New Camera - No Car

We woke up at 6:00 knowing we had to get moving to be mostly ready for the day by 7:30. Elder Nelson was coming at that time to be with us because Elder Valente had a brother from the ward taking him to a zone quite far away to write some apartment contracts. Elder Nelson needed to be at the office to gather his Monday morning data from the zone leaders, so that is why he did not accompany them. I told Elder Nelson that I would feed him breakfast. He was thrilled. We had french toast and eggs. Then, anticipating that Elder Valente would be back later in the afternoon, I offered to fix Elder Nelson some sandwiches for his lunch along with those that I was making for us. That, too, made him smile.

We read out of 3rd Nephi and then listened to an address on the Mormon Channel. It was nice having the elder in our home for food and conversation. He is a nice young man - very polite and with good manners. He brought the car with him so he could give us a ride to work due to Elder Kroff's bum leg. The elders have been very attentive to us during this ordeal.

When we got to work, it was 9:00 and my doctor phone started ringing. The problems I dealt with required phone calls back and forth with Dr. Petersen and Sister Argyle. There are some ongoing medical problems with missionaries that I had to learn about because I wasn't in the loop with them. I was writing notes like crazy. I was tied up on the phone and typing up notes for my benefit for two hours. I did no other work, and there were other non medical things that I needed to call some missionaries about before 11:00 when they leave their apartments to go to work. That did not get done.

We had decided that when Elder Valente did return to the office, that Rich and I would take off and go get the MRI on his leg. We assumed the line would be long and wanted to get an early start. Elder Valente's trip was shorter than he expected, so he was back by about 1:00.

Upon reading his emails, he was informed by President Argyle that he was to call the Area Offices and tell them they could have our office car immediately, but remember to take the GPS out of it first. It appears that all 14 missions here in Argentina are being downsized to two cars. Any above that amount are to be turned in. This is in an effort to cut costs. The President did tell us that since he and his family will be in the South for the week (Sis Argyle and children leave tomorrow morning) that we could go to the mission home and take his car to use this week. That is nice of him. Arrangements were made for the elders to take the car to the Area Office today, and they would pay for a remise to bring them back home. So, the elders drove us to the mission home on their way to turn in the car. We would pick up the President's car and go get the MRI.

Parking was available at the clinic and we felt pretty good about getting there while the sun was still up. When we got inside we were surprised and quite shocked to find ourselves the only ones in the waiting room. "Great", we thought. "It isn't busy. Maybe it is because of siesta time. We might get out of here in a hurry." But, it was too good to be true. The girl behind the counter spoke up after working on the computer for a minute and told us our turno (appointment) would be next Sunday at 6:30 p.m. Really???? Good grief! Were we ever fooled! We obviously misunderstood the Doctor. We thought an appointment was not necessary, that we just waited our turn. But we were to go and "wait our turn" just to make the appointment, not get the MRI done. So we have to wait another week. Oh well, at least Rich's leg isn't as sore. But those crutches are a pain.

Since we were out and about, we decided to make a quick trip to the Unicenter. We were pretty close to it. Yesterday when we were taking pictures of the family we ate dinner with, we discovered that something was wrong with our camera. The LCD screen was blank with an ugly streak of something on it. We could not see what we were taking a picture of or review the picture, or change the menus, or set a timer etc. We had to look through the view finder to take the pictures, hoping they were turning out. Luckily they turned out okay, but we wouldn't be able to use the camera in any other way. It was fried. (Later confirmed by a camera store worker)

We decided we better buy a new camera. Sorry, Marianne, after all the trouble you went through to get us another battery charger (that was stolen) for the camera. Rich wanted another Canon camera, but they didn't sell that brand in the mall. Maybe somewhere in Buenos Aires had them, but where? We couldn't wait. So Rich hobbled along to some camera stores. He wanted another small pocket size camera which he finds convenient to carry around.

We found a Sony that was reasonably priced and an upgrade from the one we had. Now we are back in business. A camera is muy importante to us.

While at the mall, we went to the food court to grab something to eat. I certainly didn't want to cook when we got home. We chose an Italian place and got a Napolitan pizza. It had gobs of cheese on it (a little too much for our veins, we thought) plus tomatoes and green olives. It tasted good.

We met up with the elders after arriving at the office to park the car, and they gave us a ride home. Rich's leg was pretty tired by then, so we were grateful for the ride.