A Great Weekend

These are the senior couples that serve in various capacities in the South America Area Office in Buenos Aires, and with whom we were invited to join for watching General Conference. Some are Welfare Missionaries, Humanitarian Missionaries, Perpetual Education Missionaries, and Medical Missionaries.  One couple works with the Auditing Dept, and performs mission audits (Rich will be seeing them, he tried to get on their good side), and one couple was called as Music Missionaries.  

The Music Missionary assignment was interesting to us, and we learned that they teach music to members so they can play and conduct hymns for the church meetings.  They teach piano lessons on keyboards with the simplified method that involves chords.  They have had great success.  It is an intense three week program and if a person progresses in the learning, and accomplishes what is intended, then the keyboard is given to the ward or branch.  It can be plugged into the sound system and actually sounds like an organ.  And in some cases if the individuals really progress and pass tests and whatever, they give a keyboard to them for their personal use.  Isn't that cool?   They have the keyboards shipped here from somewhere. I'm not sure if they come from the US.   Their day starts at around 3:00 p.m. until 9:00 p.m. to accommodate the schedules of the working participants.  They move around to the wards and stakes where members are signed up for the lessons.  I was interested and impressed with this type of mission.  This couple has also served a music mission to Honduras.

Watching conference was in a comfortable room with comfortable chairs.  We hope they invite us back in October.   

Today, Rich got a call from his missionary buddy serving there to invite us to go to a ranch in the campos (countryside) where they were going to have dinner --probably some sort of beef. He said that Thursday and Friday is a holiday and their offices are going to be closed.  So he thought we would be closed too, and he invited us to go with them.  No way- - - this is transfer week and the work must go on.   It is interesting how different the missions are around the world.  

We are excited to see how these next few days fall together as we are involved with our first transfer.  This is when the new missionaries arrive, companionships are changed, and those who have finished their missions leave.  Our mission president insists on a smooth, low impact transition.  Meetings have been held to insure that everyone knows what the schedule is and what his or her duties are.  So we'll report on how it goes in tomorrows update.

Today after work, Rich ventured out to find the place to pay our rent.  We have been searching where to go for weeks now.  It is 14 blocks from our apartment, and when he got there they were closed.   It is possible to pay every other bill, except the phone bill, at the grocery store. The cashiers take them and process them.  We were behind a bill payer one time and it was a little bit of a wait.   We took a couple of bills to pay one day while we were shopping for groceries, but we were in the wrong line.  Only certain checkout lines take the utility bills.  And one of our bills was over due --- they won't take overdue bills.  It was only 17 pesos (between $5.00 - $6.00) for the building maintenance, and they wouldn't take it.  We are told that next month they will just add on to the overdue amount.  They will do this for three months.  We don't know what would happen after three months if it wasn't paid.  

The reason we hadn't paid the bill is because of the screwy way they deliver the mail.   There are no mail boxes.  The building doors are locked, of course, so the mail is just slid under the door.  Then whoever comes in and sees it, picks it up and throws it on the stairs.  Then people go through the mail and pick out what is theirs.  There are no names on the bills,  just apartment numbers among other gibberish.  It is hard to pick out the number.   Well, for days we saw envelopes and magazines and advertisements on the stairs, but didn't know it was mail for everyone.   Good grief, who would have thought!!  Then the "light went on" and we decided to go through it.  Two things were for our apartment.  Who's in charge here????