A Computer at Last

After three and a half weeks without a computer, we were finally able to purchase another one and . . . . just in time for a Mother's Day visit with our family.

The Apple store is just a short drive from our place, and Mariano Smith (a different last name for an Argentine, I thought) became very acquainted with us as we visited the store many times asking questions and trying to acquire a new computer.  He has the serial numbers of our other computers on file and if someone were to bring in the computers to have the hard drives cleaned up, he could identify them and call us.  Oh, if that were only the case.   He and others at the store were very sympathetic and accommodating to us and treated us well.  We appreciated their friendly service.  It is just heavenly to type on a computer again instead of my one finger tapping on my iPod.  However, I was getting pretty good at emailing on that thing. 

Are we really short, or are they really tall???  Elder Petersen, (on the left) from American Fork, who has just been in Buenos Aires for 5 weeks, and Elder Whitmer, from Yuma, Arizona, who goes home in August, needed a land line or a phone on which to call home for Mother's Day. Rich offered his iPhone through the Skype connection to call their mothers.  They were delighted . . . and no charge to them.  It only costs 2 cents a minute and both calls only totaled $1.80.  Since we only have this small three room apartment, we set them up in our bedroom to call so they could have some privacy.  Then, we could still visit in the living room.  It worked out well. 

First thing to notice in this picture is our couch.  Yes, we finally have something to sit on softer than a folding chair.  It's wonderful!  It came from another missionary apartment which is being closed down.  It is leather and just fits our space perfectly.  We so appreciate having it.  

The Elders had eaten dinner with some members right before they came, so after the calls, we had some treats.  We had chocolate cake (not quite as good as Betty Crocker, pudding in the mix, Devils Food cake) but we gobbled it down.  Cake mixes here turn out quite dry, and the chocolate is not exactly like we are used to, but it was good.  Then one of our favorite things to do is have cut up apples dipped in Dulche de Leche.  Yum!  

This is a picture taken after one of their teaching appointments.  The lady in black is the investigator, and the other is her friend who is a member of the church. Whenever the Elders teach single women, there has to be an adult male or a couple in attendance.  So they asked Elder Kroff and me to accompany them.  This lesson was taught in the church.  

It was so fun tonight to see our family again on Skype. It seemed like forever since we last saw them.  Urban said, "Are you going to be coming home soon?"  Oh . . . that went straight to our hearts.  We miss our little boys so much.  Rich has rotating family pictures on the screen saver on his computer at the office.  He said he may have to take them off, because he gets too emotional seeing them every day.  It makes him too homesick for those little guys.  We couldn't exist here on our mission without this high tech computer access to the world and especially to our family.  Love it!

The day before yesterday, Rich had an unfortunate and embarrassing experience when he went to the grocery store to get some pesos out of the ATM machine.   I didn't go with him.  He usually walks with his head down a little, mainly, because we are always looking for dog dodo on the sidewalks.  He didn't see that the glass sliding door to the store was closed, and walked right into it.  He bumped his head on the door, not even hard enough to leave a mark, but it shattered the glass in the door into a million pieces.  Unbelievable!   Everyone turned to stare, of course.  The security person came running over to see if he was okay. He only had a small cut on his knuckle.  All they did was take his name. Then, the ATM machine was empty.   We go to this market all the time because it is the closest to us.  They'll be whispering about the gray haired man in the white shirt and tie next time we enter the store.  

Our senior moments never end, and we are more aware each day that we need a caretaker with us at all times. It wouldn't do any good for me to be Rich's caretaker, and he mine, because we are both losing our minds and do stupid things.  Sometimes we feel we are not competent to be this far away from home.  After we purchased the computer, we went to another grocery store to shop for food and get some money out of the ATM machine.  When we were ready to pay for the food, Rich's debit card was gone.  You got it - - - he forgot to pull it out of the ATM machine. I was standing right there too.  The machine could have sucked the card back in since it wasn't retrieved, but how did we know if that happened. The store personnel called the number on the machine, but no answer.  They said since it was Saturday that we would have to wait until Monday to check it out.  We came right home and called the credit card number to cancel the card.  Good thing is that after we purchased the computer, our account was frozen since it was such a large purchase. It is a security measure taken to insure that the purchase was valid and from us.  We would have had to call to get it unfrozen and they would then check out the purchase.  Even though our account could remain frozen until we could see if our card was still in the machine, we still decided to cancel the card and get new ones.  So a rush order is in place for new cards.   One might wonder why we were able to get the money out of the machine if the account was frozen.  We can only figure that since a pin number was used, it let us do it.  Other purchases where a clerk handles the transaction with the card is where it gets hung up.  If we didn't have bad luck, we wouldn't have any luck at all (As Gene Lynch used to say) 

Now we are counting on things getting better.  Wouldn't you say it is time?