Our Big Fireworks Display!

Friday, July 4, 2014

We worked and worked.  Mike fixed water heaters and plumbing and this and that. I cleaned one apartment that had mildew growing in the kitchen. This was in Rio Branco (red balloon) which sits on the border to Brazil.
We left there about 3 pm and headed for Treinta y Tres, a 3 hour drive. We replaced a water heater, but of course, rusted pipes break and no stores are open, so Mike with his great troubleshooting skills, figures out how to get it all done.  The elders just love to watch him work and use all his tools.  This apartment was very clean, so I studied Spanish.

This was our fireworks display and food.
Birthday candles and homemade chocolate chip cookies.
Happy 4th of July!

Made it back to our apartment around 2 am.  

The "Packmaster"

Thursday, July 3, 2014

"All our bags are packed, we're ready to go..."  Mike is a miracle worker when it comes to packing.
The van was so tightly packed that our seats were all the way forward and tilted a bit.  We had a wardrobe closet, microwave, water heater, 2 desks, fans, suitcase full of tools, and I don't know what else.

Mike called me and said, "Don't pack a suitcase, there isn't room!"
I packed my blue backpack instead.

We drove back up to the Melo area to deliver some furniture and fix apartments.  

Our first destination was the small city of Fraile Muerto (Dead Friar!).

Uruguay is about as big as Utah.
Fraile Muerto is the red balloon.
Melo is above Fraile Muerto.
We live in Montevideo.

We found a nice little picnic area on our way
through a small town. Not too cold today either!

I think this used to be a train stop.

These rural communities are very clean.
I was very impressed.
Some outlying areas of Montevideo are very trashy and dirty.

On our long drive I had fun facetiming with Candiss and her kids.  

I was able to give them a facetime tour of some of the little towns of Uruguay.  

I even connected with Laura and Julie at Bear Lake for a short amount of time.  

I contemplated the complexity, yet simpleness of being able to connect 

visually and vocally with my kids while I am in the countryside of rural Uruguay 

and they are in the rural parts of Utah.  I count my blessings!  

We delivered our furniture and put together fans and desks. 

I left some homemade chocolate chip cookies with them. 

We took off to Melo about 45 minutes away and arrived 

safely at our hotel around 8 pm.  

Pugmire's Fly Home after Serving Uruguay for 18 Months

Monday, June 30, 2014

A whole big group of us missionaries met at the Central Bus Station.  From there we were vanpooled to the immigration office to sign documents.  In a month or so, we should finally have our visas and then we can go get our Uruguyan driver's license.  It is always fun to visit with the missionaries!

That little adventure took us about 4 hours.  We then had to go to the mission home to set up for the surprise presentation for the Pugmire's.  Mike had to go to the airport and pick up the area doctor and his wife coming in from Argentina.  They are going to train Sister Cook and Sister Smith.  The Pugmires had dinner at the Giles home and then she told them that the Cook's wanted to join for dessert and that would be at the mission home.  They had no idea that the office missionaries would be there.  Our head cook and good friend, Mari was there to plan a meal for tomorrow and we invited her to stay too.  It was great fun!

We then headed to the airport to send them home.

Holey!

Thursday, June 26, 2014

The office elders washing machine broke so we helped with their laundry a bit and these are what one elder was still wearing. 

End of the line for the United States today.

We gave him some of Mike's socks.

We had a charla with Ivana and Jorge tonight.  I gave most of the lesson tonight.  We are starting the marriage relationship course that is provided by the church.  We started with the first paragraph of the Proclamation of the Family.  I did a visual object lesson with my spices because they were different sizes and would stack okay.  I have no blocks.  We stacked the spices with just one "block" underneath to see how high we could go.  Then we stacked again with 2 "blocks" as a base and found that we could go higher.  The object was to show that a "couple" standing side by side together is stronger than one standing alone.  Their little boy Lautaro played with my "wanna be blocks" after our lesson.  We also gave some new scriptures to Jorge as he didn't have any.  Ivana said she had some. I think they are enjoying our visits with them.   

Friday, June 27, 2014

Today was Camila's 18th birthday.  We took her over a small gift that we bought at the distribution center.  Alot of her extended family were there and they shared birthday cake with us.  We sang Happy Birthday to her in English. 

Saturday, June 28, 2014

I needed to go to the Portones Mall today to try and find ribbon for the Young Women's bookmark that I bought for Ivana's birthday which is tomorrow. I thought that waiting until 4 pm when the soccer game started in which Uruguay was playing would be smart because everyone would be home watching the game and the mall would not be crowded like it usually is on the weekends.

WRONG!  The mall was open but all the stores inside closed their doors for 2 hours!  The game was on the TV's everywhere in the mall.  We decided to enjoy the culture and watched the game on the Big Screen in the foyer of the theater.  There were no chairs to sit on so we stood.  We tried sitting at the food court but the screens were too small to be able to see anything really going on.  Uruguay lost though and they are out of the world cup now.  The ribbon store opened back up and I got what I needed.  

I came home and worked on my bookmark ribbon project for quite a while but it turned out very nice. I forgot to take a picture of it though.  

I also worked on a movie maker presentation for the Pugmire's. The office elders asked me to get some of the Pugmire's mission pics and then we would show them on Monday.  This is a surprise. 

Sunday, June 29, 2014

Played the organ again at church.  After church we went over to Ivana's to give her the bookmark I had made for her along with a new set of scriptures for her.  I think she liked them.  Her only comment was that she was not a "young women" anymore.  I told her that we are always "young women"!  She smiled.

I baked sourdough bread for the Pugmire's going home dinner tonight held at the mission home.  All the adult couple were there and it was a very somber, spiritual, enjoyable, tearful evening. They shared their testimonies and we sang acapella "God Be With You" which was really awesome because we had all four parts going.  Of course, it was difficult to sing while you cry.

Real ham, potatoes, spinach salad, homemade sourdough bread and a great dessert!

Elder and Sister Pugmire

President and Sister Smith and their daughter

Martin and Sylvia Harris, temple missionaries

Sister Cook, President Smith's son

We did have some fun stories;  President Cook

Doug and Vonda Giles, temple missionaries

88 Crepes and a Nice Experience at the Temple

Sunday, June 22, 2014
Nice to go to church in our ward.  I am understanding a bit more.  Just a bit.
I played the organ today. Wish I had more time to practice and learn this organ a bit better.
We visited with Aida and Miguel this evening and set a firm date for the temple.
For memorabilia I grabbed the World Cup soccer logo for the USA today.

Monday, June 23, 2014
P-DAY!  Today  A shower or thunderstorm... watch the video and decide.

Did our first FHE with the temple group tonight.  They are such a fantastic group of people willing to give ALL their time right now.

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Wednesday, June 25, 2014
The Hermanas had their own concilio this morning.  I offered to help them with their breakfast. So last night I cooked 88 crepes.  After cooking in the only crepe pan I have for a bit, I decided that perfectly shaped crepes were not as important as just getting them done.  I started another pan and finished the project at about midnight last night.
Along with the crepes, I cut up yummy strawberries.  So, we served crepes with homemade maple syrup, powdered sugar, dulce de leche, and the strawberries.  They had a banana and drinkable yogurt as sides.

Hardest working sisters, they deserve a good breakfast!

Uruguayan Flag Fingernails

This will be the Pugmire's last concilio.

I am taking the picture and Elder Pugmire is taking a pic from the other end.

These Hermanas are THE BEST.

Sister Schaelling and Sister Ots prepared the conference and they did a great powerpoint presentation for their district.  They had emailed all the parents and asked for a video of when their daughters had received their call.  It was so cool!  Very touching and sometimes funny as they tried to pronounce Montevideo.

To my granddaughters: If serving a mission becomes an opportunity for you, take it!  Missions need you and you will have the best experiences!  I have seen it here, time and time again.

We had the opportunity to take some elders that were headed home to the temple this afternoon along with the Pugmire's who are going home soon.  The Cook's are back in the States attending a Mission President's training so we are their subs.  After the temple we took them out to dinner and then off they went to the airport.  

I ordered a lemon pie!
It was mostly meringue though and just a hint of lemon.
Not something I would order again.

I had an interesting moment in the temple this afternoon.  At one point, I was apprehensive about what language I would have to use.  As we started in Spanish, the person who was speaking with me changed to English because he knew me. A big relief enveloped me as we continued.  As I pondered that experience I felt that similar feelings might be the same when passing into the spirit world.  He will know me and accept me because I have accepted Him and tried to follow His counsel and even though I know not everything, His atonement and love will envelope me and relief from my shortcomings will come and I will be able to continue my journey with Him.