A Sugar Overload, Great Birthday Weekend

Friday September 26, 2014

An early rise day to cook for the oro conference. Mary planned the whole thing.  She alwasy does a fantastic job.  A fun part of the day was 42 missionaries singing Happy Birthday to me!  Mary made me a small chocolate cake too!  I worked in the kitchen with her all morning and afternoon and don't know when she slipped that in.  Mike took a video, or so he thought.  Couldn't find it.

At 7pm we picked up the Harris' and Giles' and went out to dinner at a seafood restaurant by the harbor.
I had yummy grilled shrimp.
They paid for our dinner as a Happy Birthday.  It was very thoughtful of them.  The Giles head for home in 3 weeks.  (Martin is missing because he is taking the picture)






We then went over to the Harris' for dessert and I got another cake, but not chocolate. It was a mandarin orange cake which was also very yummy. I also was sung to again.

There is no way to blow the fireworks out.
You need to wait until the end and then blow.

Then Vonda and Sylvia each gave me a present.

My first Uruguayan scarf.
All the women wear these.

This is handmade jewelry.
This tree symbol is also very popular here.
It is fun to ask them the symbolism.
It is a wonderful way to share Lehi's dream
and the tree of life he saw.

What wonderful new friends we have here in Uruguay.

Saturday September 27, 2014
Nice for me that we had no capilla abierta scheduled today because of Women's Conference.
Mike made a yummy breakfast.
The office elders called me on the phone and sang me a wonderful Happy Birthday.
Sister Cook via President Cook sent me a happy birthday text.
Also Hermana Burtuoli and Hermana Hines also sent me a text.

I knew Mike was probably struggling with what to get me for my birthday.  When I told him what I would like, he said at least we are on the same page because he was going to try and sneak out and find one.  So we went together and I did a little grocery shopping for tomorrow.  It was Elder Galleano's birthday last week and I owed him a birthday dinner.  He is a finance elder.  With him he invited the office staff and assistants and he wanted pork chops and brownies.  So we are cooking for 10 plus us tomorrow.
This was my gift.

A BBQ grill.  Grills with a lid are very hard to find.
The typical gas BBQ's that we have in the US are
$1200 to $2000.
This is a plain charcoal one and it fits perfect on our balcony.

Tulips! Well, it is spring here.

Beautiful flowers next to my beautiful family
who also wished me Happy Birthday in various ways.

After we got home, all I wanted to do for my birthday was catch up on my blog and watch Women's Conference tonight at 9pm.  

At 6:30 though the sisters called and they needed some help at the FHC.  The director wasn't there and they had an investigator that was interested.  I told Mike to go without me because he is as good as I am, probably better because he can communicate clearly and I still stumble around.  I could tell he was reluctant to go alone, so I finished one post and off we went. Watch this next video.

Hiding

Elder Pointer hiding in the corner

L to R Elder Bekker, Taylor, Quezada, Hmas Ots y Schaelling,
Elder Eraso, Pin, Bohorquez, Pointer,
Bottom row with us Elder Galleano

It was mentioned that this banner
might be in portuguese.

It was a great surprise!
I love these missionaries.

All sugar baked by the elders and hermanas.

Party hats and noisemakers.

Watch the whole party and discover a new game for you to play.
YouTube: Surprise Party

I had a great day. Thank you everyone!

Sunday September 28, 2014
Remembering our little Audrey Grace this morning.

We went to Piriapolis to do a capacitacion.  If you look at my Pan de Azucar post, the map shows you that Piriapolis is closer to the coast but straight across from Pan de Azucar. Brother Harris wanted to come with us. Sister Harris would have come but she wanted to hear her grandson talk in church today.  We were all asked to talk in Sacrament meeting and Brother Harris really enjoyed this.  We decided on our way home that if the wards wanted, we would speak in their Sacrament meetings. The Harris' could talk about their temple work as missionaries there and hopefully perk the interest of the members to get to the temple more often and even serve themselves as temple missionaries.
When we got home, we started fixing dinner for tonight's birthday party.  Mike used our BBQ and we did pork chops, mounds of mashed potatoes, brocolli, green salad, 3 loaves of fresh bread and brownies for dessert.  It was muy rico!

Elder Galleano, the birthday boy.

And of course it all ended with a good gospel question and answer discussion.

Ping Pong Balls from the Heavens

Thursday September 25, 2014
We got our van back after 3 weeks of it being in the shop for repair. It had a radiator leak of some sort that appeared right after we had it in for routine service.  They took it out and sent it to the repair shop but they said it couldn't be repaired.  They tried to order a new one but no one in Uruguay had one for our make and model.  So they ended up having a custom radiator made for the van.  Mike put it to work right away by moving elders to a new apartment today. The trailer helped alot in reducing the number of trips back and forth.  In the past in has been 10-12 trips.  Today was 5 trips.  It was still really slow going even though the move was only 4 blocks because the road was full of potholes.

He got back into Montevideo around 5 pm and we picked up Mary, our cook at the mission home and took her grocery shopping for the oro conference tomorrow.  We need to cook breakfast and lunch.

What an adventure that turned out to be!

Those two black dots to the right are the hailstones
just before they hit our windshield.
People later reported lots of windshields broken.

Hermana Schaelling and Ots called Elder Burnett for rescue.  After the burst of hail, it continued to just pour buckets of rain for a good hour.  The sisters were stuck in a plaza and as Mike went to drive around the plaza, the water was almost over the hood.  He said he kept praying that the van wouldn't stall.  He didn't want to have to get out and push!
After the rescue, Mary and I were still shopping inside and I remembered that we had left a window open.  So I sent Mike to rescue what he could back at the apartment.  We had a shoebox full of hail and some wet papers, and alot of water to mop up.  Not too bad though.  Lesson learned.  Never leave the windows open even if the weather seems to nice.

We were glad that this storm held off at least until Mike had finished moving the Elders.

Hamburger Days Are Over

Monday September 22, 2014
Another P-DAY because we didn't really have one on Saturday.  It was really nice to not cook today!  It was extra nice not to have any hospital runs to make!  I only had 2 medical calls.

Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Now the hamburger days are over, zone conferences have come and gone.
The Burnett's had a great time cooking, and the memories are very fond.

Last zone today was La Costa.

Hamburgers thawing.

Only had to cook in the rain once.

The missionaries love our aprons!

Mission home kitchen

chips, lettuce, onions, catsup, mayo, mustard, pickles

Our helpers every day.
Elder Quezada, Bekker, Bohorquez, Pointer

fruit salad, oranges, baked cookies, soda

hamburgers with melted cheese

Nothing left but the oranges!

I figured we cooked 900 hamburgers.

We bought 150 bags of super size chips, 132 cans of fruit cocktail, 90 2 liter bottles of soda.

Hermana Cook baked 720 cookies.

WE LOVE OUR MISSIONARIES!

Medical Overload (and not because of hamburgers)

Sunday September 14, 2014

We did not have a capacitacion today so we invited Miguel and Aida to go to church. We took them to their ward.  They enjoyed going and people were kind to tell them that it was good to see them at church.  After church we invited them over for lunch.  I had a pot roast in the crock pot with carrots and potatoes, along with brussel sprouts and bread.  I made apple cake with honey instead of sugar because Aida is a diabetic.  But, we were too full to eat it so I sent it home with them.  I do not think they had ever eaten a pot roast before. They just loved it.

Monday September 15, 2014
More food shopping for this next week. Hamburgers!
At 1 pm today, Sister Smith (other mission president's wife), invited some of us over to her house for lunch and jewelry shopping.  She helps a lady earn money by inviting her over.  I was not expecting this at all though!

Every place setting had a gift. Hermana Smith said it was
her thank you to us for helping with the cookbook
we are doing for Christmas presents.

The table was elegant and so was the food and the dessert.

Hma Smith's daughter and Hma Giles
I love Hermana Smith.
She is such a loving and thoughful woman.

Later this evening we drove to Pirapolis (1 1/2 hours) to pick up a hermana and her companion because of a possible appendicitis.  It was raining pretty hard too, but fortunately the road we take is a great 4 lane highway.  Much better road than going to Melo.  We got her all checked out and it was not an appendicits.  They were not sure what it was but they gave her some pain meds.  We brought them to our apartment to sleep which was around 3 am.

Tuesday September 16
We fed our guest breakfast and then took them to the zone conference because fortunately it was their zone's turn (Minas Zone) so we didn't have to drive them back to Piriapolis.

Hermana Chavez and Hermana Pamiño

The hermanas are so artistic and always leave thank yous!
After we cooked our hamburger meal, we needed to fix sack lunches for their bus ride home.  After that we came back to our apartment and I baked cookies for the zone coming in tonight.  At 7:30 pm we started baking the empañadas and fed the Treinta y Tres zone.  There were 3 elders that needed some medical attention, so Mike took them to the hospital at 10 pm to get them all taken care of.  He was kind enough to let me come home and sleep.  He didn't get home til 4 am again.

Wednesday September 17, 2014
Fortunately for Mike we do not have to start our cooking day until around 10:30 am so he was able to sleep a little longer this morning.  So we did our thing again, hamburgers and fix sack lunches for the bus ride home.  We finished about 4:30 pm and then drove to San Ramon (1 1/2 hours) to pick another hermana and her companion to bring them into the emergency room to have her foot checked. The local clinic refused to see them and because it was the top of her foot that was in alot of pain, it was thought that it might be a stress fracture.  She is a new missionary and not used to all the walking.  Fortunately, it was just tendonitis.  We fed them at the hospital and got them home around 11 pm.  They love the hours they get to spend with Elder Burnett in gospel discussions.  We arrived to our apartment around 12:30 pm.

Thursday September 18, 2014
SAME. Zone Rocha.  Hamburgers and sack lunches.  We had Elder Eraso go in tonight for some minor surgery.  Mike went to the hospital to visit him even though we are both tired.  He was glad he did because they had a great gospel discussion in the Elder's hospital room which he was sharing with another man.  The man's wife was there also.  Being aware that they could hear this gospel discussion, Mike felt guided by the spirit.  When I asked him what they discussed he gave the general topic but said he honestly could not recall everything that was said.  The topic was "how the bitter things of life would help us know the sweet."  As he was leaving, the couple thanked him for his words.

Friday September 19, 2014
SAME minus the sack lunch.  Zone Rocha.  We had Elder Eraso and his companion come and stay at our apartment.  He couldn't quite manage stairs yet.  More great gospel questions and answers.  They have alot of study time, so they have more questions to ask.  I fed a group of them tonight because the office elders came to visit.  Fortunately, I was having spaghetti, so add a few more noodles and a little more sauce.  However, I didn't know that Elder Eraso could not eat tomatoes. So I fed him my leftover pot roast.

Saturday September 20, 2014
P-DAY well deserved!  Except that I have 2 elders who LOVE home cooking.  For dinner I fixed homemade pizza.  I did a white sauce with ranch dressing and then garlic chicken for the topping.  I made two 9x13 and they ate it all.

Sunday September 21, 2014

We did a capacitacion in our first branch today.  They are in Pan de Azucar.  They have a teeny ward building and it was packed full of great people.  They even had 3 babies there.  I have not seen that yet.  Lots of young children, youth, and returned missionaries.  They need a building expansion.  If they converted more people, there is no where else to sit them in Sacrament meeting.  I took a few pictures but I will take more pictures at their capilla abierta and you will see how small their building is.  They have no piano so they use a CD player.

We also took the elders back to their apartment this morning.  

Good thing. I am out of food!