We walked and walked and walked and walked!

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

The printer and his wife came to our apartment this morning.  They are members and they held true to the Uruguayan culture of talking and talking.  We discussed the changes we wanted to make and they were very anxious to help in any way.  It is nice to be able to give work to members. 

In the afternoon our theme song was: Play Song

We were true missionaries today.  Our visits were all just drop bys.  

We walked 25 minutes to the Lopez’s. I timidly with my limited Spanish asked Ema to come with me to the Women’s Conference this Sunday.  I had an invitacíon for her.  I told her I needed a friend and she accepted!  WOW!  I was so excited.  Three weeks ago, she did not want religion in her life.  I think she feels our love for her and her family.  We have worked with Camila, Charo and Ivana.  Charo has been to church on Sunday and in Young Women’s. When we were there today, she was on her way to Seminary.  Charo will come for more piano lessons this Saturday. Camila is still very distant from wanting the Spirit in her life.  Ema’s little boys are fun and they showed us their Disney Cars book.  Mike wants to find the DVD and give it to them on our next visit  They have a DVD player.  

We then walked about another 1/ 2 hour to Miguel and Aida’s apartment but they couldn’t see us.  So we called a new family we wanted to visit and we just needed to wait about 45 minutes for him to get home from work.  So finding them turned out to be a lot more walking that we didn’t need to do.  We were using our google map coordinates. So we walked another 30 minutes but couldn’t find them.  We happened to be on a main street so we took the time to find el baño and get some bottled water. 

We walked back 20 minutes, no luck. They were the wrong apartments.  We called the missionaries and they gave us some clues. We walked back towards where we had just been for another 10 minutes and then called Pedro Lopez, Ema’s husband and he got us real close.  We called the family again and they answered the phone and came out and met us. It turned out that even if the street name is “Mt Jordan”  it could be located 3 or 4 alley ways behind “Mt Jordan”. Meanwhile during all this walking, Miguel and Aida called and asked us if we could come by. We said that we could after our visit with Ariel and Roxana. 

Ariel and Roxana are about our kids ages. They have 2 sons, Jorge is 18 and Gabriel who is 11. They graciously fed us dinner, cheese pizza from the corner store. His main occupation is ALARM SYSTEMS!  So there was some good conversations going on. We asked him if he could use some help. Ivana’s husband is very smart and loves electronics but all the work he can find is washing cars. Mike had considered training him in the alarm industry, but if Ariel could use him that would be better.  So our next step is to get the two together. In our next visit with Ariel and Roxanne we want to discover why they don’t go to church. Part of the reason is that he offers his alarm customers 24/7 service. Mike told him we did too, but not on Sunday because it was a sacred day. We only help customers if it is urgent. I gave Roxana an invitacíon to Women’s Conference. We got through with our visit at about 8 pm and it was too late and dangerous to walk anymore. Ariel kindly offered to give us a ride to Miguel and Aida’s apartment which was less than 3 minutes drive time. He also offered to pick us up and take us back to our apartment.  

Aida and Miguel were thrilled to see us.  She gave me a big hug. Aida is doing marvelous. She is going to her new medical treatment for alcohol substance. She hasn’t had a drink for a while. But the biggest success was that she and Miguel walked to church last Sunday!  We apologized for not being there because we were in Aeroparque Ward. She said she was well received and knew a lot of people.  She shared that walking there was really hard but once she stepped inside the chapel, the Spirit filled her with an abundance of energy for the rest of the day!  She also showed us the prayer chart and the positive actions chart that we had given her. She has been recording her progress on both charts. She thanked me for the cookies I had brought last time.  She said it reminded her of when she would make cookies with her children. 

We also made a dumb mistake by assuming that Miguel and Aida were husband and wife.  Mike had asked them if they had ever thought about being married in the temple.  They grinned and said that they were brother and sister!  

We were done at 9 pm. Ariel came and picked us up and drove us to our apartment. It was a very productive day!  I am sure I will feel all the walking tomorrow!