The Oro's

Wednesday February 12, 2014

Beautiful weather today.  There was some surfing going on.  https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B27vFqukhf03QzBLVHBMTm9MRTQ/edit?usp=sharing  

We took the bus to the temple and arrived a little early.  As we walked to the small distribution center through the temple grounds, a brother working in the gardens stopped Mike.  Here is his journal entry:

Took the bus to the Temple and home again today.  We arrived a little early and decided to stop by the mission book store and buy Debbie a Spanish Liahona to practice reading Spanish.  On the way there the owner of the gardening crew that maintains the temple grounds stopped me and said he was sure he knew me and had seen me walk by several times.  He asked if I had worked as a missionary here in the Floresta area of Montevideo.  I confirmed that I had.  He got a big grin and said, "you baptized my mother! You are Elder Burnett". He gave be a big hug and introduced me to his daughter and son who were working with him there.  He told me of others that would like to see me again including President Gonzalez of the Area presidency who was also there in Floresta with us. What wonderful remembrances of those times together.  

We then came across President Smith from the other mission and he invited us to watch the meeting of the “oro’s” meaning gold’s with their trainers.  This happened on the temple grounds and it was quite moving.  The term gold’s replaces our old term of “greenies”.   Here is a video of it.  https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B27vFqukhf03cC1iMEZ3R3EyQUE/edit?usp=sharing

We worked in the baptistery all day.  It wasn’t busy today.  We had one young woman at 10 am and then 3 family members that were young adults come in at 4 pm.  When I was sitting with the 1 young woman in the morning, we had finished all of the normal introductions in Spanish.  We were waiting for more priesthood to come and help. In my mind I am thinking, this is dumb.  I should be having a nice conversation with her.  I pulled my phone out of my temple pocket.  I opened up my google translate app and with that we had a nice visit.  I would type in English and it would translate into Spanish. She would type in Spanish and it would translate into English.  The advantage to this for me is that I can hear her words but can’t quite understand.  When she would type them, then I could read the Spanish words and it made more sense.  Anyways, it was great. I love technology and am not ashamed to use it!  The group in the afternoon were from Colonia, another area where Mike served as Branch President and Relief Society Presidents. J  He found out from them that Sister Mazas whom he reactivated and immediately called her to take his place as Relief Society president was still living at the age of 90 years old.  She was very instrumental in helping the branch of Colonia get a good start.

We caught a bus back to the apartment. They have awesome bacon here, so I made bacon and tomato sandwiches.  Tomatoes have flavor here too.  I am trying to get my yeast start going again. I brought some start flakes with me but my first attempt failed. I also baked some banana oatmeal cookies but my oven cooked them too much on the bottom.  There is a lot of trial and error going on in my little kitchen. Oh, well. Mike still ate them.