The Mission President asked us at District Meeting if us and the Taylor's could make lunch for 60 Missionaries at a Three Zone Conference next week. President Arnold, the new Area President was speaking at the conference.
We finally agreed to make the lunch, this is some of the food that we needed for the Sloppy Joe's and Potato Salad and Cold Slaw Salad and Brownies.
Bags of groceries for the lunch
44 pounds of potatoes that needed to be cleaned, peeled and cut up for Potato Salad!
The peeler, cutter and .........
The "Boss" cleaning up the pots and buckets needed for transporting all the food!
We rented a car to transport us, the Taylor's and the food to Treinta Tres about a 3 hour drive away. We left our house at 6:00 AM in the dark to go to Castillos about 45 minutes away to pick up the Taylors. At about 6:25 the lights in the car started to go dim and I said we have a "huge problem". The alternator was dieing, I turned off the heater fan, the lights (it was still very dark) and drove for about another 10 minutes and then everything shut down. We pulled into a driveway along the highway and stopped. I called Elder Taylor in Castillos and had him call the Willy (the person we rented the car from). Elder Taylor speaks Spanish and could understand and explain the situation better than I could. Willy said he would be right out with another car. Willy and his wife finally showed up at 8:00 AM with repair parts. We traded cars and off we went towards Castillos.
These are some of the palm trees that are only found around Castillos. It was just before we reached them that I noticed that the "RED" engine too hot light was on. Great! I slowed down and it went off.
We went a bit further and the light came back on. I stopped and that gave us time to take a picture of some other odd looking trees. This time the light did not go back off. I slowly drove the few more kilometers into Castillos. Elder Taylor called Willy and told him of our problem. He asked us to take the car to a mechanic friend of his.
The mechanic said the fan was working properly and there was water/antifreeze in the radiator so he it was fine and we could go on. We loaded up the car and took off from Castillos at 10:00 AM. We made it about 2 kilometers out of town and I heard a noise coming from the back of the car! I stopped and got out and looked and a found that the passenger side rear tire was rubbing on the side of the wheel well. We turned around and went back to Castillos to a tire dealer who told us that the tire was the wrong size for the car. Then he tells us that he does not have the correct size and neither did the other dealer in town. Willy gets another phone call! President Taylor talks to his neighbor who had offered to drive him anywhere he wanted to go and asked him if he would lend us his truck for the day! He said yes and we started loading the food and us in to the truck. It was a 4 door small pickup truck and all the food went in the back under a heavy blanket. It was now 11:00AM and lunch was supposed to be served at 1:00 PM and we had a long 2 hour drive ahead of us. We were just leaving when Willy and his wife arrive in Castillos with another car. We told them that we were going to take the truck and they said they were really sorry for all the problems and that they would refund the rental fee the next day.
We arrived in Trienta Tres at 1:00 PM and need about an hour to prepare the food for the 60 missionaries. They continued on with thier meetings until we were ready for them and then on they came with huge appitites and smiles for the great food we had prepared for them! (Hermana Taylor and Hegerhorst serving the Missionaries)
President Taylor and some of the Missionaries getting lunch
The ate lunch were ever they could find a place to sit down.
After the we had cleaned up we were able to go into the meeting and be taught by a General Authority, President Arnold. He said some things that were directed right at us and helped us to know that our Heavenly Father answers prayers! It was a great experience to be able to talk with President Arnold and his wife after the conference! Here we have right to left, Hegerhorst's, Taylors, President Arnold and his wife and President and Hermana Da Silva our Mission President.
The Elders in our Branch are teaching a Japanese person (Ichihara), he speaks Japanese and some English and almost no Spanish so they are teaching him in English. He came to our house after Church to have lunch with us, the Elders and Ruben. It was an interesting lunch with many languages represented. The meal was excellent and we had a great time getting to know Ichihara.
This is our lighthouse, Santa Maria. One morning the sun was filters through the clouds and it was a bright red. The photo does not show the vivid red but it was a cool picture that I thought I would share.
Elder Bravo, Elder Delbar, Hermana and Elder Hegerhorst. The last Sunday Elder Bravo was in La Paloma. He was transferred to a different area in the Mission. He played the piano in Church and could fix just about anything. He wants to be a robotics engineer. We will miss him.
Elder Jones (took Elder Bravo's place), Elder Delbar, Hebert Velasquez and Gabriel Velasquez, Hermana Hegerhorst, ELder Hegerhorst. At the baptism of Hebert and Gabriel on August 28th. I got honor of baptizing Gabriel!
This week we had changes and our Elders were transferred and and we now have sister missionaries in La Paloma. So just before the Elders left Elder Caufield showed me how to make donuts. 
They are actually spud nuts! They were delicious on the first day when they were crispy! But the humidity gets into everything! So the next day they weren't as crispy but they were good!
I spend way to much time in this room!
It was Elder Delbars birthday the day before they were transferred! So we made fajitas and he asked for Dan's special chocolate surprise cake. The only problem we had was we didn't have any candles so we just used matches. I doesn't work to well! The matches burn out way to fast. But we were able at least to get a picture. 
This is a Uruguayan version of a BBQ. They build a fire on the elevated grates on the left hand side and as the wood burns down the coals fall through the grate at which time they are moved over to the area under the elevated grate on the right hand side. This is were the cooking takes place. The total process takes about 3 hours. It is very hot, smokey and time consuming. The meat cooks fine and tastes great once you finally get it done. You have to be careful not to run out of coals before your meat is cooked. It takes some practice and patience but it is kind of fun! Here we are preparing chicken for Elder Richard Jones and his parents that came to pick him up from the mission. 
