Hermana Hale and Hawkes serve in this ward. They were thrilled with the participation of the ward members. The church is on a very busy street so everyone thought it would really be a busy evening. They forgot that it was a 4 day holiday so there were very few left in the city as everyone heads either north or south on holidays.
These three stood at the front door to greet people for 2 1/2 hours.
And Joaquin hit the streets with his father and mother with his pamphlet to give away. The ward really came out to support this evening. It was sad that we were not able to get more people to enter the chapel and learn more about their Savior but we could feel the ward family really coming together and supporting each other. The missionaries who serve in this ward said that this was not the norm in the ward so this evening really helped the ward. (Notice how empty the street is. This time of day it is usually bumper to bumper)
Elders Wood and Cantero are the assistants to the President and are in this Zone. They were trying to clean up the baptistry in preparation of the evening. Hermana's Gallego, Klein and Rasband were cheering them on.
Elders Durrant, Greer, Gonzales and Lohman
Elders Greer and Gonzales are the secretaries to the President and serve in the office. Without them, the Hughes and the Thompsons would be lost. They are our tech support and our language support team. How we have come to love these young missionaries.
Monday we were back in the furniture moving business again. Only this time, we only delivered a mattress instead of the whole bed. The Zone Leaders have inter-combios once every 6 weeks and they had 3 beds in the apartment so we put a mattress under a bed so they can sleep 4 in the apartment for one night. We will do the same in another apartment on Wednesday morning. It just makes more sense to move mattresses that can be put under a bed and out of the way that is only being used once every 6 weeks.
We got a rain storm on Monday afternoon. Tuesday morning it was 32 degrees here. We had some frost on the ground and the Andes got their first snow of the winter. I even wore my winter coat as we walked to the office. But coming home it was too much as the sun was out and it wasn't that cold outside. The cold is in the buildings. There are no furnaces here so when it gets cold outside and the sun doesn't shine, the house really stays cold. Most houses are build with block and concrete so not much insulation. With our space heater our apartment is averaging about 65 degrees. We have a heating pad on the bed. They don't use electric blankets here but electric mattress pads that heat up the bed wonderfully. We crawl into a warm bed then turn off the pad as the feather comforter on the bed keeps us toasty warm. We are layering with insulated underwear, long sleeved shirts and sweatshirts at home. Our office does have a wall heater so it is not bad. It is a beautiful fall though. It will get up to 70 degrees again tomorrow then back down into the low 60's the rest of the week. We do enjoy the sunshine when we have a clear day.
Wednesday evening we were relaxing when the Elders in La Florida called and needed help. Sheepishly they told us that they had locked themselves out of their apartment. Both sets of keys were in the apartment. It was about 8:45. We had the truck at the apartment so we could go to the temple on Thursday morning but wished that we had left it at the office because it took us an hour to get to the office because of traffic due to an accident and we could have walked there in about 40 minutes. We picked up the keys and arrived about 9:30 to open the door for Elders Layton and Seagers. They were so sorry about causing us so much trouble. We assured them that they weren't the first and would not be the last to do this. They unlocked their apartment and brought back our key with some apple crisp that one of the members had given them. Oh how we love these young missionaries.
Thursday is the day that we have made our temple day. We enjoyed our peaceful, spiritual renewal in the house of our Heavenly Father.
Elder Thompson thought he had chipped a tooth so we got the name of the dentist that the mission uses and called to get an appointment Thursday afternoon. The dentist answered the phone and said we could come at 6:30 or at 8:00 that evening. We chose 6:30 and thought it was really strange to have office hours so late. Our GPS took us to a residential area and we thought we must be lost. We called the dentist again and she came to the door of a house just beyond where we were parked. We entered her home and went into a bedroom that has been turned into her office.
We wondered just what have we gotten into here. The dentist works in another office during the day and does her own practice in the evenings in her home.
We prayed that everything had been sterilized! Elder Thompson had lost part of an old filling so she had to remove all of the filling and refill the tooth.
The office and equipment were definitely not as modern as Scott's office but she did a great job with no pain and the tooth feels good. We'll see what Scottie thinks when we get home.
We spent all day Friday delivering fire extinguishers and caliente camas (heating mattress pads) to 8 different pensiones. We need to get fire extinguishers into each of the houses and the Elders in the office thought they would send them in the pouch and the missionaries could carry them to their varies homes from their zone meetings. I could not carry one for more than a block so I knew that most of the Hermana's could not carry them on a bus or metro and then walk a mile home so we decided to deliver them to the 4 houses of the Hermana's. With the Acevedos out of town, we helped get the pouch mail ready this week and found that the missionaries asked for heating pads and blankets. We couldn't stand the thought that we had cold missionaries and they would have to wait till Monday to get these so we headed out to deliver these. We had 9 pensiones to visit but only got 8 accomplished. Our GPS could not get us to the last place. Our phone was going dead so maybe that had something to do with it. We felt so bad but the dear missionaries assured us that they would be fine for 2 more days. The traffic was horrible on Friday so it took forever to get from one house to another.
We ended the week with another Capilla Abierta. This one was in the Puente Alto Zone. This is the first one for this zone. The Chayaviento Ward and the Puente Alto Third Ward meet in the same building and joined forces for the evening.
Elders Slater and Lloyd in front of the chapel
The picture is a little dark but Elders John and Ramirez are on the street inviting people to come into the chapel and learn about their Savior
Hermana Campuzano and Hermana Adcock who told us that Mister Craig Thompson was her favorite Spanish teacher!
The refreshments, lots of breads and sandwiches
The sisters were frying up sopaipialla. It reminded us of scones. They were very good. Elder Thompson got the recipe so we are going to try making these. We had over 100 people in attendance with 15 non-members who came to investigate what the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches and believes about their Savior. The 18 young missionaries who were in attendance to help this evening had a wonderful time.
Mom had a remarkable week. She is eating stage 3 foods, soft foods like mashed potatoes and even got to drink a glass of water with her meal - huge accomplishment to swallow and not cough! Her physical therapist is working on getting her to lift herself out of her wheel chair, turn from one side to the other and reposition herself to sit down again. She was able to lift herself out of the chair about 4 times with no help. Mom will be released from the Elks on Wednesday and hopefully enter Bridgeview in Twin Falls. We are just waiting for Bridgeview to tell us if she is accepted there or not. She needs to be in a skilled nursing facility so Jerome facilities are out for now. It would have been nice to get her into Jerome so her ward family could be close but we are just thrilled that she is progressing.
Well, I have rambled on enough for one week. We send our love to all. You are in our thoughts and prayers.
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