Whistle While We Work, Work, Work.

Delivery Week March 14th through March 20th

We spent plenty of time on the road making deliveries to alot of our outlaying missionary apartments.

We delivered emergency food, (rice, beans, wheat), smoke/carbon monoxide detectors installed and did repairs along the way.  

Typical lunch brought by members for the Hermanas.
L to R Hna Fuentes, Mendoza, Townley, Hall
A typical lunch provided to them by members.
Milanesa, Soda, Cold cooked potatoes with mayo, peas, carrots.

Plumbing, his not so favorite thing to do.

Elders are always anxious to help.

Looking on and hopefully learning some skills.

I always deliver cookies wherever we go and found this thank you note
at the bottom of the cookie jar from the hermanas above.

His heavy bag of tricks (tools really).

Elders view from their house in Carmen, Durazno.

Finally, a fan!

Locksmith skills.

Trying to make a key from our house key. The elders lost theirs and
were climbing in the front window to get into their house.

Using the cement to grind down the key.

Fixing beds.

Hold the hammer the other way Elder. It works better!

Instructions always given on how to test and use the new detectors.

Fixing electrical.

The hermanas and their favorite things to sleep with!

Ceiling repair to keep the bugs out!

Hanging white boards.

More bed repairs. The hermanas said that sometimes during the middle of
the night their mattress would fall to the floor.
They always laugh and giggle when things here in the mission are not
perfect and they fall victims. Hermanas are so awesome!

More electrical.

Bedtime buddies.

Toilet repair.

Putting on window screens.

The security bars make putting on screens complicated.

Instructions.

This is their emergency food. We taped all three bottle together with
packing tape and then put the "How to Use" instructions in
between the bottles. They are laminated so hopefully the instructions
will last as long as the food. 

Smoke/Carbon Monoxide Detectors.

Lock repair.

Super enhanced moto!

Lots of open fields, cows, blue skies and clouds!

A Night for Couples in San Ramon

Friday, March 13, 2015

Mike and I were invited to the small ward of San Ramon to be their guest speaker(s). Note: I said maybe 5 words in español, hence the () around the s. They had an activity for married couples. 

It was well attended. Over half of the men were either not members or not active, so it was a great event. We asked them to put questions in a box about whatever they wanted to know about us or from us. "Time Out" was a concept that seemed to be new to some of them when resolving conflicts. How to deal with anger was asked. It gave Mike the opportunity to talk about reading the scriptures every day to become more like Jesus and less carnal like Satan. Mike talked a bit about the eternal marriage concept and how that helps solidfy a marriage. The played a game where the couples would imitate each other.  My limited vocabulary came out with Mike coming home from working and saying "Tengo hambre".  Google translate that!

 The Bishop's wife getting things prepared.

 Bouquet of flowers made from paper and the vase

is from the top of a soda bottle. Everyone was

given one to take home.

I gave mine to a hermana's apartment to give it

some cheer.

 The evening started around 8:30pm and was still going strong at 10:00 pm. 

Uruguayans always eat late dinners starting around 9:00 pm.

Bishop(tall) and his cute wife(short) 

 Newly married couple

 Spinach filled raviolis. Very yummy.

 Our two servers, the Bishop and another High Priest.

Everyone went home happy and well fed both physically and spiritually.

Aerosillas, Definitely not OSHA Approved, but a Great Adventure

Monday, March 2, 2015

We took a real P-Day today. Play-Day!  We took the Ness'and the Harris' to Punta del Este. We were gone all day and then came to our apartment in the evening and BBQ'd hamburgers. We invited the Anderson's to join us as they had to work today.  It was perfect weather too!  The video tells it all!
YouTube: Punta del Este

Just some tickler photos that are part of the video.

The rest of the week was spent feeding missionaries of course.
Tuesday was Concilio and that is always an all day thing by the time we serve breakfast and lunch and do all the clean up.  Then it starting raining like crazy so we waited around so we could give the missionaries a ride to their bus stops.
Thursday at noon, we fed 4 elders at our apartment and we BBQ'd pork chops for them. We had left over carrots from Tuesday, so I made carrot cake. Yummy!  It would be a little better if the canned pineapple down here was a bit more pineappley. It only comes in rings and is kind of bland. I have to blend it to make my own crushed pineapple.  But, of course no one else noticed.  They went back to work full and content.

Mike with an inmobiliaria signing contracts for a new apartment.

Can you guess what is all over our beach today?

Thousands of dead fish all up and down the coast.

Under investigation. 

Friday I knew I was cooking for Elder Pin and Elder Leavitt. It was for Elder Pin's birthday dinner.  Somehow though the other two elders that live with them got invited as well.  I am totally fine with the more the merrier!  So Elder Tucker and Elder Ford were coming tonight too.
We told Elder Pin it was his choice for food. At first he wanted beef stroganoff but when we told him we had a BBQ and could do pork chops, he quickly changed his mind.  So, we did a complete repeat of what we did for lunch yesterday.

In the midst of all this prep work, Elder Pike calls me and sheepishly asks if I have any ideas about where 4 of them can eat for lunch. They have come in on the bus to attend the temple with one of their converts at 2:30 pm.  They used all their money for the bus and had nothing for food.  So, we BBQ'd hamburgers for them with all the fixin's.  I think there must be some kind of Hogwarts magic going on that allows only missionaries to see a sign hanging outside my window. I think it says,

"Cocina de Hermana Burnett, abierto 24/7."  

But, I wouldn't have it any other way!

It is really smelling bad outside!

Hooray for the people in orange!