Week 17 in La Paloma

Sunday, November 1, 2009
While we're talking to the Taggart's yesterday they mentioned that several people in our Stake and Ward back home were going to be fasting and praying for us that we might learn the language.
Today the District President and his counselors and the Primary President came to visit the Branch. Janice had been babysitting Joaquin and he kept trying to open the door to the church so she had locked the door. The Sacrament meeting had already started when the District Presidency arrived. I could see them looking through the windows at the back of the chapel. The next thing I saw was them walking past the windows on the side of the chapel. Then they walked back past the windows on the side to the back of the chapel. When they walked by the side of the chapel Janice saw them walk by and then realized what the problem was. She had locked the door and they could not get in. She was sitting in one of the middle rows and could not communicate with the people sitting by the back door to tell them that the door was locked. She finally was able to talk to Leticia and Leticia told them to unlock the door. I'm not sure what kind of message if any the District Presidency took by having a locked door greet them.

Elizabeth was not a church today so we made a plate of cookies for her and took them to her and gave her a hug. That was about all we could do since we could not speak to her. It is very frustrating not being able to communicate with the people.

This afternoon I (and Elder Walbeck) gave interviews for the priesthood to Ruben and Leonardo.

Monday, November 2, 2009
Today's preparation day, we deep cleaned the house, fixed bicycles and studied Spanish.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Today I gave Janice her second haircut since we have been in La Paloma. This one was a little more stressful than the first one. But we made it through it.
During one of Janice is conversations with her mother. Her mother had mentioned that they had a translator while they were in Mongolia on their mission. She asked if we could hire a translator. This was an interesting idea that we gave some serious thought to and came up with having one of our young single adults from the Buceo ward come and live in our home and teaches us Spanish and go out with us to visit the members and be our translator.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009
We prayed about the idea of having a translator and in particular having Gabriela be the translator. We felt good about the idea and so I emailed Gabriela and asked for her input and about how much we should pay a translator. Gabriela thought it was a great idea but she is in school and would not finish her classes until late December so it would be January before she would be available.