Driving the Car - Friday, Feb. 12, 2010

We had another good nights sleep at the Mission Home, and were up at 5:00 getting ready for the day and to meet the children for scripture study at 6:15. Quinn is always up and dressed as I approach Seth's room to wake him up. He is the sleepy head, but gets right out of bed and is usually the first one in the living room. The two oldest didn't have Seminary today so all four of them left for school in a remise at 7:30.

No one turned down the offer of scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast, so after scriptures I went to prepare the food. Then, Rich has been asking for just a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch, so when I saw a large jar of Jif in their pantry (brought from the states by grandparents) I honored his request and made us just that for our lunch.

When the kids were gone, I still had my hair to do, so Rich turned on The Undaunted and we listened to a couple of chapters. It is such a compelling book.

The elders spent most of the morning taking both cars, one at a time, to get cleaned inside and out by a detailing place here in San Fernando -- at the request of the President. Then they filled them with gas and made them ready to be returned to the mission home today so the "first family" (as we respectfully call them in the office) would have them ready for their weekend needs.

Elder Coria has been really stressed this week. Two days were spent taking missionaries to get their legal work done at Immigrations and that, in itself with travel time, is a time consuming hectic experience. Then we had the conference with Elder Aidukaitis, plus the extra meeting in our office with him. And, today he had to deal with the cars. He has so much computer work and data to enter and things to do for the President that I just wanted to give him a hug. But I don't think it will help get his work done.

The President emailed him a few times requesting some data on something that he said was very needful for him to have as soon as possible, but Elder Coria just hasn't had time to compile it. And, besides, they have a new commitment to leave the office at 4:00 each day. I think Elder Coria talked to the President and explained why he hasn't had time to get everything done, because he did mention that the President said we may have to find someone else to take the missionaries up to Immigrations each week. That burns a lot of his time.

Both Elder Kroff and I kept busy all day, and we have made it a point to leave the office also at 4:00 so we can go to our apartment and change clothes, get what we need, and get to the mission home by 5:00. We had one problem to work out, however. We had two cars that needed to be taken to the Mission Home. We hated to have the elders drive one of them because they would either have to take the train back or Rich would have to bring them back. Plus, it would take away from their proselyting time. They had planning to do and appointments to keep. Sooooooo, the only solution was:

Sister Kroff would have to drive one of them over. Yes, I came to the mission with an International Driving Permit too, but I have not driven a car since coming to Argentina. I am always with Rich and have had no need to drive, and haven't wanted to. But, this was the easiest solution to get both cars to their home. I'm sure Rich wondered if I could do it, or if I would freak out with all the craziness out there on the roads, but I wasn't the least bit concerned. I made it just fine and it was fun to drive a car again. I wondered if I had forgotten how.

When we got there, we walked into a flooded kitchen. We found a large amount of water on the floor from the fridge to the sink. What in the world??? It wasn't coming from under the sink, so we wondered if the dishwasher was leaking. Then we noticed that it was dripping from the water purification machine. There is a water line feeding into it and there is a choice of hot or cold water. It seemed like the hot water reservoir was leaking. So we had to turn it off and put a bowl and bucket to catch the steady drips. Rich called the number on the front of the machine and they said they could come in the morning to look at it. The boys had not noticed it as they said they hadn't been in the kitchen. Since they don't get TV, computer games, or Wii privileges during the week, they probably headed straight for the family room after school.

Nancy had prepared dinner again and it was a pie type dish with a crust and a broccoli and meat filling. It was really good. Then she made a baked dessert with apples. Good too.

We watched National Treasure II with the two youngest, and since it was Friday, they had no set bedtime. But, when it ended at 10:10, they didn't protest about going to bed. Anika was already in bed, and Austin was on the computer.

It was prearranged that we would leave after the boys went to bed since Austin was there. President and Sister Argyle would not get home until about 2:00 a.m. They were on a late flight out of Ushuaia. It is a four hour flight from where they are to Buenos Aires. So we called a remise to take us back to San Fernando.