Half Way - Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009

Today marks the day that our mission is half over. We arrived at the MTC on March 2, and it seems impossible that nine months have gone by. The busier we are the faster time flies. We hope the next nine months are as enjoyable as the first nine. . . minus the robbery.

Elder Coria made us a sign to hold to commemorate the day. It says 9 meses (months) and a Yes. He's a sweetheart. We love working with the Latin missionaries, but it tugs at our heart strings thinking that when this is all over, we may never see them again. Although, Elder Coria said he wants to come to the United States and to Utah sometime, and he will for sure come to see us. Here's hoping!

I spent all morning working steadily on entering the baptisms. I have entered 23 and have about five more to do. I was so discouraged with the faxes that came from Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego. They were illegible and I didn't want to take the time to have the elders read me all the information over the phone. So Elder Wheeler, the District Leader, said he would go over all the printing on the forms and make them dark and clear. Then he was going to try to find another fax place to see if the copies would transmit better. Well, whatever he did was a miracle. He resent the five and they came through beautifully. I will call him tomorrow and express my heartfelt appreciation for taking the time to resolve this ongoing problem with faxes from the South. Hopefully, it will continue.

Today we had an appointment with an escribano (notary public) up in the Capital to notarize our signatures on some documents from home that needed our attention. At the time of the robbery when we needed to have some things notarized, we could not find one here in San Fernando that would do it because we didn't have an official document showing that we lived here. So we found a place up in the Capital that would do it with just showing our passports. Even though we are legal now, we decided to go back to that place in the Capital to get it done, because we were familiar with them.

Our appointment was at 3:00 so we had to leave the office at 2:00 in order to catch the train. Once there, we hopped in a taxi to get to the escribano. Veronica was expecting us and we signed the papers in front of her, but then she told us that the escribano was not there today, so we had to leave the papers and pick them up tomorrow. For Pete's sake!!! If they would have told us that, we would have gone tomorrow instead of today. Maybe workers like Veronica verify the signatures, then place the papers in a stack and the escribano comes in and signs everything. Who knows!!!! Anyway, Rich has to return tomorrow to get the papers. I am opting out of that train ride because I can't be gone two afternoons in a row. Rich will have to go by himself.

After leaving the escribano, we took a taxi back to catch the train and decided to get off just one stop away in Belgrano and walk through China Town. It is right by the train station. There were a few stores open, but they all looked like they were selling the same things. We aren't into Chinese memorabilia, but it was fun looking. I thought it would be much larger than it was. I suppose we were comparing it to the China Town up in Toronto, Canada that we went to when we were visiting Susanne and Thale on their mission.

The late afternoon traffic on the trains made them really crowded. It isn't a good time to be riding them because of all the commuters. We had to stand up all the way home. By the time we got here we were plenty hot and tired. I don't know what we are going to do when the real heat and humidity comes. I'm sure we'll perish.