A Useful Pioneering Project

All of the missionaries in our district went to the San Carlos Museum for P day. It is on the site of an old fort from the 18th century and only a corner of the original is left but it was very informative and we all had a good time. We are currently teaching some Bolivians in Chacon which is a small community about 5 – 10 minutes from our house in Eugenio Bustos. They do farm work for a living, are poor and live in humble conditions. Their houses are one room and are self-made from the log trimmings from the saw mill. Inside is a layer of black plastic for water proofing then covered with cardboard for insulation. No windows! Ponciano and Hilda Estrada’s (plus two small children) house has a concrete floor and a woodstove but Wilbur Acua’s floor is dirt with no heater. Neither had any chairs and we taught the first lessons with everyone sitting on the only bed in the house. We since have given them a couple of plastic chairs. Not sure how they afforded it but the Estradas have a pickup. The other day we were visiting and Fred helped them in building a “carport” from bamboo. Reminded him of doing pioneering projects with the scouts. Notice in the 2nd picture that Hilda carries her one year old daughter on her back while working around the house and yard. It worked out pretty well and all were happy with the final product. We gave the Book of Mormon kids version to another family we have been teaching and a couple of the kids, Miguel and Anita, immediately sat down by the fence and started reading. Such sweet kids! We came across a van that was Wal-Mart on four wheels. They had a little of everything! The inspections continue with a trip to San Luis and parts east. It is about a 4 or 5 hour drive and almost half way to Buenos Aires. Look who we found hanging out in downtown San Luis with her torch held high outside a casino! We passed a little town with a familiar name! Amy and Donna Fraga should be proud.

 

The follow up on maintenance items was a bit complicated and often never got done so the Mission President authorized Fred to issue work orders for repairs directly to a contractor which cuts through a lot of previous red tape. Some things from your career just have a way of following you around.

Our widowed landlord, Delia got a new little dog named Pompi from her children and he is a perfect little companion for her. 

 

We had Elder Wakley and Elder Lott over to our house for all five sessions of General Conference streaming over the internet Saturday and Sunday.  Our best efforts to fill their stomachs was futile.  They enjoyed the ribs, spaghetti and other assorted foods.  Linda had to make a special trip to the store Monday to resupply the depleted shelves and fridge!  Conference was really great with three new Apostles called to replace the ones who had passed.

Putin' on the armor!

Found this cool picture in one of the pensions we inspected so I took a picture of the picture.

We Found It! (sort of)

We had a baptism in the La Consulta branch! Judi Vladez was baptized and welcomed into the church. I know this looks like the picture was taken in a dungeon but it was getting ready to be painted. It looks much better now. We have a collapsible baptismal font that seems to get the job done. It is set up behind the chapel and taken down after the ceremony. We are teaching nine investigators at present. Not sure yet how many will continue to progress but it is a wonderful experience giving them the opportunity to learn about the church. Some are very poor but nevertheless deserve all of the blessings the Lord has in store for them if they will follow his teachings. Maria Condo carries her little one on her back everywhere during the day doing chores, cleaning and cooking that yummy bread in the outdoor oven. When the baby gets hungry mom is right there! We finally got a chance to take a picture of this unique wash tub made from 1/3 of a tractor tire. It is usually in use when we drive by and we don’t want to cause any awkward moments. It serves as a bathtub for the kids and a laundry tub for washing the clothes. A pretty good idea actually. We have started the inspections again beginning with San Juan. Hard to believe we have already been here six months! Some interesting things in the missionaries’ pensiones continue to amaze us like a way overdue defrosting of this freezer. We have the inspections down to an efficient routine now. We have developed a scoring system with candy bars as a reward for the cleanest places. The REALLY good ones get a Snickers from Wal-Mart. It actually works as word has gotten around the mission! While in San Juan we actually found the house with the address of Fred’s great aunt when she lived in San Juan almost 100 years ago! The original house was destroyed along with all of the others in the area by the 1944 earthquake. Unfortunately neither the people living there now nor any of the neighbors know anything of Teresa Garcia or her family. We had another of our monthly activities with the other missionary couples in the mission. We went to a monument of the Ejercito de los Andes (the Army of the Andes), led by General San Martin, in Mendoza. It is up on a hill overlooking the city. Then we went down to the Plaza Independencia and rode bikes around for a while and ate some yummy ice cream. We met a group of Hari Krishnas chanting their thing as they walked around so we joined with them for a bit mutual fun. They got a kick out of Fred ringing the bell on his bike in time with their chanting and instrumentals. Here is the sunrise between Tunuyan and Ugarteche one early morning on our way to Mendoza. Love these mountains!

Best Advertising!

Well it has been snowing here lately while you northerners are going through heatwaves and fires everywhere. We are just awed by the majesty of the Andes Mountains. It is a photographer’s paradise if you like mountain scenery. We took a trip up to Historic Manzano which is a place where General San Martin met with his troops back in the late 1700s in the fight for independence from Spain for Argentina, Chile and Bolivia. He let it be known that he was going to cross the Andes from there to attack the Spanish but the local Indians snitched him off to the Spanish. He knew this would happen and the Spanish fell for the decoy while San Martin attacked through another route further north through Uspallata. The rest is Argentine independence history. It is tourist place with museums and shopping to be had. There is a restaurant there with the best ever advertising! Nothing better to attract the gaze of hungry passers-by than huge racks of ribs cooking in plain sight over an open fire. We had a wonderful buffet meal there and left feeling like we had just finished a big Thanksgiving dinner. Beef ribs, sausage, suckling pig and goat all fire roasted plus a large selection of other stuff. We WILL be back! Our monthly outing with the other couple missionaries was in San Martin. We had a tour of an olive oil processing plant which also has a small hotel on site. It was very interesting seeing how they take the raw olives and reduce them to oil. President and Sister Goates were able to take time out from their busy schedule to be with us. A good mid-day meal was had by all. We also visited a family vineyard and got some insight into the things they do to get by. We finally finished all 80 of the inspections of the missionaries quarters in the whole mission just in time to start over in September. We are smarter now and more familiar with the lay of the land, so to speak, so we expect things will go much smoother on the second round. It was really great to get to see the whole mission and meet some very outstanding and wonderful young missionaries even if some of them come up a little short on housekeeping. We are still teaching some investigators and unbaptized members of different families in the branch. There is a baptism this Saturday for Judi Valdez who is a neighbor of ours. We have sort of adopted our landlord’s dog named Boni. She reminds us of our daughter Heather’s dog, Mocha. She has developed a habit of crossing her front paws when she is lounging around the house. She does not get much attention from the owner and is pretty much just a watch dog around here. Fred has been teaching her manners and she is a quick learner and good pooch. She loves coming indoors occasionally and likes to lie down on the mat in front of our couch for a nap. The mother of one of our members died and we went to the funeral. They do not embalm people here so they bury them quickly. This woman died at 1am and was buried at 5pm the same day! The cemetery was an interesting place. Some build shelters over the graves and it gives the cemetery a shanty-town look. Cultural diversity I suppose.

Hokey What?

We hope you guys are enjoying summer there because it is COLD here with temperatures down to freezing and below almost every night. Our monthly outing with the other couples here was at the Mendoza Zoo. It was a fun outing were we saw lots of interesting and some boring animals. One interesting fact is that some of the animals have escaped from their cages and still hang around the zoo in the woods and shrubbery there. The lion walking around loose was cool. JUST KIDDING. It was mostly monkeys and some other animals we had never seen before. One of the highlights was watching a couple of grizzlies dancing, so to speak. Elder Carrea from Chile decided to try out his new theory on “scripture study by osmosis” during a break at our District Meeting. I think the idea needs a little work yet. Then there are the gangsta sistas from Valle de Uco Zone flashing their gang signs. No wonder half of our zone got transferred this time! Our Tres A La Vez in La Consulta was a smashing success. Like the others it ended with a talent show where we had lots of participants. We did our part by getting all of the missionaries from the US to do that long standing tradition that everyone knows but can’t remember exactly when or where they learned it; that all-inclusive dance; that icon of American culture; the HOKEY POKEY! It went down with resounding applause and cheers from the crowd. Now all of the Latino missionaries that saw it are doing it! The whiteboard exercise down at the town square was highly successful. We got over 50 contacts with addresses to follow up on. More than all the other towns combined! I love this town! Hmmm… looks like Elder Gray is also testing out the “scripture study by osmosis” theory. Pension inspections produced another goofy hat to try on.

Asado Is Good Stuff!!

"Tres a la vez" is a program in our mission that focuses on baptism, retention and reactivation. Our zone in Valle de Uco had an all-day event planned for contacting investigators, study, contacting potential investigators and a talent show. We were a bit skeptical about the whole thing that these young missionaries had planned but went along to support the activity. It was in another town, Tupungato, where all 16 missionaries in the zone would swarm down and focus on the tasks at hand. Normally there are only 6 in that town. Each companionship was assigned three investigators to visit that we had never met. Then we met back at the church afterwards. First house - the wife answered the door and promptly waved us off. Second house - nobody home. Well our skepticism was really off the chart at this point and we figured we'd be back to the church in no time. The third house was a couple in their 70’s named Villaverde. We had such a wonderful time getting to know them. It was an awesome experience! We ended up spending an hour or more with them sharing a video and teaching them about the restoration. Had to slap myself for lack of faith. After lunch and study time (during the siesta), we headed downtown to a plaza where the plan was to have a couple of whiteboards with markers and ask people on the street to write down some of the things they felt were a blessing in their lives. Skepticism was raging again. Turns out people were happy to do it! We spent an hour or so and the young missionaries got over 20 names and addresses to visit at a later date! Another slap for lack of faith. I cannot think of another activity I have ever seen that produced so many contacts in such a short period of time with such easy effort. The talent show was fun and many of the ward members and missionaries took part. One guy sang three songs that were at the professional level. Absolutely amazing. Got home late but the day was a success we will not soon forget it. The Quecanos are such a sweet family. They are the ones who cooked the yummy bread in the brick oven. They invited us over after church to have "asado" for lunch. Asado is roasted meat cooked over coals much like a barbeque. They fired up the brick oven again where they divided the coals in three parts. Cooking sliced potatoes in the oven…..heating water…..and cooking the asado. The meat was beef ribs, sausage and some sort of sliced beef. Done to perfection it was scrumptious! We get such a kick out of Sister Quecano. She is a bit shy and is only about four and a half feet tall but such a generous and sweet personality. We are still teaching the Condo's teenaged girls. They have a tentative baptism date for August 15. Their 23 year old brother, Jose, who has not been out to church in years, is helping and we are hoping he and the rest of the family will take this occasion to renew their commitments and activity. Stay tuned!