Mission Home Breakfast

No sleep in day for us today. We were up at the usual time to be ready to go to the Mission Home for breakfast by 8:00. The office staff was invited for the traditional breakfast held when one of our own is leaving -- that being Elder Valente. When, we don't know. We love being invited for breakfast, though. It is a good time!

The new and the old posing for a picture. Elder Paz on the left is replacing Elder Valente who has been in the office for 6 months. A Latino elder is usually assigned to this job involving apartments because they know the language better and can communicate more easily with landlords and utility companies, etc. Elder Valente has been great at the job because he is from Argentina, and he understands who to talk to and what to do to get things done. Elder Paz is from Peru so we hope he can deal with the Argentines well even though he is not native to this country.

Breakfast was delicious and consisted of pancakes, a breakfast casserole of potato, eggs, and ham, watermelon and mandarin oranges. The pears were not ripe enough to serve. While the elders and children were quietly stuffing themselves, the other four adults visited throughout the meal. The other end of the table was left out of most of the conversation -- mainly because it was in English.

The traditional group photo after breakfast was missing Austin, the Argyles oldest child. He was at a soccer game. The other children are Seth, Anika, and Quinn.

At 10:00 after breakfast dishes were done, I had a hair appointment with Javier. I planned it that way because we would be in the area. We walked from the mission home to the peluqueria. Saturday is a busy day for him, as there were women all over the place inside. I was immediately taken to a salon chair and one of his assistants washed my hair and applied the color. Knowing what I learned from my first appointment with him, I didn't panic as much when I sat for over an hour before the color was washed out. I guess when it has "done it's thing" it turns off and doesn't keep getting darker and darker, thank goodness.

While waiting, I was served a drink of water in a fancy glass with a stem on it, and some small wrapped candy. At least that is what I thought it was until popping one in my mouth. It tasted more like a cough drop than candy.

Javier didn't get carried away cutting the back of my hair so short this time. I just let him style it however he wanted and it turned out great. He was so busy that we didn't get a picture of him today.

Rich walked up to the Apple store to look around and purchase some kind of a chord he needed for the computer. He also found an ice cream place right across the street from Javier's which had internet service. So he sat outside and ate ice cream while doing things on his iPhone.

While sitting there, a young man walking his dog noticed his name tag and called him by name. Rich looked up in surprise and asked if he should know him. Then the fellow told him that he was a member of the church and worked at the U.S. Embassy here in Bs. As., and that he was in President Argyles ward. He had a BYU hat on so that started conversation about both being graduates of the school. He asked if we, as missionaries, could watch football games on T.V. Rich assured him we could, and he invited us to his home next Saturday to watch the BYU vs. Oklahoma game with a group of people. He said he would get the office phone number from President Argyle and give us a call later in the week. How nice! We may meet new friends.

After my hair appointment, we decided to take the colectivo back home. So, we walked a little way to a bus stop and jumped on a bus we recognized. It took us close to our apartment building. We were so proud of ourselves for being successful two days in a row with the public transportation.

Our friends, the Crawfords, are entering the MTC on Monday, August 31, on their way to the Italy, Catania mission. We are so excited for them so we decided to call them through Skype on the iPhone. We had a nice chat and wished them well. Then we wanted to talk to Doyles in Switzerland, and they were on Skype, so we buzzed in and had a nice face to face chat with them. It was a great day to visit friends.

A walk to Carrefour for a few groceries was pleasant, then we spent the rest of the evening cleaning the house, and I made some Lamb's Cafe rice pudding to snack on through the week.