A Good Week - Friday, May 7, 2010

Now we have the elders saying, "It's Friday again!" This has been a productive week in the office with everyone working hard and accomplishing much, so the time has flown by.

This morning we had to turn on the heat when we got up. It was the first time we have had to take the chill off our apartment. The forecast keeps saying the temperature will reach the low 70's by the afternoon, but it never gets that high. It is definitely jacket weather, but at least it is dry as we have had little rain lately.

Bright and early, President and Sister Argyle came by to drop off a car in case there were any errands that the elders needed to run. They would not need it back until Monday. We are happy about it because we will have transportation to a baptism in Tigre tomorrow night. Elder Kroff has been asked to perform the baptism.

At 9:30 Elder Peterson took some missionaries up to the Capital to the Immigrations Building to complete their residency. What should have been only about a three hour journey, turned into a five and a half hour ordeal. There was a lot of waiting for the final paper. They returned at 3:00 hungry and tired, but successful.

Elder Kroff went to the bank to cash a check, paid some facturas at the Pago Rapido, and upon returning helped Elder Hales with his ongoing project of converting rents to electronic deposits. Elder McNiel stayed with us in the office as his companion went with Elder Peterson today. Elder Hales found some things he could do for him, but I had nothing.

I filled my day with a variety of things that were not hard, but were time consuming. Baptisms were entered, transfer board cards finished (for June), plus other necessary tasks. It was a good feeling to get some of these things out of the way, leaving next week to begin my carpetas, order placas, send off my Book of Mormon order, and can you believe it -- place another order for supplies. Wow! It seems like I just did all of the above.

One of the normal necessary things we do daily is use hand sanitizer with alcohol to kill germs. In order to keep missionaries healthy and able to work, knowing they shake a lot of hands, and enter some unclean environments, the use of a sanitizer has been emphasized. Missionaries carry a pocket size with them and we have bottles of it in our office and in the kitchen to use as needed. The mission home has a large bottle available for the missionaries to use as they have lots of meetings there where meals are served. I know the missions in Argentina promote it, but not sure about all of South America. Not only do we, as missionaries, use sanitizer, but I see lots of locals doing the same thing at restaurants etc. A good practice!!

Late this afternoon, Sister Fuqua, one of our senior missionary friends, called to invite us to another movie night at their place tonight. We had to decline as we had grocery shopping to do so we would be free tomorrow for our plans to explore a couple of shopping areas in San Isidro. We are staying closer to San Fernando for our Saturday activity because at 6:00 we are headed to Tigre for a baptism. She apologized for calling so late, and will try to let us know sooner next time.

Since we had the car available, we drove to Coto to shop tonight. It isn't too far away, but too far to walk, so we decided to take the car and buy a little more than our pull cart would hold. Our dislike of their small isles and crowded conditions prevent us from shopping their regularly (when we have a car), but tonight the crowd was manageable.

We were excited to receive a skype call from Melissa and Marianne who are together in Denver at Melissa's place. The boys were riding bikes and scooters in their apartment courtyard area and were having a great time. They would stop a second to smile at us, but would zoom off for more fun and thrills. I want them to stop growing until we get home.