End of a Busy Week -Friday, March 19, 2010

The temperature has stayed about the same all week, but increased humidity today made it feel warmer -- not unbearable, just a little muggy.

We know a lot happened during the week because we talk about it in our blog, but we are always amazed when we wake up and it's Friday again. We may feel tired and some stress from time to time, but we are grateful to be busy every day. However, we are also grateful when we walk through the door to our humble home each evening and can rest up and regroup. It's all good!!

Zarate's zone is small so there wasn't as much mail stacked up, and it was a snap to fill the supply orders. The missionaries didn't order much. Since I had most of it done yesterday, I had everything moved to the foyer and ready for pick up on Monday morning -- or perhaps the President will pick it up on Sunday evening. Zarate is miles away from the mission office out in the campo, so President and Sister Argyle and the assistants will be leaving very early on Monday morning to get to that zone conference by 9:00.

I finally had to call Dr. Petersen in Idaho about a medical matter. He emailed me a few days ago wondering if I had his correct number because he hadn't heard from me for almost a week. I told him we were having a dry spell with illnesses - thankgoodness! The calls that I have received this week were minor and things that I could deal with without having to call the doctor. For 18 months he was in such high demand with a phone to his ear all the time and traveling between three countries that I'm sure he feels lost since he has been home. We are grateful that he is willing to accept calls for a few weeks until the temporary doctor from St. George arrives and gets set up.

Today, Elder Coria and Elder Peterson made another trip to Immigrations to take three new sister missionaries. They came back discouraged because they weren't able to complete all they set out to do because of some paperwork that was needed that they didn't have. The procedure has been changed somewhat and it wasn't clear what they needed for this stage of the legalization process. They came back with a clearer understanding for next time.

Elder Hales and Elder Kroff worked on money matters, apartment matters, and cell phone matters all day, while I finished up some baptisms and got organized with what needed to be done to finish with this transfer and start on the one for April.

When we left the office, we walked about three blocks to the new dry cleaners we found to be reasonable and efficient. After just two previous visits leaving a pair of pants each time, they didn't have to have our ticket to retrieve our clothes. They recognize us, I guess. That means we are a cliente now.

A couple of weeks ago we heard that our neighbor next to us had his car broken into down in the parking area. We haven't seen him to ask about what happened, but yesterday when we came home, we saw workers stringing razor edged wire along the top of our fences and gates around our building. Many, many people have this type of added security to their property.

It really is unsightly, and detracts from the looks of the apartment building, but does the trick obviously. This is about as much security as we will get for our building.

His car is that first one right by the entry way. A gate from the street behind his car opens to his parking area. We assume someone jumped the fence to get to his car. No one will be jumping the fence anymore.

We changed our clothes, grabbed our shopping cart, and headed to Disco to do our Friday night shopping. We didn't have a lot of groceries to buy this week, but more than we could hand carry. We realized that on Friday nights, we need to leave the office at 4:00 rather than 5:00 and then go directly to the store because being a little later tonight made us wait in a line with two filled carts ahead of us. I have decided to take Sloppy Joes to the office on Monday to feed the elders and us, so we picked up items for that meal.

The Easter isle had many colorful, brightly wrapped chocolate eggs and candies on display. It reminded us that we need to go back to the Convent to purchase the Easter cake that we heard about -- maybe next week!

Then, we wheeled our groceries across the street to McDonald's for our Friday night hamburger. It was set up for a birthday party, but the children hadn't come out of the play area to the tables yet. We didn't gulp our food down, but did finish our meal and were ready to leave when the kids came out to eat their burger and fries. Good timing!!

We had a quiet evening at home reading blogs and emails and doing this journal entry. It is so nice not being behind.