Rosca de Pascua - Wednesday, March 31, 2010

We were not able to post this entry last evening because we were sitting in the dark all night. No lights, no internet. It was most frustrating. More later!

Even though the last couple of weeks have been comfortable and in the 70’s, today the temperature is suppose to creep back up into the low 80’s – which means the humidity will probably creep up also. We have been loving these cooler temps.

We hurried along with our morning preparations for the day so we could get to the office by 8:30 again in case the people wanting to tour our office space came on time. The elders were already there as Elder Hales and Silvio had an 8:00 meeting with two gentlemen from Bonpland to discuss problems with -- and the making of -- new contracts for apartments.

In the cultural hall of the church other elders were starting to congregate because this is the day for taking part of them one direction to finish some of their legal work, and others another direction to get fingerprinted and start their legal work. I thought it would be more hectic around the office than it was. Something was different, because there wasn’t a group of companions left behind to go out street contacting while waiting for their companions to come back. I never did get the straight story on what was going on, but then, I didn’t ask either.

I felt pulled in several directions with things that rated right at the top of my “To Do” list, but I had over 20 baptisms staring me in the eye to get entered, so I decided to plunge right in and start there. It took me quite a while to get on a roll with them because of interruptions, but at the end of the day I completed about 21. I have about 10 more to do once they get faxed to me, hopefully tomorrow.

Rich is still helping missionaries change their emails. He had ten elders left that had not changed theirs and had not called in for help. So he called to get them on the ball. Wonder what they thought they would do next Monday when it came time to email Mom and couldn’t.

The gentlemen came, four total, to see the office space. They wanted to see if it was adequate, if we were happy, and if the floor plan would be something that could be used for other mission offices around the church. Evidently, the ideal set up for the Financial Secretary is to have him in a small windowed office/area where others can see him, but where his door can be locked because the safe would be in there, and there would be more security when counting money, etc. Our available space did not accommodate such an office. Rich is careful not to have money out on his desk when we know it will be a day when other missionaries may be coming and going. The tour was brief and we were back to business.

We were glad Elder Coria came back with the car around noon. The few elders he had to take to Immigrations fit in the car, so they didn’t have to go by train. It was a lot faster to drive straight there. So that allowed us to take a break after we ate our lunch and use the car to go back to the Convent to purchase the special torta that they make for Easter. We were warned the last time we went there with Sister Torre that the week before Easter would be crowded and there would be a line waiting to get into the bakery.

We were pleasantly surprised to see a few cars parked in front, and no line outside. Possibly there would be one once inside the building. The guard let us in the gate, and as we entered the door not a soul could be seen. We walked down a couple halls to the bakery door without passing anyone. It was a great time to come – we were thrilled. There were only a couple people in the store and we enjoyed looking around again at all the delicious looking creations.

We wanted to take a picture of the cute girl helping us, but she opted to take our picture together.

We found the Rosca de Pascua which means “ring shaped bread for Easter.” There were five different varieties: Regular cream, Cherry cream, Marzipan, Dulce de Leche, and Chocolate. It would be great to take one to conference on Sunday and share it with the other seniors. And, of course, we need to have an Easter treat for the elders. So we bought two:

We bought a cream filled one to share with the elders, and . . . .

a chocolate one to take to share with the other senior couples at conference on Sunday. They both look delicious -- as did all of them.

A lady checking out with Rich was buying a Rosca de Pascua too, and she said the chocolate was her favorite. Yum!

This quaint little store also sold unique Nativities, medallions with pictures of Saints on them, figurines, and robes for the clergy. The only other time they sell a speciality cake is at Christmas. Wish we would have known about this place at Christmas time.

On our way back, we were only a couple blocks from Coto, so we decided to stop there and get a couple bags of candy that we share with those coming to the office. Then, we picked up a few items we were in need of. We dropped off the groceries at our apartment and went straight back to the office.

The elders were meeting with Mercedes Leguizamón at 5:30 in the church to teach her about the Temple. They asked us to join them because she relates to adults better than young men. She is the one Elder Kroff baptized a couple of weeks ago. Rich decided to go home at 4:30 to rest a minute and wanted to walk a little to exercise his knee before the meeting. I stayed and finished entering my baptisms.

Our meeting with Mercedes went well and the elders gave us some time to tell something about the temple. I told her that it was a blessing for us to be able to take our two adopted daughters to the temple when they were babies to have them sealed to us so we could be an eternal family. She seemed pleased to hear that. She liked the idea that she could do the work for her parents and be sealed to them.

On our way home, we met Bill Kennard, another American that lives in our building. He is a missionary that teaches at a Christian school about two blocks from where we live. He is super nice, not married, and has been here longer than we have. He is actually one of four teachers at the school who live in our building. There is a cute couple, Tim and Lindsay Elmore, that moved in right across the hall from us in February. They came to Argentina single to teach at the school and went home at Christmas time to get married. Then, there is a single gal, Cassie, that just moved in a couple weeks ago. We need to get them together with us for dinner, or a dessert, and conversation sometime. These Americans have been called by their church on a mission to teach at this school in Buenos Aires. The students all speak Spanish, so it is hard to communicate with them. We'd like to know more about it.

Anyway, Bill told us that the lights were out in our building. Oh great!! That means that the pump to the water tanks in the basement won’t be working and we will be without water too, shortly. No elevators were working, of course, so we walked up the five stories to our apartment. Huff, huff!

Good thing the stove is gas so we could still fix some dinner. But, I decided to just fix us a hot dog and some French fries that could be cooked in the oven. Pretty soon it would be dark and I didn’t want a big mess to clean up.

As we looked out to the East from our balcony, the whole area was black. No street lights, nothing! Surely it wouldn't be too long before the lights came back on.

We just had one candle and a tiny little pocket flashlight. It lit the table enough to eat and I did the dishes by candlelight. We could identify with the pioneers we have been learning about. I wrote the days events into Word to be copied and pasted to the blog. Went to bed at 11:30 -- still no lights.