Keeping Busy - Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010

Another cool night for sleeping. Wonderful!! I wasn't even awake when the alarm went off this morning, so that was a surprise.

We didn't hurry along getting ready this morning -- don't know why. We did our normal routine, but must have been in slow motion. However, we did arrive at the office on time at 9:00. It was just the two of us until noon. The office elders went on the train to the mission home to pick up the President's car. President and Sister Argyle are going to a Mission President's Seminar until Saturday, so the car is ours for a couple of days. The elders had some errands and an apartment contract to get signed, so they took the car and were gone all morning.

I got busy on my new missionary binders while Elder Kroff did a variety of things. He, first, went to a little mom and pop grocery store a couple blocks away to get some Raid for mosquitos. We haven't been bothered for a long time with the little critters, but since it has been cooler these last few days, they have started to come out of hiding. We think the hot weather must keep them at bay, however, that seems strange to me. The mosquitos here are relentless and vicious. They hover around our front door to the office just waiting for the door to open and in they come. They love ankles and bare skin, but do bite through clothes too. One time, at their worst, I had 19 bites on one ankle and foot. They attacked me over at the mission home when I was there. Have I said that before??? I hate them!

Rich took our little hand truck to the Libreria on the corner to get me a box of copy paper, as we were running low. The shop had been closed for a long, long time and we thought they were taking an extended vacation. When Rich got there, only the older woman was working, and he remarked that they had been closed a long time and asked if they had a good vacation. She told him that her husband had died in December and that she finally felt well enough to come back to the shop. Wow! I was shocked when he told me, as I thought her husband looked good. She said he had a goiter problem -- wonder if it was cancer? I feel sorry for her. She is a sweet lady.

This is our normal setting everyday at lunch time. We eat our sandwich with some Lays Stax chips and an apple with Dulce de leche. Sometimes, if we have leftovers at home, we bring them for a change. The sink counter served as a tripod today. We try to eat before the elders do as they have a banquet for two days with the food prepared by Siser Bolentini. Her food puts ours to shame.

The elders returned and after their lunch, we all worked steadily at our desks. I did take a break and went over to the church to pick out my sacrament meeting hymns, but was interrupted by a call from the President. Really?? I thought he was at the Mission President's Seminar. Since the Distribution Center no longer has the baptismal invitation cards available, he wanted me to print one off the church's website and make copies, cut them (four on a page), and make packs of 100 to be given to each companionship. He will give them out as he starts his interviews next week. Yikes! That's a lot of copying, cutting, and counting. I better get started. Theses baptismal invitations work really good in getting people to come to witness the ordinance. We don't understand why they were discontinued.

Elders Kroff and Coria discuss something in the new March Liahona.

We came home at 4:30 wanting more evening time to complete some things on our "To Do" list. We need to finish calculating what we spend monthy on our mission to send into the missionary department. Plus, we need to list our expenditures on a spread sheet for tax purposes and email it to Marianne so she can get that taken care of.

We enjoyed a skype visit from Marianne and found all well at home. Now that this entry is done, I am ready to call it a night.