Good Luck Elder - Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2010

We slept good last night because the room was cool and we didn't have to have the fan on. Just the breeze from the open window kept the room fresh and comfortable. And, we still haven't had to turn on the air conditioner for the second evening in a row. For two days we have had a cool breeze blowing all day that has maintained temps in the 70's. If only it could stay this way!

President Argyle came in promptly at 9:00 again today and the AP's were close behind him. Since they weren't able to come very early yesterday to meet with the President, they continued their meeting this morning. We aren't sure what they had on their agenda, but we knew it probably had to do with baptisms. They were in his office for three hours.

The four of us in the outer office worked diligently at our desks, and I was most satisfied to get 20 baptisms entered by about 2:00. A few telephone calls had to be made to collect some information, but it wasn't too stressful. Then I started printing off, punching holes in, and organizing the pages that go in the carpetas. Even though we have 19 new missionaries coming in March, three of them are temporaries and they don't get a binder. They will share with their trainer as we will probably only have them for a couple months. So I have 16 binders to make ready by March 9. I hope to get them done by the end of this week, however. Then next week I will do the packets for the ones leaving. It's all good!

Elder Riquelme is one of our temporary missionaries who has been with us for seven months waiting for his visa for Venezuela. It finally came, and tomorrow morning he is off to complete his mission in the area to which he has been called. He is quite excited to finally be going, although he feels that this is his mission too. He has enjoyed it here. He certainly won't have to be trained, as he "knows the ropes" and has been a good missionary here in Buenos Aires. He is from Argentina about six hours away from here by car. Since he has been in a trio with the Assistants, we have been able to get to know him and we will miss him. He has to wear his placa on his tie as his white shirts do not have pockets. Funny, huh!

When the meeting with the President was over, President and Sister Argyle took Elder Riquelme to a farewell lunch. They ate at Kansas, a wonderful classy restaurant here in Buenos Aires. They took us there on the day we arrived to the mission. The food is really good.

The trio includes Elders Riquelme, Fernandez, and Pugmire. Elder Pugmire goes home in the March transfer, so we will be getting a new Assistant. He is a personable guy and lots of fun. He grew up in Seattle, but now his family lives in Provo. So we may get to see him occasionally. These are great elders.

Since we were on top of our work today, we didn't have to stay late. We left the office at 4:30 and spent the whole evening at home. We didn't have to go anywhere, not even to Disco or the Farmacia. After eating dinner, I studied some Spanish while Rich downloaded the figure skating part of the Olympics onto his iPhone. For $5.00 we can download all of those events for the two weeks, and then from his iPhone he can put them on the TV so we can see them better. We really enjoy the Olympics at home, and miss being able to follow them over here. We'll see if this gives us a taste of what is going on.