We have had an interesting couple of weeks. The first picture here is of our office, which is part of the larger office area of the Center of Employment Resources. The close-up is of the pretty flowers they gave Betty when we arrived. We have been treated very nicely.

This is the Chapel for the Montevideo 3rd ward, our home ward during our mission. It is the same chapel where I spent 11 months of my first mission, (in two different areas), and it hasn´t changed much. It really is fun to be back in a chapel that already held so many good memories for me. Our bishop, Bishop Collato, is also our boss at the CRE, (Centro de Recursos de Empleo), during the week. This last Sunday he told us that some evenings after work, and in our ¨spare time¨, we will be working with the missionaries in the ward. We will also be teaching new member discussions. So now I think we understand why all the apartments we were shown, happened to be in his ward.

Finding an apartment we liked was easy, but getting into it took time...a full week, during which we had the expense of a hotel. Nevertheless, we are very happy with our new home. The first picture shows the view from our window. We overlook the Rambla, which is the winding riverside highway around the city. In the background, you can see the river, or as they call it, the sea. It actually is part of the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, (river of silver), where it widens to meet the Atlantic. It is still considered to be a river for another 100 miles. There are beautiful, white beaches all along the Rambla. It does resemble the view from a luxurious apartment in Florida, but the rent is quite reasonable from an American perspective. However, any Uruguayans living here would be considered to be very well off. From my perspective, I wanted a neighborhood which would offer some security to my wife, and this one does.

Our keys! Three locks for the front door, plus 24 hour security at the front door of the building. I know, it sounds like overkill, but this is the way it is done here. Crime is very common, although violent crime is not. Fewer guns can be found in Uruguay, so if someone is going to rob you, it is more likely to be a knifepoint. It had better be, because I don´t intend to take any robber seriously if they don´t have the initiative to show me a weapon.

Below, you can see the little window in our front door, where we check for boogeymen before we open up. Think "Young Frankenstein."
We also have a wall safe where we keep Betty´s diamonds, and my bars of gold.

This is a nice view of my beautiful wife in the living room of our apartment. Immediately behind her is the entrance to the bedroom and bathroom, and the hall to the left leads to the kitchen. The front door is immediately to the right in that hall.

Here,  you can see me and the rest of the living room.

Below are some pictures of the bedroom.

Notice the wide variety in my wardrobe. Boring......!!

 Ok, I know it looks like a normal kitchen, but things are very different here, and we are still learning, (Ok, Betty is still learning) basic things like how to open cans, (can openers are different here). Actually there is hardly any canned food here. Everything is fresh, (some frozen), but this creates some problems we don´t have in the states. Most everything here has to be cooked from scratch.

And, this is our dryer. We do have a washing machine, but it took all day to dry the clothes. I am more in favor of just taking the clothes to one of the many little laundries found here. It seems to cost about $5.00, (100 pesos) a load. I just don´t think we have time to fiddle with laundry, but it is best that we, at least, know how to do it.

On Saturday, we went shopping at an outdoor market near our apartment, and we took a picture of this man playing the Paraguayan harp. It was very beautiful, and we did tip him. This is a form of the self sufficiency in employment that we are promoting, and down here any employment is good.

This is how we get a dozen eggs. Next time we will send you a picture of our bags of milk. We also keep buying and sampling things that we simply don´t recognize, and some things defy description even after we have sampled them.




It looks like we are on vacation, and in some ways we are, but generally we are out of the house by 8 AM to catch our bus, and we don´t get back until after 6 PM, (or 1800 as they call it here). Starting this week, we expect our evenings to begin to fill up as well. So far, Saturday is our time to get temporal things done.

But....in the end.....life is beautiful!!