Week 19 in La Paloma

Sunday, November 15, 2009
Today we went to church as normal. Elder Walbeck and Elder Espinola were waiting for Ruben Bica to arrive to start priesthood meeting. Ruben was typically early to the meeting so when he did not arrive we got worried. Elder Espinola called his house and he did not answer. He then called the taxi company that told him that Ruben did not come out when they came by the house. I sent the missionaries over to check on Ruben to make sure he was okay. The missionaries arrived at Ruben's house at the same time the ambulance was pulling up to the house. Ruben's sister had found Ruben fainted in the shower and had called the ambulance. Elder Espinola helped helped Ruben's who was unconscious into his wheelchair and the ambulance technicians administered some type of the solution to bring Ruben's blood sugar to the proper level. Rubin is diabetic and his blood sugar had gotten too low when he passed out in the shower.
Elder Walbeck and Elder Espinola watched as the sugar solution started to to work in Ruben's body. Ruben went from glassy eyed comatose to alert and attentive and asking questions and then realizing what was going on and started to cry. The missionaries left them in with the doctors and went in a taxi to pick up some of their investigators that were walking to church.

Since Ruben and the missionaries were not at the meeting and they were all the priesthood members that attended that day, I went in and then visited with the Relief Society. During Relief Society Elder Walbeck and Espinola returned with a young couple and their baby.

Elder Walbeck and I taught the Temple Elder Walbeck and I, the Temple preparation class to three people that were there, they were Alba, Ali & Natalia.

During sacrament meeting I conducted the meeting and blessed and pass the sacrament along with the missionaries. It was the first time that I had given the sacrament prayer in Spanish and I must not have been a really good job because Elder Walbeck offered to give the prayer on the water. Just before the sacrament the door opened and Ruben and came in. He looked a little tired but other Than that he looked OK. Later in the meeting he gave a talk on the priesthood. We were all shocked to see that he was there. He is typically in a wheelchair work today he wore his prosthetic legs and stood before the congregation and gave his talk. He did a great job, I think, I still can't understand Spanish!

Elder Walbeck and I interviewed Alba, Ali & Natalia and Ruben for a temple recommend after the meetings.

Elder Walbeck, Espinola and Ruben joined Janice and I for lunch after all the meetings. Janice and I have prepared a large pot of chicken noodle soup with lots of vegetables. It was very good!

At 3:00 PM we all went to church to meet with the district president and his counselors. I wanted to meet with them to find more thing: that there are out what their goals and expectations were for the La Paloma branch. It was a good meeting and I'm learned more of what they expected and they learned more about us.


Monday, November 16, 2009.
Today's preparation day and Janice and I did our laundry. At 10:00 AM the missionaries came over to do their laundry and to learn how to cook Chicken Alfredo. They also had a recipe that one of the members (Esther) had given them for a desert that they wanted to try. The Chicken Alfredo and the desert turned out great!
The missionaries left and about 2:00 PM. We met back up with them at 6:00 PM to go visit some members. We tried to visit the Piriz family that they were not home so we went to the Dominici family. We gave them a lesson and challenge one of the granddaughters to be baptized and she accepted. She accepted the date of December 12th. I am a bit concerned that she is ready, she seems to be just saying what the missionaries would like her to say.

Janice started coming down with a cold this afternoon.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009,
Today is our 30th wedding anniversary

Janice didn't sleep well last night, her cold made her cough.

We had district meetings today in Rocha. The meetings went well and we were able to do some other errands in Rocha.

We were supposed to meet with President Augilar after the District meetings to give him our curriculum order for 2010 but he had to work and was unable to be at the meeting. So I gave my the curriculum order to Elder Sandigo to pass along to him.

I had a meeting with the Branch Relief Society President ( Susana) tonight. I have been informed by the missionaries that she is having a feud with her councilor. She has apparently borrowed money from them and then not repaid it along with some other problems.
She also informed me of a Sister whose husband had just passed away and she did not have the money to pay the light bills and it was going to be cut off on Monday.
I ask her if the accusations of her borrowing money and not paying it back were true and she said that she did not owe anyone any money.


Wednesday , November 18th 2009
Today we studied Spanish and read during the day. Tonight we found out that the missionaries were invited back to visit with Elizabeth. It turns out that while she was in Montevideo she got on the internet and found some anti-mormon stuff and she is denying everything that she knows to be true so she will not have to pay a full tithing. Elder Walbeck said there was the spirit of Satan in Elizabeth home and he did not want to go back there anymore. They are going to leave her alone for a while a hopefully she will realize the peace and good feelings that she had while they were teaching her are gone and she will want them back in her life!

Thursday, Novemeber 19th 2009
Janice has decided to cook a Thanksgiving dinner for the Rocha Zone on Monday the 23rd (P-Day). There are 14 Missionaries in the Zone including us. Uruguay does not have turkey for sale at the stores so we are going to have improvise with something else. We went to the store and purchased 30 chicken breasts which we will marinate and I will attempt my first Uruguation asado(BBQ).

Friday, November 20th 2009
We got up early and caught the bus into Rocha and then on to Montevideo. We have a joint mission conference with the other mission in Uruguay. We both get to hear Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles speak and train us. We got to Montevideo and we got of the bus at Portones and walked to Tienda Inglesia (English Store) and purchased a long list of items that we cannot find in La Paloma. We then checked into the Hostel by the Temple and hurried to get to the Malvin Stake Center where the conference was being held. It was great to see all the Elders from the Offices that we had made friends with while we were there. Along with Elder & Sister Bednar there was Elder & Sister Snow of the Presidency of the Seventy and Elder and Sister Bowen, the Area Seventy and both the the Mission Presidents and their wives. We got to hear from Sister Bednar, Sister Snow, Brother Snow and Elder Bednar. During his presentation he would have Elder Bowen and Snow talk also. They taught us how to learn by the Spirit. It was a great 3 hours.
After the conference we hung around and talked with the Elders and our YSA from the Buceo Barrio that meets in the Malvin building. It turns out that Elder Bednar was giving a talk to the YSA at 7PM so we got to see most of our YSA. It was great to see them. We found out that one of them is getting married on December 12th. That is the same day that we have scheduled a Temple trip for our Branch so we will get to see her get married also!
After meeting with our YSA we walked to our old house and rang the bell of our old landlady and surprised her. I think we were the last people that she expected at the gate. She let us in to see all the improvements that she had made on the house. It looked much better than it did while we were renting it. She had tiled the concrete wall in the kitchen so and repaired cracks in the other walls and repainted. It looked much better. We visited for a short time and said goodbye and went back to the Hostel to have dinner with Elder Keith & Sister Teri Wilson that are serving in the Temple in Montevideo. We had a great meal and a wonderful visit with the Wilsons.
We spent the night in the Hostel. It cost $ 200 hundred pesos which is about $10 dollars.

Saturday, November 21, 2009
We awoke early and went to the 10:00 AM session at the temple. We were given translator headsets so that we can listen to the session in English. As we have done before we turn it way down so that we could hear the Spanish as well as the English and we found that we were recognizing many more Spanish words than we were previously. So maybe we are getting it!?
While we were at the temple we met Sister Shurtliff, her husband is the new Temple president. We had a great visit with her and she counseled us on several things that we had questions on.
After the visit with her we went to the distribution center and picked up some items for the Branch and for ourselves.
We went back to the hostel and cleaned our room (part of the reason why it is so cheap) and checked out. We had the desk clerk call us a taxi to go the bus station (Tres Cruces).
We caught the 4:15 PM bus heading back to La Paloma and arrived at about 7:30 PM. We walked back to our house dragging our suitcases which were heavier due to all the items that we purchased in Montevideo. It was a great trip!