think things settled down about 3:30 am.
Sunday – February 9,
2014
Up at 6 am and
enjoyed a nice hot, long shower. The
shower is our apartment needs a new shower head so it is not very good. This one was nice. We have a small water heater too so you can’t
take a linger, longer shower.
 |
| Elder Bingham |
The hotel
had a nice breakfast and we were out the door by 7:30 am. It was a 2 hour drive to Fray Bentos. Wow, what a great experience for Mike to
return to a place where he was part of the beginning of the church growth.
Here is his journal entry:
After I walked into the ward building, an
older brother came up to me and looked at my name tag and said, "We had
another Elder Burnett that worked here in Fray Bentos." I asked if
that was about 40 years ago and he said yes. When I told him that was me
he got quite excited and insisted on taking a picture with me. I slipped
into a meeting and soon noticed that the person behind me looked a lot like
Daniel Montaldo, who was sister Canti's grandson. 40 years ago she asked
me to see if we couldn't try and get Daniel and her other Grandson Santiago Rios
active. We did and Daniel later became the Bishop and first stake
president in Fray Bentos. I met him at general Conference in Salt Lake
about 25 years ago when he came as stake president to conference and we visited
him in Fray Bentos about 18 years ago when we picked up Justin from his mission
in Argentina. Daniel died about 5 years ago. Well sure enough, it
was Daniel's son, who is also named Daniel and he was there with his wife and
kids. Later in the meeting they sustained him as counselor to the new
Bishop. After the meeting Daniel Montaldo's oldest daughter came up and
introduced herself to me also.
Next we headed to sacrament meeting and
the stake president must have heard that I was there because he asked me to
give the opening prayer. The stake president reorganized 2 of the 5 wards
in the stake. When I was here forty years ago it was just 1 ward.
The stake president made fond and kind remarks about the great person,
former bishop and stake president, Daniel Montaldo. After the meeting a
number of old members of the ward that remembered me came up and we had a
wonderful reunion including with sister Canti, who was quite old by now. But she remembered me and we shared hugs and kisses. Santiago Rios,
Daniel's cousin was also there and we shared fond remembrances. He now
travels to Montevideo once a week to work in the Temple.
After church we
went to Mirta Diaz's home. She was our maid when I served here. Though I had visited her when I was last here 18 years ago, and she heard
and recognized my voice after 25 years and came running, this time she did not
recognize me at all. She looked at my name tag and still refused to
believe it was me. It wasn't until Debbie walked up and she recognized
Debbie, that she would believe it was really me.
 |
| Elder Burnett and Mirta Diaz |
I still had hair on my
head and a mustache 18 years ago when she saw me last. It was a sweet
reunion. She opened up her ancient hymn book and she had my picture
pasted inside. She immediately called Rosalba, who I had baptized to let
her know I was here. I wish we would have had time to go see her also.
But we had to get on the road.
On our way out of town Elder Bingham
stopped to avoid running over a paper airplane that some kids were throwing.
But the car behind us swung around us and crushed it. So Elder
Bingham pulled over and got some paper out of his trunk and spent 10 or 15
minutes showing the boys how to make various paper airplanes. Before we
left he had met the mother and had secured an appointment for the sister
missionaries to teach the family. Before we got out of town, he had
talked to the service station attendant, whose friend apparently went on a
mission to Mexico and set an appointment for the elders to teach him.
What an example to us of how to share the gospel.
After church and
visiting it was another long but scenic drive back to Montevideo church. We had dinner, planned our week and finished
visiting with family that we didn’t catch on Friday.
