Water leaks and 72 hour kits

February 24, Sunday.  We visited the Grecia Ward again so we could meet with the Ward Council after church.  As we were greeting people before Sacrament Meeting started, I was asked to play for the meeting.  I haven't had the opportunity to play here much so it was nice to play the piano.  We had a good visit with the Ward Council and will attend next week to present the Power Point to the ward about the Capilla Abierta program and their part to make it a success.  As I was leaving, I was told that I would be playing again next week.  We had dinner with the Hughes and studied our Sunday School lesson for next week in English.  Hermana Hughes does not speak any Spanish so this will help her to know what is being taught in Sunday School.  We came home and talked to Ginger and Mindi and were getting ready for bed when the phone rang at 10:20.  You know that it is a problem when it rings that late.  Sure enough - the Sisters, a threesome, locked their purses and keys in their apartment.  The real problem was that the key was in the lock from the inside so you couldn't simply take the spare key to them to open the door.  It was too late to make a lot of noise to get the door open so Elder Hughes and Elder Thompson drove over and picked them up and brought them back to our apartment complex where the Sister Trainers live for the night.  We ended up getting to bed around mid-night.
     Monday morning we had to meet these 3 Sisters and take them to the Clinic for a doctors appointment.  We then dropped them off at the office and headed out to Cordillera and presented the Cleaning Power Point and the Capilla Abierta Power Point to the Cordillera Zone.  We went from the north of the mission to the southern part of the mission.  We drove to a few other pensions to make sure they were ready to either have new missionaries in them or to return them to the owners as we would not be using them anymore.  It was a day of driving all over.
     President Brotherson has asked Elder Hughes to put together 72 hour kits for each of the pensions.  We have 75 pensions.  The Hughes have been going all over town to find everything that they needed for the backpacks.  The four of us got 25 of them completely finished but were short on a few items for the rest of the backpacks.  They are stacked all over the office.

  We hope to have them all finished and delivered to the missionaries on Monday with the pouch run.
     This has been a week of water problems.  We have had a washer drain all over the floor, getting our missionary apartment wet and causing water in the apartment below.  We had a water line break under a sink in the night and the missionaries woke up to a flooded floor.  We have an apartment that has a leak that we haven't found the cause of yet.  It might be coming from the tub but the owners are working on it now.  We will have to replace all the flooring in the living room because the sisters didn't know they had a problem until they had water splashing up under the laminate flooring.  We asked one set of Hermana's if they had any problems in their apartment and they answered that every thing was fine except for a small drip "under" their sink.  If it had been "in" their sink we wouldn't have had a problem but "under" the sink!  We have kept each of our contractors busy this week with water problems!  And of course, most of them happen after 9pm!
     We have been getting more of the ojo majico's installed and only have 9 to go.
     On Wednesday evening, we took Elder and Hermana Acevedo home.  They are the Stake Missionaries who run the bodega and help with the pouch mail.  We had 3 old mattresses that were completely unusable by missionaries that they wanted to give them to a family in their ward who have none.  These two amazing people come to the Mission Office on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.  They have to ride on one bus, change to the metro, then another bus just to get to the office.  It usually takes them around 2 hours to get there.  They live in Puente Alto.

Elders Thompson and Acevedo unloading the mattresses

Hermana Acevedo is from Argentina and uses the Castillo so when she talks we have to really listen closely.  It almost sounds like she is singing when she talks.

     We now have 4 Capilla Abierta's scheduled for March so we have been busy getting the invitations printed and getting everything ready.  We have now gotten a second set of banners to use and will get our new big banners this week so we can do 2 on one day if we need to.  The young missionaries would have to handle one of them by themselves if this happens.
     On Friday, March 1, we had to drive to the airport with Elder Gonzalez to take a suitcase.  A missionary had to leave early due to health issues in her family and she couldn't get the second suitcase on board so we had to take it out to have it flown to Brazil for her.  Elder Gonzales loves airplanes and hopes to be a pilot someday so he was thrilled.  The airport was so busy it was a nightmare.  We then drove to the place that is making our big banners for our Capilla Abierta's to see how the first one turned out before we had them make the second one.  This is in a scary part of town and the traffic was horrendous!!  The banner is wonderful and they will make a second one and DELIVER them to the office.  Thank goodness we don't have to drive there again!
     Friday our date nite with the Hughes ended up at a Mexican Restaurant.  The food was wonderful.  We all loved their salsa and will definitely visit the Tortilla Factory again.

Well, I have rambled on enough for this week.  We spent Saturday getting ready for the new week by cleaning our apartment, washing clothes, shopping for groceries, making stew and cookies.  We only had to drive from the office to the apartment and it felt good not to be in the car!

We send our love to all.  We love serving with these young missionaries.  They may not know how to clean their apartments well, but they have such a desire to serve their Father in Heaven and to teach others about the gospel of love.  We are thrilled to be here.  Have a great week, we hope ours will be a little quieter, without water problems!  You are in our prayers.