What a great weekend we had. It began with our taking the bus to the and attending the wedding of two of our young friends. It was our first wedding in Uruguay, and the first time we had heard the ceremony performed in Spanish. The couple just shined, and we were very grateful to be invited. That evening at 7PM, they performed the temple wedding, which was wonderful, and later we went to the wedding reception. It was held about 50 yards away in the neighboring chapel.
There was good food, (excellent hors dourves that I had never tasted before), music, (they had a DJ9, and dancing. When the bride and groom entered,they played the beginning of ¨From This Moment¨, but then immediately shifted into the Blue Danube Waltz, (see 2001, A Space Odyssey), and the bride and groom waltzed.
Then the parents waltzed with them, then everybody began to waltz. And...I mean....they could all really dance. Whether old, medium or young, They were good!! Later on, as they played faster music, it became apparent that almost everyone there was skilled in swing dancing. We were, and are, a bit baffled. Do they teach it in school here?
Anyway, we did some unimpressive dancing of our own, but spent more time holding the baby of a young couple who really enjoyed the chance to trip the light fantastic, almost as much as we enjoyed holding the baby. When we left, at 10:30, the party was still going strong.

The next day the other senior missionaries had invited us for a Tex-Mex dinner at the mission housing near the temple. We all really miss Mexican food here, and some of the ladies here had the Tex-Mex cooking skills, and figured out where to get the ingredients. Wow!! It was amazing! They say they will try for Chinese next time.

Today was stake conference, and it was being held across town in an area we weren´t too familiar with. We figured we would catch our regular bus to the city center, and then see if we could find one that was going our way. However, as we were standing in our regular place, wondering where the bus was, we noticed that they were blocking the road. It turns out there was a race scheduled, and we need to find another bus. As we began to walk up the road, a car stopped beside us. An older gentleman leaned out and asked, ¨Where are you going?¨ We told him we were headed to church, some distance away. He said, ¨Get in! I will take you!¨ We, of course, politely tried to turn him down, but he was insistent, and we got in the car. We weren´t even very clear in our minds about where the church was, but he took us across town, stopped twice to ask directions of passers by, and there we were. We thanked him and he drove away. It wasn´t until later that I figured out that he was one of the three Nephites.

It turned out to be a special stake conference for the 26 stakes of Uruguay and Paraguay, broadcast from Salt Lake, with Elder Ballard and Elder Packer, among others, speaking to us in excellent Spanish.

On the way home, (no Nephite waiting for us this time), we grabbed a bus that we hoped would lead downtown. Instead it took us.....right to the hospital where our friend Myrna, the stroke victim, was staying. We got off, looked at eachother, and decided we were supposed to be at the hospital. We had a good visit, and then found the proper bus and headed home. I guess you could say that we felt abundantly blessed all weekend.

The Christmas decorations went up in the stores this week, immediately after Halloween. It is going to be a lot of Christmas to deal with, since there is no Thanksgiving to break it up. Today, Nov 2, all of the banks are closed, as El Dia de los Muertos, (the Day of the Dead), is a national holiday. Sure enough, even though we are at work, it is kind of dead today.

This week we began teaching the 12 hour workshop by ourselves for the first time. Betty taught one of the sections, and did quite well. I am very proud of her.


I apologize in advance for the light-minded moment, but....the Giants have won the World series!!!!! This, of course, is a sign that the Millenium really is coming soon.

We are going to our first temple wedding in Uruguay tonight. One of the girls who has worked with us in the office as a volunteer is marrying her returned missionary at 7 pm, and then they are having the reception at the chapel next door. We attended the legal wedding this morning, as everyone in Uruguay must first be married by a judge. Odd as that might seem, it was quite nice. The judge talked about the importance that the government of Uruguay placed on marriage; that it was a thing that strengthened the community and the family. We found that refreshing. She then asked the groom first, whether he would take the bride, reversing the normal order. They both seemed so young to us, but as it turns out, he is 26 and she is 23. It was fun, and we hope to have pictures of the bride and groom for next week.

We went to the symphony last night at the oldest theatre in America, the Teatro Solis. It is a magnificent structure, and acoustically it is a marvel. The highlight of the night for me was Rimsy-Korsakov´s wonderful symphony ¨Sherezade¨, based on the 1001 Arabian nights. It is my newest favorite piece of music. Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and now Rimsy Korsakov make me believe that Russian composers are the best.

This is the interior of the theatre, looking toward the back.

These are just a couple more examples of our Uruguayan food. Notice the thick crust on the pizza. They don´t make it any other way, and although I enjoy it, I don´t eat it often, because it is just too hard to get it through the lapband. I had thought about loosening the band before I left, because I knew that the less processed Uruguayan food might be a problem for me. I left it alone, and it probably has been a blessing, because I already would have gained 50 lbs, and as it is, I am only up about ten.

Uruguay is most famous for its meat. This parilla gives you an idea of what is available here. It isn´t much cheaper than the states, but it is very tasty, and there is a greater variety in the types of meat that are consumed. If you look closely, you will see that they use the whole cow.

Speaking of food, I need to tell you a funny story. We laughed so at our 3 year old granddaughter Libby when I told her that she was the only girl that I adore, and she said, "I not a door....anymore!¨ We now sympathize with her. In church this week, one of our friends had a son who was receiving the priesthood. Betty sat with the mother, at the beginning of the priesthood meeting, for the ordination, and the mother said, ¨Gracias por su apollo" (Thanks for your support). What Betty heard was "Gracias por su pollo¨, (Thanks for the chicken). She sat there for several minutes trying to remember giving the lady a chicken. Betty is not a door...anymore.

I had hoped that this photo would be clearer, but perhaps you can click on it and enlarge it. This view of the Plaza de Independencia actually shows where we work. The building on the far left is the Radisson Victoria Plaza Hotel, where Bush stayed on his visit here. To its right are two white buildings, and our building is the second. It is called the Plaza Mayor.

We would love to give you a list of Wilford Woodrufflike missionary experiences every week, but our work, while satisfying, doesn´t usually involve moving mountains, or leaping tall buildings at a single bound. We come to work every morning, try to be of help to the people, do some visiting, and then come home and sleep very well. We are given greater responsibilities week by week, and we are developing the new skills to accomplish them, and perhaps, at our age, that is the real miracle. The trick is not just doing what the Lord commands, but having faith that He will prepare the way, and He does.

A few final points:

1. One of our good friends down here, Mirna Orgambide, who I was able to baptize 40 years ago this Christmas, had a stroke. Mirna has been a less active member, but is one of the best people we know. She is 68, but we think her prospects for recovery are good, and we have been visiting the hospital all week. Shoot a prayer her way for us, if you would.

2. We are going back to Teatro Solis in December for the Opera/Ballet of La Traviata. If all of this sounds overly cultured for us, it is. However, our favorite activity, going to plays, doesn´t work due to language difficulties, so we are somewhat limited to music and dance. The audiences here are highly cultured, and we have had to learn to watch them, to know when we are allowed to applaud. There was no whistling, and no one yelling ¨woo woo woo.¨ In other words....there were no other Idahoans in the theatre.

3. I had a young, unemployed man, a frequent visitor to the office, who had begun to misbehave in here. After some thought, I decided that if the Lord had wanted somewhat to be polite to everybody who came here....he would have sent somebody polite to this mission. End of problem.

4. Betty is not annoying me near as much as she did at the beginning of our mission. She is making real progress.

5. ¨The gift of the Holy Spirit....quickens all the intellectual faculties, increases, enlarges, expands, and purifies all the natural passions and affections, and adapts them by the gift of wisdom to their lawful use. It inspires, develops, cultivates, and matures all the fine toned sympathies, joys, tastes, kindred feelings and affections of our nature. It inspires virtue, kindness, goodness, tenderness, gentleness, and charity. It develops beauty, of person, form and features. It tends to health, vigor, animation, and social feeling. It develops and invigorates all the faculties of the physical and intellectual man. It strengthens, invigorates, and gives tone to the nerves. In short, it is, as it were, marrow to the bone, joy to the heart, light to the eyes, music to the ears, and life to the whole being.¨ Parley P. Pratt. Key to Theology, pp 96, 97.

Spring has arrived here, as you can see by the young leaves on the trees. I am not sure where Betty took this picture, but Montevideo is a city of apartment dwellers, and this is a reasonably upper middle class building.



All of the buildings in our part of town have doormen to provide 24 hour security. One of our games is to see if we can get out of the front door of the building before the doorman opens it for us. We don´t often win. Of course, upon the advice of every Uruguayan we know, we also lock the doors of our apartment at all times. It is quite a change from the Moreland days, when we had no idea where our house keys were, and would leave for weeks with the house unlocked.



The bus system here is so impressive. There are few places in this city of 2 million, in which you are not within a couple of blocks of a bus stop. Once you begin to learn the bus numbers, and where they go, you can easily make your way around the city. Each bus ride costs about 85 cents, although for $1.15 you can buy a two hour pass, which helps if you want to make a quick trip to the mall, or the grocery store and back. Mass transit in the states, (unless you are a dedicated bus taker like Heidi), usually means driving your car somewhere, parking it, and then catching your train or bus. Here a bus is always close by. A car might save you time, but the system makes it unnecessary. If the US ever has to get serious about energy conservation, Montevideo would be an excellent model for a mid-sized city to emulate.

We work in a very nice office with some fine people. Here with us, in these two pictures, are Daniel, soon to be a missionary, and Florencia, who is just 18. They are among several unpaid volunteers who help us 4-8 hours a week, as receptionists and aides in the office. Part of our work is to train and supervise the volunteers. As in any situation with volunteers, some of them are not always totally dependable, and sometimes don´t show up, in which case we need to handle everything that comes through the door on our own.

Much of our work involves helping people prepare to find jobs, or to improve their jobs. We help them to enroll in our labor database. We help them develop resumes which they, (and we), can send to prospective employers. We also enroll them in ldsjobs.org; a site upon which the church is beginning to put great emphasis, and for which I recommend you all sign up and develop your profile. We teach career workshops, for which Betty and I are taking increased responsibility. We also teach workshops, less frequently, to help people develop their own businesses. With younger people, we try to help them find courses of study, in both vocational and university areas, and we try to help them find financing. We are also involved with the perpetual education fund, although Betty and I have had no assignments in that area yet.

Betty has made herself an expert in the receptionist area. She handles telephone calls, and helps direct people to the resources they are looking for. Jerry spends more time helping people develop resumes and enroll themselves on the ldsjobs site. He also spends a great deal of time making telephone calls to find out whether people have found employment, or to remind them to come in and finish the work they have begun. He, of course, will be teaching the majority of the 12 hour workshops, although Betty is working on learning some sections that she might be able to teach, even though her Spanish is more limited. We are on the bus around 8, and don´t get home until after 6. We come home tired, but it is a good kind of tired. Neither of us have suffered from insomnia here. We sleep very well!

Betty chooses the pictures, and since she hates the idea of McDonalds being outside the US, I am surprised that it is here. Still, the McDonalds here are somewhat classier than at home. They all have a separate section called a McCafe, which serves fancy pastries. Still, on principle, we never go there. The food here is good, but very different, and we do find that we miss things that we could get in the states. I would love to go to a Chinese buffet, or to Jaliscos, but nothing like that really exists, other than a couple of fast-food imitations in the mall. The steak and seafood here is very good, but I haven´t been as as impressed by the pasta. They do candy and pastries, (things I try to avoid), quite well too. Turkey is not to be found. Actually, I guess that is technically not true, because mom saw a 12 lb turkey in the Disco, (supermarket), but the price was $50. So Thanksgiving would be an economic problem for us, if they celebrated it, but they don´t. For us, it is just another workday.

This is the outside of Montevideo Shopping, which along with Punta Carretas Shopping and Portones Shopping, make up the three major malls in Montevideo. All of them are quite large, fancy, and expensive, even by US standards. In fact, most things in Montevideo are more expensive than in the US. This is a bit baffling in a place where $600 a month is a pretty standard income for full time work, and $1200 a month would be considered a very high salary. Only about 6% of Uruguayans make more than that, but that would be about 200,000 people; enough, I suppose, to support the malls. The only thing that actually seems cheaper here is housing, but we can testify that most of the dwellings here are very modest, with no central heating, and deserve to be cheaper. We are somewhat in awe of how well the people make do with so little money.


These two twin building are the World Trade Center. Yes, really! They are not as tall, but probably much safer. They are very attractive and are located right next to Montevideo Shopping.

Betty´s camera broke, which has been part of the reason for our late publication of this blog. If we choose to replace it, it will cost at least double here, as it would cost in the states. Electronic imports are heavily taxed. As a matter of fact, everything here is hit with a minimum 22% sales tax, which is simply included in the price. This, as in Canada and most of the rest of the world, funds their health care system and a few other sundry things.

Betty and I are working with new members and old investigators. If the investigators don´t seem to be quickly headed for baptism, the full-time missionaries have to drop them and look for someone else. We, however, are not in such a hurry, and we are friendshipping some of the investigators who still won´t commit to baptism, but who are still attending church. We are trying to limit ourselves, however, in how many people we visit during the week. Our days are already full, and when we overdo it at night, we start to burn out. I am of the opinion that senior missionaries would get a lot more done if they could make a special exemption during the mission, and let us drink coffee; but nobody listens to me.

Ten final observations:

1. One of our new baptisms, 16 year old Matias, was ordained to the priesthood today.

2. We had a wonderful family night, (on a Friday), with the (inactive and unmarried) family of the same boy. We do think they have potential to clean things up and get themselves worthy of the temple.

3. One of our wonderful volunteers, Sabrina, is getting married in the temple Friday.

4. On the bus to church today, (Yes, we are making people work on the sabbath), a beautiful, well-dressed couple, with two little boys, boarded our bus. We didn´t know them, but they looked Mormon, and they got off at our stop. It turned out that they have just moved into the ward, and that he was/is the bishop in his old ward. They look to be in their late twenties. It was wonderful to meet them.

5. We see our lovely Nibia, my 76 year old baptism from my first mission, every week or two. She is doing well, and her son Ernesto is coming from the states to visit in February.

6. Being mugged on our trip to London was difficult, but what was really heartbreaking was that no one cared enough to send us any money to help!!

7. I have figured out that the office is only about 3.5 miles from home, and I am planning to start putting Betty on the bus, and then walking home. It isn´t much extra exercise, but it will help.

8. Betty figured out a way to make lasagna, and although it was really different, it was good.

9. We have learned that when you are cutting open a bag of milk, it is best to start at the bottom, because otherwise it will spray you in the face.

10. The temple is an hour away by bus, but definitely worth the trip!