El día de los Pioneros

Tuesday July 22, 2014
Happy Birthday Mom!  She is 80 years young today.  Te amo mucho!

This week was busy for birthdays for people we are teaching and have become friends with.  There were four this week  and one more at the end of the month.  I have been taking homemade chocolate chip cookies and it is fun to watch them try a first bite and then eat the whole plate.  They don't make homemade goodies down here.  Mike and I also sing Happy Birthday to them in English of course!

Thursday July 24, 2014
El Día de los Pioneros!
I wore a hat today to the office just to remind everyone it was Pioneer Day. Hermana Schaelling and Hermana Ots really dressed up!  These sisters are so fun.

I also had time to video our new apartment.

I was Grandma for 2 hours!

Friday July 18, 2014

We did our first Friday Capilla Abierta in San Ramon.  I think this particular Friday worked because it was a holiday of some sort and more people were out doing things. The drive was not too long, about 1.5 hours.

VISITANTES                                  
# de misioneros  14                        
# de miembros en recorridos 26        
# de miembros no en recorridos  5    
# de miembros menos activos  5
# de no-miembros  12
TOTAL  62
REFERENCIAS
 # de no-miembros 19
# de miembros     27
TOTAL        46

COMENTARIOS: Esta barrio recibe el primer premio por ser los más preparados. Sus stands estaban listas, el edificio muy limpio, y todos los miembros activos estuvieron presentes. Fue una noche maravillosa para todos.
This ward receives first prize for being the most prepared. Their rooms were ready, the building very clean, and all active members were in attendance.  It was a wonderful evening for all.

YouTube: Capilla Abierta San Ramon

It was a special evening for me. I held her for 2 hours!  Her name is Genesis. 

She was five weeks old.

I had to share Genesis with this cute little friend. She stayed
by my side waiting for Genesis to wake up so she could
hold her with Mom's permission of course.

Mommy was quite happy to share Genesis with me. 

Mike's IPad doing it's magic for the kids of all ages.

Can you guess how old the girl on the left might be?
Answer can be found at the bottom of this post.

Most of the San Ramon Ward

The girl is actually in Young Women's and is 14 years old!

Semana de Cambio always means "happy tired feet"

Wednesday - Tuesday July 9 - 15, 2014

Remembering July 09, 2010 and the blessing our family received from Heavenly Father in helping Dallin recover from his severe head injury from rope swinging into a tree at Fathers and Sons Outing 4 years ago. 

Fixing hermanas house. I brought Amish Apple Cake for them

I finally found some real cheddar cheese at Geant!

Spent 4 hours this evening (July 11th) waiting for one hernana
to be treated for severe, infected blisters on her feet.
I think we will be seeing more of this place now that
the Pugmire's have left.

My first and last attempt at empanadas.
They were good, but took more time than I have.
Premade flour tortillas work fine and taste about the same
without all the hassle.

Saturday, July 12, 2014
Our granddaughter, Kammi Nicole was baptized today.  We enjoyed facetime with her before her baptism to congratulate her for her commitment to follow Jesus.

Sunday, July 13, 2104
We traveled to San Ramon early this morning to do a capacitacion for them.  It was a lovely drive.  The ward was very small, but the spirit strong.

Hoy was Feliz Dia del Padre

This was done by the Primary children in San Ramon

The final google clips from Mundial.
Our weekends are back to the Capilla Abiertas!

Tuesday and Wednesday, July 15 y 16
Cambio or change week is always very busy.  I help in the kitchen both days.  On my feet standing on the hard tile kitchen floor is hard on my poor feet.  Maybe I can find a nice foot mat somewhere is absorb some of the hard tile. Mike always goes to the airport to help pick up the new missionaries coming in.  We feed them breakfast and lunch.  We cook in the mission home and then walk it over to the Carrasco chapel which is right next door.  It is always great to be among the youth of the church.
Wednesday all the buses come in to the Malvin chapel and all the transfers happen from there.  Fortunately, they always order pizza for lunch.  So Wednesday breakfast we cook for the new missionaries and their trainers.  In the afternoon we start cooking for the special Valientes dinner that is held in the mission home.
Mike couldn't help because he had to do some more hospital runs.

Our wonderful cook, Mary

Hermana Cook tries very hard to get some of the
US "picky" eaters to eat some kind of fruit or
vegetable.  She of course bribes them. "If you don't
eat a fruit or vegetable, you don't get dessert!"
It works. 

Hermana Zegarra is the only sister heading home tomorrow.
She is a favorite.  We love her and wish her all the best!

These are the valientes headed for home tomorrow. 

New Occupation Skill Acquired

Monday, July 7, 2014

MOVING DAY!  Mike and I started our move to heaven today!  We have progressed from ground level to the 7th floor.  Not quite to the very top, but close.  I love it!  Thank you to my family for the upgrade.  There are lots of windows and lots of space.  And the views are really spectacular.  

The hermanas are going to move into our ground floor apartment so that the church doesn't lose their investment in the wall heater/air conditioner they purchased and installed in that apartment. 

Bedroom

Hallway looking from bedroom towards front room

Bedroom/Office

Kitchen

Front Room

Bedroom/Laundry room

Because we needed to get some large pieces of furniture into this apartment, we needed to get this front room door lock fixed.  It is a wider door.  We had no keys for this door. We actually have two front doors, side by side.  One enters into the hallway and the other enters into the front room.  So Mike went back to his skills for troubleshooting to figure out how to remove the lock so he could take it to a locksmith and have a key made. After breaking one saw blade, he decided he needed to drill it out like the locksmith did for us when we lost our keys.  But, because he didn't know where to drill, he took off the working lock from our other door and took it all apart and figured out how it all works.  His skills totally amaze me.  So after a few drill attempts, he had success.  When he went to the locksmith, the locksmith asked him who drilled it out. Mike replied that he did and the locksmith was pretty impressed.  So I guess we can now add "Uruguayan Locksmith" to our list of occupations!

Waterfall Overload

Saturday, July 5, 2014

Today we had a wonderful time with the Harris'.  They are temple missionaries from Idaho and do not have a vehicle.  They had today off, so we drove up to our favorite spot, the waterfall.  The weather although rainy, never bothered us too much.  It has been raining for a couple of days now, so the rivers are full to overflowing in some areas.  It made for some great pictures!  We also took them to the "real pizza" place in Minas.  They loved it and we did too!

This cute display was in Geant, a wanna be WalMart. The
Harris' had never been to Geant, so they did some
grocery shopping before we took off to Minas.

The rivers were full 

and some

picnic places were underwater.

On your mark...

get set...

.........go!

Trying to outrun my camera's 10 second 
self timer.

Didn't quite make it :)

Barely made my second attempt but alas....
success! 

I think we are 
on the highest 
mountain in Uruguay.  

That is the road we came up on.

Martin and Sylvia Harris

BEFORE

TODAY

We tried to get down to the same spot
where we took our last picture
but there was too much water.
Sister Harris was a bit nervous about
us venturing forth becasue we had to cross
some of the "raging" water. I think she envisioned
us falling into the river.