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!

It is funny to look back on all the jokes about whether dad would obey the mission rules. The Lord easily solved that problem by putting us in a calling where there really aren´t many mission rules. Of course, we work during the day, as we have throughout our lives, and increasingly, by choice, we are teaching new member discussions and getting acquainted with investigators in the evenings. Other than those expected tasks, however, we are quite free to live our lives. Our mission president has little, (actually almost zero), contact with us. We live, work, and attend church in the other mission, and have actually become much better acquainted with the other mission president, President Heaton, but he is not our ecclesiastical leader.

Actually, I did meet with the President Da Silva today to renew my temple recommend, and I asked him, (I know. It doesn´t sound like something I would do. ) if we should check with him if we ever decided to leave town for the weekend to do some sightseeing. He said not to bother, and that he had confidence that we could take care of ourselves. Hmmm...

So...we are in a situation where there isn´t much to rebel against...which, for me, is quite a disappointment.

There is a fairly big group of senior missionaries who work at the temple and the mission offices, which are on the other side of town. We barely know them, however, and it is doubtful that we will ever know them very well. Our mission is very different. They live and work all week in a somewhat fortified block of buildings near the temple, which they seldom leave, (and I think that would drive me crazy). We work in an office, but we are out and about in the city every day, meeting interesting people and having new experiences. Betty and I both agree that we were placed in a situation that perfectly fits our personalities, and that plays to our strengths.

This is one of the many vegetable stands in the market we go to on Saturdays. We get our fresh food here. It is where the harp and maraca players were in the last blog.

Jerry was missing Ranch Dressing. Daniel Collato (our boss) took him to Ingles--a store that caters to Americans. He couldn´t find ranch dressing, but he found some Bleu Cheese dressing. This small bottle was $5.oo U.S. It´s precious!

We visited the Prado Expo this weekend, which was something of a mix between the state fair and a mini Epcot center. Several nations had exhibitions there, including the US, and many national and international businesses did also. The picture on the left shows some of the people who attended. Guess which one is me.

Below, Betty liked the little fake sheep, so we are preserving it for posterity. She was thinking about how hungry she was. Maybe she could butcher it right there. It was so cute, though...

Cute or not, it got butchered.

There were a bunch of animal rights people outside the Expo with ¨Carne es Asesinato¨, (Meat is Murder) signs. I guess this is what they were upset about. It smelled really good, but the lines were too long.

This, however, we did try. It is called a Paella; a stew of rice, seafood, and some UFO´s, (unidentified floating objects). It tasted good!!

Yes, folks, he is everywhere! This was part of the US embassy exhibit. All around the fair there were children carrying American flags, which we didn´t understand until we arrived at the exhibit and found that they were giving them away. Obama has promised the Uruguayans that they can be part of the America health care system......! Hey! I am just kidding! Gosh! All of you tea-party folks take everything so seriously!

Yup! Still American! Still proud! Still Ugly! For those of you who are wondering where our name tags are, we have been told not to wear them when we are just traveling around the city. Supposedly, it makes us more of a target for bad people, and I guess they figure the thieves would expect older people to have money. All that is fine, but in truth, I make up two of most Uruguayan men, and up to now, no one has even looked at us cross-eyed.

We have a little playground right outside our apartment, so if you would like to bring the grandkids......











We taught our first new member discussions in the evening this week, and we have more planned. We had a baptism in the ward on Sunday, and are looking at possibly 3-4 more soon. The high priests were really motivated, (Yeah, I know, oxymoron), on Sunday, and they concluded that all of the good things that are happening in the ward were coming to pass because they were regularly attending the temple as a group. I can´t find anything wrong in their thinking, and we think it is amazing and wonderful that they have such enthusiasm for the missionary work. We are, as a ward, going to the temple tonight for baptisms, followed by an endowment session. They are walking their talk.

One advantage that we have over the young missionaries is that they need to teach and baptize quickly, but we are going to be here for awhile. As a result, the investigators who are slower to commit or develop testimonies, but who still have interest, are going to become ongoing projects for us. We are excited about that. We went to the home of a member couple this week who have been together for 12 years, but are not married. We hit it off with them pretty well, and we are going to work toward a wedding.

We are not expert in our jobs at the employment center yet, but we have made great strides. Betty´s Spanish is improving very quickly, although she still has trouble understanding and often feels somewhat frustrated. I am proud of her. My Spanish is also gradually improving too, and it needs to improve.

We are happy, well-sheltered, and well-fed, (really well-fed). We are gaining in confidence, and are taking joy in our mission. And.....we are ....Obeying all the rules.....that we know about.

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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!!

Sister Heath is updating the blog tonight, so I hope you don't fall asleep reading it. We are staying in the Hotel Ibis still. Our apartment should be ready tomorrow, but we will see. We are spending money like crazy staying in hotels, eating out, taking taxis, etc. We will be glad to have a refrigerator, washing machine, stove, and microwave soon.

We are excited but overwhelmed after our first week here. We had a two-day training for the office staff in Spanish (the trainer spoke muy rapido.) It gave us a good taste for how much of the language we have to learn. I know the meanings of words, but they are used differently. For instance, "de acuerdo" means suddenly, but they use it like a transition from one thing to another. It's happening a lot. Jerry is working more on the idioms and the humor. I just pretend that I got the joke (or make up my own in my mind--hence I'm laughing when others aren't.)

Today, it stopped raining, so we didn't need our paragua (umbrella.) It was nice to walk.

We had a "break-the-fast" dinner this afternoon with the senior couples who work at the temple. We went to the temple yesterday afternoon, and being Saturday, it was so busy!! All the lockers were full, and we had to put our street clothes in a white tote above the lockers. It was crazy busy! We were the witness couple. That makes 100% for us in the South American temples now. I guess they are happy to get someone who knows what they are doing.

I will try to get pictures of the office (and the chapel we go to) downloaded this week sometime. Once we move, we will be without internet except at the office, so we may be pretty limited. Wish us luck in getting settled this week.

The church is still true and we are looking forward to helping people find jobs. Que tenga un buen dia. (Have a good day.)

Love,

Mom

Exhausted and Energized

Yup, I have lost weight. Just kidding! That isn't me in the picture, but since Betty and I were far too exhausted to remember to ask for a picture, this is the best we can do for now. Somebody who actually understands photoshop can stick us in the middle of President Da Silva and his lovely wife.
Friday began at about 4:00 A.M., as we needed to get ready to meet the van taking us to the airport by 5:00. We had weighed and re-weighed our luggage the night before, trying to get all of our bags under 50 Lbs. Over 50 would cost $50 per bag, and over 70 would cost$100. Because of construction, the van couldn't get close to our dormitory, so we had to lug 4 suitcases, 2 carry-ons, and two "personal items" across the MTC campus.

When we got to the van, we were unpleasantly surprised to find that it needed to carry a driver, 3 senior couples, and one younger elder, plus up to two years worth of luggage for everybody. I really didn't think it was going to happen and I figured somebody had goofed, (and actually, I still think so), but in a kind of reverse "loaves and fishes" miracle, the young driver somehow fit 2 full van loads into one van, and off we went.

When we arrived at the airport, we were the quintessential opposite of Heidi's "traveling light" philosophy. I wasn't sure how we were going to move all this stuff at once, but we found a "small" luggage cart, ($4.00!) and got to the baggage check. After that things got better. The nice lady at the desk winked at our two overweight, (51 lbs), bags, and we were on our way.

Salt Lake to Dallas, and then a two hour layover. Dallas to Miami, followed by a 6 hour layover. Finally, around midnight, we boarded our plane to Montevideo. It was a long night. I took a sleeping pill and still never slept, although I think I hallucinated that I had died and was headed...well....not toward heaven!

President Da Silva and his wife were waiting for us at the Carrasco airport, and took us to the mission home. We tried to make a good impression, but after about 30 hours of travel, I doubt we succeeded. The president is an impressive man, probably in his late 40's, and somewhat serious in nature. He has already been a bishop, a stake president, an area president(seventy), and now a mission president. Actually, if all that had happened to me, I guess I would be kind of serious too. Or...perhaps my lack of "serious" is the reason it never did.

Veronica Obaldia rescued us, or the president, or both. Veronica is the 2nd in command at the career resources center, and is an absolute ball of fire. She is a returned missionary, (Argentina), and has been working at the CRE for about 5 years. She drove us to our Hotel in downtown Montevideo, and by the time we got there she had us so pumped up and enthusiastic about the work we are going to do, that we almost didn't feel tired anymore. While I am talking about Veronica, I should also mention that she picked us up for church early this morning, got us there, gave an amazing gospel doctrine lesson, and then provided us with a wonderful lunch. I think we will have to really work to live up to her example.

We have been temporarily housed at the beautiful and relatively expensive downtown Holiday Inn, at the expense of the CRE (Center of Resources for Employment.) If you ever saw pictures of our room in the MTC, (another post), you will recognize that we have taken a step up in the world.

So here we have pictures of me and the hotel, and me standing in front of the hotel with my scriptures. Yeah, scriptures! My Kindle didn't survive the trip. I think it somehow got squished on one of the legs, and all the screen shows is black. This after making it through the Andes of Peru. I am sure many of you are thinking the Lord is trying to tell me something, and you may be right. Nevertheless, I am having another one sent down as soon as I have an address. Although I had already concluded in the MTC that I wasn't going to have time on this mission for much discretionary reading, the Kindle had already proven to be a great tool for the materials I did need to read. Of course, mom still has hers, but getting her to share it is a real problem!!

How strange it was when Veronica took us to church this morning, that of all the chapels she could have picked, she took us to the same one I had attended for 11 months on my mission. Talk about deja vu all over again.

I have to say right here that we tend, myself included, to assume that the church in Latin America, is perhaps a step or two behind the US in the knowledge and/or spiritual development and commitment of its members. Of course, it simply isn't true. The discussion in gospel doctrine today was as intellectual, (and spiritual) as you could find anywhere in the church. The members who attended the unheated, (winter here), church today were at least as committed as any in Idaho and Utah. Their knowledge of the gospel, excluding the newest converts, was the equal of our own. In many cases, they probably have us beat in terms of humility, but that is often the result of a challenging life. The gospel is mature here. The church is being led by people who served missions in their youth, and who have made temple covenants.

Hopefully, I haven't come across as flippant or disrespectful, but I have decided to live this mission joyfully, and for me that means that my true, somewhat irreverent personality will emerge now and then. However, Betty and I both feel very, very privileged to be here at this time, and we would not trade this experience for anything else that is out there.

This afternoon we went to the home of our friend, and my former baptism, Nibia Abeiro, and it was a joyful reunion. Betty was encouraged by how much she was able to understand, and communicate, with the members we met today, but....she still feels as if she has a long way to go, (and she's right.) Tomorrow, we go apartment hunting, and then start our CRE training in the afternoon.