A New Surface - Friday, May 28, 2010

We woke up to a pretty nice day. It was suppose to be cooler and rainy towards the end of the day, but shirt sleeves and light jackets were all that was needed. No rain yet!

Our morning preparations for work seemed to go smoothly. We have started the Book of Mormon over again and are in The Second Book of Nephi. We ate breakfast and I made us a lunch, so nothing seemed to detain us, but we were 15 minutes late for the office. We usually beat the elders, so they were surprised.

The work load for each of us was steady and without too many interruptions. Elder Peterson is putting the transfer changes into the computer while Elder Hales is still calling dueños to get the rent payments switched over to electronic deposits. Elder Kroff went to the bank to make a deposit and then worked on getting the money organized for the new arrivals next Tuesday. We have a small group coming this time -- four regular missionaries and one temporary.

I entered a few baptisms, called the doctor, and spent the rest of the day working on the things I am to send home to parents and Stake Presidents for those leaving in July. When I started putting together the letter from the President, the flight plan, and the letter about tuberculosis to send to the parents, I discovered I had not prepared the TB letter. Good Grief!! And, these need to be signed by the President. I don't know if this is just for South America or all over the world, but the missionaries are instructed to get tested for tuberculosis when they go home. A letter is given to the missionary, and one is sent to the parents.

After filling out some information on each of the TB letters, I wondered how I would get them signed by the President before Monday as I wanted to mail them that day. No sooner did that thought cross my mind, and in walked the Argyles. Great!! He only had to sign seven letters. I was so happy! Sister Argyle was with him and they came to pick something up from the office.

Also, I prepared the envelopes to be sent to the Stake Presidents which contained a letter from the President, a flight plan of the missionary, and the Mission Certificate to be presented to the missionary by the Stake President.

The parking space outside of our office is made of little cement peg like things, and grass is suppose to grow between them. It is suppose to be thick and green and cover the cement, but yet a car can drive on it not damaging the grass. For the year we have been here, the grass has not filled in. They have tried everything. If they throw grass seed down, then the birds eat it, and since the ground is on a slight slant, the water runs off. Nothing has been successful.

President Argyle wanted this problem resolved and the space looking good before he left, so he called to get the ball rolling.

A truckload of sod was delivered today and the workers thought they were going to add additional dirt and then just lay the pieces of grass on top. Not so!

They had to cut the sod in strips (they used a butcher knife) and then fit it in between the rows of cement. What a grueling job, to say the least!! We thought they would be there a week doing it, but by the time we left the office at 4:30, they were almost done. They had two other workers helping, so it moved things along. Now keeping it alive and looking nice will be the next trick.

Our Friday night activity was to find Taco sauce for tomorrow's lunch with the elders. Sometimes the speciality section in the grocery stores have American products and we have seen some off beat brands of taco sauce, but our Disco didn't have any. A couple weeks ago we went to the huge Carrefour down by the freeway, but we had the President's car that weekend. Oh, it should not be a problem finding the right bus to take us straight down Avellaneda towards the freeway.

We went to a bus stop by the train station which is a starting point for several buses going in various directions. Elder Hales told us two buses that would take us towards the autopista, and one was loading just as we arrived. Rich told the driver that we wanted to go to the Carrefour by the autopista and he said there wasn't one down there, but that the bus did go to the autopista. We were confused and wondered why the driver wouldn't know about the Carrefour, but we stayed on the bus and knew we were headed in the right direction.

On the way down Avellaneda, it dawned on me that the Carrefour was on Ayacucho which is several blocks parallel to Avellaneda. Oh dear, now what! We exited the bus by the autopista and then had to walk quite a ways to the store. The bad thing was that it was getting dark and we were not in a good part of town. We were walking on a frontage type road parallel to the autopista, which was lined with villa (slum-like) dwellings, half standing, half torn down. Luckily there were no people roaming around, but we walked fast and determined, making it to Carrefour okay, but exhausted.

We shopped for a couple items and found some taco sauce which was not an American brand, but more like a salsa. It had somewhat of a taco flavor, however. Then, we left the store not knowing how to get home. We walked under the freeway to a bus stop on Ayacucho and caught the first bus going in the direction we wanted to go. It took us back to an area familiar to us and nine blocks from home. Boy, are we venturesome in our old age. Fifteen months ago we would have never done that. It is amazing how comfortable we have become in getting around Buenos Aires. If we want to go somewhere, we just figure out how to get there.

We were pooped when we got home and grateful to be here safe and sound. Rain was predicted, but never came for which we were grateful.