Week 13 in La Paloma

Looking down the Lighthouse stairway, Elder Espinola & Walbeck
The beach looking East
The next segment of the town
The next segment on the town
Looking West from the Lighthouse along the beach into La Paloma
Monday October 5th
We had to wake up at 4AM to get ready and to the bus station by 5:05AM. We were told to get to Montevideo by 9:30AM to meet with the lawyer that handles the immigration process and paperwork for the Mission. We needed to sign some documents and then we would be done with the immigration process. The bus ride was 3 ½ hours long. We fortunately slept most of the way there. We were told that we were to go to the main bus terminal in Tres Cruses and Elder Van Wagenen would meet us there. We arrive and no Elder Van Wagenen. We wandered the bus terminal for about 45 minutes and met a member that spoke some English and he told us where the Missionaries typically meet at so we talked with him for a while until he had to catch his bus. Finally Elder Van Wagenen showed up but the lawyer was late so Elder Van Wagenen said he had to go and left us to wait for the lawyer. It was not long and he showed up and took us downtown to the immigration offices and we signed the papers and they took us back to the bus terminal. We caught the 12:30 bus back to La Paloma. It was another 3 ½ hour bus ride and we were very tired of riding on buses when we arrive home.

Tuesday October 6th
Guess what we got to do today, yop another bus ride this time it was a lot shorter ride, just to Rocha for our First District Meetings which lasted until noon and then another bus ride. We are tired of riding on buses! When we got home from District Meeting we went by one of the Branch Members home (Hermana Carmen) she had told the District President that she had a house for rent. We ask to see the house in our best broken Spanish and charades and she finally left us and was gone for about 10 minutes and she comes back with her neighbor Pedro Viera who could speak a word or two of English. He was the one that had the house for rent and we finally communicated to him that we would like to see the house. We got into his car and went the 3 blocks to the house. It was a 2 bedroom 2 bath home with a nicer kitchen and large living room. It was the nicest house that we had seen in La Paloma. We asked him how much and if he would rent the house for 6 months. He indicated that he would only rent the house for a year but the rent was only $300 per month plus utilities. We were looking for a house that we could rent for the 6 months that we were told we were going to be assigned to La Paloma.

Wednesday October 7th
We spent the day looking for houses and finally decided to go back and look and Pedro's house again. We had looked at lots of house and they were all very expensive! We could rent Pedro's house for a full year and it would be between ¼ to 1/3 the price of the other houses we had looked at. We took the computer with us and spent 2 hours on Google Translator asking questions and Pedro answering them and Google translating it for us. It is not perfect but we could not have done it with out it. We finally all agreed to everything and we agreed to rent the house.

Thursday October 8th
We started packing the stuff we had unpacked so we could move Friday morning. Pedro was going to have the house cleaned and ready for us by about 10:30 AM. He actullay arranged for Mr. Oliverda to deliver us some wood to the new house and then stop by the Church with his truck and help us move our stuff to the new house.
We were invited to a Charla with Elder Walbeck and Espinola to a new investigator named Elizabeth Glattli. She is about 60 years old and is a widow. She had a heart attack a year ago. She had agreed to be baptized and when she told her Doctors that she was going to be baptized they told her not to because it could lead to another heart attack so they advised against it. This woman is very energetic and works maintaining and taking care of 9 rental homes in La Paloma for out of town owners. We could not understand how being baptized was any threat to her health. We offered to give her a priesthood blessing and she agreed. We blessed her that when she met with her doctors on Monday that they would be found to be healthy and the doctors would release her for baptism. The Spirit was very strong and it was great to be apart of the experience.
We told Elder Walbeck that we would not be able to attend Zone Conference in the morning because we were going to be moving into our new home!

Friday October 9th
We were ready when Mr. Oliverda and his son stopped at the Church in their truck. Pedro was there in his car to help also. We had the truck loaded in just a few minutes and then we were off to the new house. We went with Pedro in his fancy Peugeot diesel car. He drives really fast. The taxi drivers in Montevideo have nothing on him. We got the truck unloaded and I paid Mr. Oliverda for the wood and for helping us move. He delivered 500 kilograms of wood which was about 1/3 a cord. I paid him 800 pesos for the wood and 200 for helping us move. It adds up to be about $48 dollars in US dollars. We spent the rest of the day cleaning, unpacking and organizing the house. We got a telephone call about 10 PM from President Da Silva telling us that he missed us at the Zone Conference. I told him good and left it at that.

Saturday October 10th
We cleaned and unpacked at the new house. The new house is going to work out very well!!