Planning with Ice Cream - Thursday, March 18, 2010

It was a surprise to wake up to quite a heavy fog that had settled in over night. Some mornings have been a little hazy in the past, but we have never seen real fog like we had this morning. But, by the time we left for the office, it had lifted.

Because of the experience we had last evening with the rain and because it was raining pretty good when we went to bed, I pulled our area rug way back from the balcony doors and draped the curtains over our folding chairs so they were away from the doors too. I didn't want any water that might come in to dampen the rug or the curtains. But, it didn't rain hard enough to force water into our apartment this time. Better safe than sorry!!

It was a good day at the office for both of us. The bins of mail and supplies for the Liniers zone came together quickly. I had them packed and in the foyer before we ate lunch at 1:00, and I didn't start on them until around 11:00. Then I was able to start on the Zarate zone. So I will be ahead of schedule tomorrow. That's nice!

I also took time to go to the chapel and pick out the hymns for Sacrament meeting on Sunday. I guess I should have realized that in the eight months that I have been playing the piano for church that it has actually been practice time for me. I used to shy away from one sharp, and now I find myself playing two without much trouble. There are a few hymns in the himnario that are not found in our hymn book, and they love to sing them. I have practiced a couple and will incorporate them into my list of what I can play.

Rich had a good day too. He and Elder Hales work good together solving a lot of delinquent bills that need to be paid and making sure the rents on the apartments are in order. Elder Hales is sharp and doing a good job in this position. Even though they can both communicate with each other in Spanish, it has been helpful to be able to discuss things in English and come to a clear understanding of problems and solutions.

One of Elder Kroff's main goals today was to get a deposit ready from all the money that was turned back to him from the 16 missionaries that left last week. He had mucho dinero to deposit in the bank and couldn't get to it yesterday with all the activity going on in and around the office. When he totaled it up, he had over 8000 pesos ($2000) to deposit. When he has that much on him, he takes a remise to the bank and then walks home. He doesn't want to be walking on the streets with that much cash in hand. He would be an easy target for a thief.

We left the office right at 4:00 in order to have a little extra time before we had to leave for Tigre to meet with the sisters. While I ironed some white shirts (Rich prefers long sleeves now), he went to the store for some bread and to the Farmacia to get some of his pills. He swears I am taking his pills as they disappear so fast.

We had a really simple dinner of Campbells Tomato soup and toasted cheese sandwiches. I found the soup at WalMart a few weeks ago and it tasted sooooo good to us. We enjoyed every spoonful. Then at Disco the other day I found a small bag of grated cheddar cheese. That is the first cheddar cheese I've seen since being here. Sister Argyle said she found some the other day also. So I put the grated cheese on the bread and it worked fine. Dinner was a treat tonight!

We looked at the sky and decided it wouldn't rain so we decided to go to Tigre on the bus rather than call a remise like we promised ourselves we would do tonight. We got on the one that dropped us right off at the church so we were pleased.

Waiting for us with a welcome sign on the blackboard and a treat of our own container of ice cream were the sisters. It could have been a peace offering for our troubles last night, but whatever the reason, it was tasty and refreshing. Sisters Shaffer and Sandoval are excited we are willing to help them in trying to find less active members and encourage them to return to church. We poured over a lengthy list of people and tried to come up with the best way to approach our goal.

As we were deep in discussion, Brother Soler, the branch mission leader, was outside and opened the window to join in the conversation. He was returning some chairs to the church. It was quite comical.

So we put him to work asking some questions about the names on our list. He looked like he was in jail. We had a good laugh!

Then, President Torre came to the church for something and joined our meeting for a few minutes. The sisters told him what we were doing and asked for his input. Tigre is divided up on a map into different sections, and the initial list we had compiled of people that needed visiting came from several of the sections. When the president saw the list he said he didn't want us going to some of them because of safety issues. He wants us to stay in the "red" area where the neighborhoods are of a little higher class. Since we will probably have to make visits in the evenings, he doesn't want us going into unsafe areas of town. We're all for that!!! I guess the sisters or other members who can make day contacts will concentrate on other less desireable sections.

It was getting late and close to the time when the sisters need to be in their apartment, so another meeting might be needed to refine our plan. We called a remise to drop the sisters off at their apartment and then take us on home. It turned out to be an enjoyable evening of missionary work.