Choking On a Piece of Bread

October 2, 2016

Have you ever got a piece of bread caught in your throat and had trouble swallowing?  Well that is how we have been for the last couple of months as we have struggled to change the utility bills on some of the houses in the mission.  It seems like every week that something would come up that would prevent us from getting it done.  Well that changed this week.

Eating pizza and lemon bars after the move in Los Ceibos.  I love the Aggie shirt on Elder Johanson

But first, we had to move some elders.  We have been working on changing the house in Los Ceibos for a couple of months.  Monday afternoon we were able to get it done.  We had four Elders along with Elder Parmenter and Johansen to help.  It was a close move and we got it done in a couple of hours.  We also got great help from the members as they helped us move and also changed the water heater.  After the move we bought some 12” pizzas at the store next door for a $1 each and added some cheese.  After heating them up, they were really good.  Elder Johansen is from Tooele and does a good job getting noticed with his “Aggie” shirt.  He is new and has been fun to get to know.  He has asked Renee for some ideas on cooking and is now quite the cook.  He even made some lemon bars for the move that were quite good.  Too bad Renee made some also.  When he tried one of Renee’s lemon bars, he asked her, “Is this the same recipe?”  They were.  To be fair to Elder Johansen, he does not have all the ingredients and things Renee has.  Also, even though they were different, they were still good.

I wanted to put in a little about the flowers.  It is spring here and the flowers are starting to bloom. There are many different varieties and they really do make it wonderful.  Uruguay is such a pretty place.  It is turning green again and we are looking forward to a wonderful summer.  It is starting to get a little warmer.  I am starting to wear short sleeved shirts again and hope to get a little tan.  Most days are pleasant and we have not had to use too much power to heat our house so that is nice.
Tuesday, we were able to swallow the bread.  We took Elder Caudle and Rodriguez to the water utility, named OSE, to change the water bills.  It took over an hour to change 6 apartments.  Elder Caudle and Rodriguez did a real good job and we are so grateful for their help.  After, we had to have our picture taken in front of the OSE office.  Oh, and we celebrated a little early as we had Pronto Pollo on the way down.  Pronto Pollo, as you may recall is a place where you can buy a chicken milanesa that has ham and cheese inside.  Think of a thin chicken cordon bleu sandwich on a bed a French Fries.  You bet it’s good.

This is after we got done changing all the water bill numbers.  I was happy!!

We killed two birds with one stone on the OSE trip as we were able to take the Nortons with us.  Elder and Sister Norton are from Utah Valley and are in charge of all the Capilla Abiertas in our area, including Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay and Chile.  They visited us from Tuesday to Thursday to do some trainings with the Stakes.  So on Tuesday night and Wednesday night we did training in two locations.  We had representatives from most of the Stakes that are close to Montevideo.  Renee and I gave our presentation and then the Nortons explained how the stakes could help.  We work pretty good as a team and got a lot of positive response.  We’ll now follow up with the stakes to help them do their own.  It should make us quite a bit more efficient and give us time to visit Castillos more.

Here we are with the Nortons after a temple session

Speaking of Castillos, on Thursday morning we dropped the Nortons off at the airport, bought a couple of bikes for the Elders in Aeroparque and then took off for Castillos.  With our Capilla Abierta schedule we have had trouble making time for Castillos so we went up to visit on Thursday and Friday.  It was kind of a fast visit but we felt that we needed to go.  After we got there we found out why.

We tried to visit several families with no luck. After several strike outs we stopped to visit the Lopez family.  The dad is an artist and we asked him if he would paint a picture of Castillos for us.  We had a real good visit talking about how it should be done.  We had a real good visit about the Gospel and could feel the Spirit real strong.  After that we were about finished for the day.  On Friday we met with the Elders and talked about what we could do to help.  We had one of the members, Rosanna, take us to Aguas Dulces, which is about 7 miles East of Castillos, on the Coast to visit a member named Maria.  It was a good warm visit.  We also found Silvia at home and had a good visit with her.  She committed to come to conference on Sunday.

We were excited for conference and met with the Temple missionaries to watch conference.  For Saturday lunch we had Pronto Pollo again, kinda seeing a trend here aren’t you.  What can I say about conference.  They spoke directly to us.  The messages were exactly what we needed to help us grow in the Gospel and do a better job.

We love the Gospel and the chance to serve.  It is exciting to be part of such a wonderful work.  We hope all of you had a chance to listen and receive inspiration for your family.

We love you all.
Gordon and Renee