A Discovery - Saturday, September 11, 2010

We got up at 7:30 to what looked like would be a beautiful day outside, although last night the weather predicted rain during the day. Rich checked the weather and it still said rain, but someone didn't get the memo that said it was clear and sunny outside.

We wondered if we should go somewhere just because the day was so nice, although we each had talks to get ready for church tomorrow. Mine was done, and when I started practicing it out loud for Rich to hear and correct me on my pronounciation, I decided it was too long for my abilities. I was worn out after rehearsing it through a couple of times. So we started slashing it. I am talking about an article in the Liahona called, "The Gospel Shall Be Preached to All the World." There are seven ways listed to share the Gospel and I decided to leave three of them out. It was just too much. So my talk will be around five or six minutes and Rich can have the other fifteen minutes.

Having eighteen months to hear the language and become familiar with seeing the written word and knowing how to pronounce most of it, I do so much better than I did during the first few months of our mission. I can read and pronounce most of it with ease, although I may not know what it all means. However, I can read emails that come to the office and understand a lot of what they are talking about. I usually get the gist of it.

We got showered and ready for the day and then worked on our talks. Rich went to the office to print off a new copy of mine with the revisions, and upon returning and entering our building met Lucila. She is the manager, and she approached him and said that our neighbor who moved told her that we might be interested in moving to the larger apartment or might know someone who wanted it. He told her that the couple replacing us in the mission might want a two bedroom apartment, but they weren't coming until November. He asked what arrangements could be made to hold the apartment for them. Of course, they can't do that because she has a list of people who have requested a two room apartment. She said there are only five in this building, one on each floor.

But, she is very interested in renting it to an older couple who will not be noisy. She said that the man beneath that apartment asked her to please get some quiet people living above him. We asked about the rent and fees and took pictures of the rooms, and said we would contact the couple and talk to the Mission President about the possibility of renting it for October and November in order to hold it for them. We could actually move over there, but we don't want to pay the higher rent. Maybe the mission would pay the difference. We just thought that the new couple might want a larger place than ours. It would have been nice for us to have a two bedrooms, plus the whole apartment is larger in space. I really wouldn't want to move until after our daughters come in October, because I want them to see where we have been living our whole mission. The other apartment would not be home to us like this one has been. A lot to think about!

The day slipped by rather quickly and after cleaning and working on my talk, I finished yesterdays entry and it made me sleepy. So I layed down for an hour nap. I woke up to Marianne and Mekhi skyping us and after they signed off, we decided to get ready and go on some errands up Constitucion. It was about 5:30 - 6:00 and we needed to get out of the house. We dropped off two things at the dry cleaners, and went to the Kodak place to get a couple more pictures made.

We wanted something to eat and have never investigated the restaurants up in this area, so we thought we would look around and see what was there. We were so close to the Plaza which is ten blocks from our place, that we decided to see what was going on there. To our wonder and surprise we beheld something that we never new existed for the eighteen months we have been here. Street vendors and Artisans had booths set up to sell their wares surrounding the whole square plaza block. It was just like the flea market at Recoleta and other places that we know about. We had no idea that one existed this close to us. They only set up and do this on Saturdays and Sundays. Since it was dark, the booths had lighting rigged up and it was quite the scene.

We never go out walking at night up Constitucion and have never been up that way on a Saturday afternoon or Sunday, so that's why we didn't know they did this in the plaza. We walked around and found that they sell most of the same things that we see at other outdoor markets. Some booths were closing down as they had probably been there all day. We will have to return another time to see if there is something we can't live without.

We found a restaurant on our way back down Constitucion toward home that we wanted to try. There were nice linen tablecloths and napkins sticking out of stemmed glassware. It looked like a fancy place, but not too pricey. And, no one was dressed up. We decided to try it and were there around 8:00 which is early for Argentines. There were only a couple other tables occupied. We could see by their preparations that they were expecting a crowd. So it must be a popular place.

Anyway, we had the best Caesar salad that we've had in a long time. It had chicken, bacon, croutons, grated cheese, and a wonderful sauce. We decided to share one and then each ordered spaghetti. Mistake!! The salad was enough for a meal, even shared. The spaghetti was way more than we could eat so we ended up bringing most of it home. The spaghetti here rarely has red tomato sauce on it. Disappointing!! So it looked just like regular bland noodles. This had little chunks of tomatoes in it and LOTS of garlic, no meat or ground beef. It was tossed in some kind of a seasoned sauce, but needed salt. We decided to bring the rest home and put some real spaghetti sauce on it. We will have to go back and try another entrée.

We forgot to take our camera on our walk tonight, so we have no pictures. So I decided to take a shot of our wall where for 18 months we have been adding to the collage of cards, announcements, pictures from grandkids, cute letters etc. It was started to add color and interest to our walls since we didn't have any pictures to hang, and chose not to buy a lot of decorations that we wouldn't be able to take home. We enjoy looking back over the things we have received over time.