Conference Day 2

What a beautiful Sunday morning it is!! Since we don't have to leave the house until after 11:00, we took our time getting ready for the day. Rich even had time to make skinny pancakes. We freeze the left overs and enjoy popping them in the microwave for breakfasts during the week.

It takes us about an hour from the time we leave our apartment until we arrive at the Area Offices. As we were approaching the train station, the train we wanted was just pulling up. We hurried up the stairs to the platform and got on the train before the doors closed. We hadn't purchases our tickets yet, but we didn't want to miss the train and have to wait 20 minutes for the next one. So we paid at the other end. There is no one taking tickets or monitoring if everyone pays. We are sure there are people who ride free all the time.

We found seats right off so we didn't have to stand up for several stops. Today it only took about 30 minutes to get to the Capital. Then we found a taxi to go the rest of the way.

The last half of the morning session had problems on our end. There was a gentleman in the building who works with the "systems", and he couldn't get it going. By the time the afternoon session started, everything was fixed and it worked fine. We'll have to watch the parts we missed on the computer some time this week.

This is the group we enjoyed today. The picture is blurry because when we have someone else take a picture for us, they fail to hold the camera still and let it focus before completing the snap. Our tripod got stolen during the robbery and we haven't found another one yet. WalMart didn't even have any. We need to go searching for one.

Dinner today was casseroles, salads, rolls, and dessert. We were asked to bring the drinks and we purchased the bottles yesterday and put them in the fridge there to cool over night.

The tradition is that since the women cook the food, the men do the dishes. Many hands make light work and the elders have it cleared up in no time.

This is Dr/Elder Petersen and his wife Eileen. He is such a nice person and I have gotten to know him well since I call him every week -- sometimes three or four times a week depending on how many sick missionary calls I get. They have been involved with missionary work for several years of their life. He was a mission president in the Yucatan Peninsula and he is serving an 18 month mission as the area doctor here for Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, and Argentina. He served another two year mission as the area doctor somewhere else. I can't remember where it was.

He never makes me feel I call him too much and tells me if I didn't call him he would think I had forgotten him. He is wonderful!

Since the Allreds are leaving in November, we needed one more picture of them. We may not get to see them before they return to Utah. But after our missions, we know we can get together and visit from time to time. They have eight children so they may be hard to find. Elder Kroff and Elder Allred have enjoyed renewing their friendship. We have enjoyed them these last seven months.

When the taxi dropped us off at the train station, the same thing happened that we experienced this morning. The train was just pulling up. We hurried up to the platform, and the person who watches to see if everyone is on before closing all the doors saw us coming and waved for us to continue. He obviously knew we didn't have a ticket, but didn't seem to care. Oh, how grateful we were for that. We rushed on board and even though we had to stand for quite a few stops, we didn't mind. We again purchased a ticket on the other end.