Farewell lunch - Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Happy Birthday Melissa

First things first today, so we emailed Melissa our Happy Birthday wishes. She was a little bummed that we wouldn't be home for her birthday since it was so close to our departure date.

We anticipated a busy day with on-going training. Little did we know that when we got to the office we would be welcoming Elder Sampson who would be replacing Elder Paz who finishes his mission on the next transfer at the end of December.

Elder Sampson will be a great office elder who will not only master the apartment/landlord routine, but his knowledge and expertise in computers will serve the office well. We wish him the best!

We trained without interruptions all morning, and were surprised when the President called to invite us and the Schoenys to a farewell lunch at Kansas. But!! We thought the lunch at Kansas last Tuesday when the Schoenys came was a welcome for them and a farewell for us. Not so! They wanted to take us to lunch again.

The six of us had a nice visit over a great meal. The three hermanas had salmon, Elder Schoeny had a chicken salad, the President had steak, and Elder Kroff had a club sandwich. All very tasty.

Heather and Erwin Schoeny are from Maryland, and have served a previous mission in Malaysia. She speaks Spanish, having served in South America in her youth. Elder Schoeny does not know Spanish, but is learning.

Karen and Richard Gulbrandsen are capable leaders and will do well leading the Buenos Aires North Mission for the next two and a half years.

We can't believe our mission is almost over. Tomorrow we will be leaving Argentina and the wonderful life as missionaries. It will seem so strange to get back into regular everyday life outside of the mission. We hope we can adjust.

We resumed our training after returning to the office, and at 4:00 Osmar Avila came from the Area Office to train Sister Schoeny on CDE, which is entering the baptisms on the computer. He came to train me when I was new also. The President wanted me to be present when Osmar came today.

After Osmar left, President Gulbrandsen held our final missionary interview and gave us new temple recommends. Our recommends had recently expired so it will be good to travel home with current ones. And, it will be fun to have temple recommends in Spanish for the next two years.

President Gulbrandsen complimented us on our service, thanked us for extending, and lovingly said that we were the perfect senior couple. How kind of him!! He also commented on our blog as a good history of the mission. I guess he has been checking it out. Hmmm!

After returning home, we met Lucila at our apartment to pay the rent. We used to drop off our rent to a company hired to manage the apartment building. But now, Lucila comes around to collect the rent, plus troubleshoots any problems that arise from the tenants.

Lucila Kevorkian is a young single gal who manages our twenty unit apartment building. She speaks English very well and has been a great landlord. She is pleased to have another couple replace us as well as the young elders who will be moving here shortly.

As much as I would have liked to stay home tonight to continue packing and cleaning, that didn't happen. Over at the church was a Christmas concert featuring a children's choir. It was a community sponsored program being held in our Stake Center. Besides the interest we had in attending, one of our friends from the San Fernando ward, Sister Norton, wanted to exchange addresses and emails with us and told us to bring our information with us to the concert. That prompted us to make an effort to attend. The Schoenys wanted to go also, so we consented to go.

We met some members from our Virreyes branch who wanted to tell us goodbye and have their picture taken with us. Sisters Gladi Soria and Maria Baldovino were among those we bid a fond farewell. We are grateful for their friendship.

Home to pack and to bed at 1:00. We'll finish up tomorrow.