Happy New Year!

January 1, 2017

New Year's Day in Montevideo.  It's going to be a wet one!

This is a time of reflection as we look back at 2016 and get started with 2017.  What a wonderful, eventful, difficult and rewarding year.  As noted in our blog, we found out early that Missionary Work is exactly that, work.  We have learned a lot in the last year and hopefully have helped a few missionaries. There is no question that our best moments are when we are with the missionaries.
Last week was typical of a week between Christmas and New Years.  We were busy with office work and doing things for the missionaries.  The office work is important and necessary but not the kind of stuff that makes a blog compelling.  There are probably some that would say that we still have not found any real compelling stuff for the blog.  I guess that’s the way it goes.

Going to dinner with the Temple Couples, President and Sister Eddy.
Good food, good company, but a poor picture.

This picture is of the Temple missionaries, President Eddy and his wife with us at dinner on Tuesday night.  This was scheduled earlier as a birthday party for Elder and Sister Wiberg.  It’s too bad that they did not attend.  They walked out of the Temple Tuesday afternoon to see all of their kids and spouses waiting for them to surprise them.  They had a great time all week enjoying their family.  So without the Wibergs went still went and had a great time.  This little restaurant is right on the beach near our apartment.  We have become good friends with the staff and always have a good time.

Besides the office work, we have been busy putting mosquito nets on all of the beds in the mission.  We received the nets awhile back and have been working to come up with a good way to put them on the bed.  We decided to use electrical conduit and some brackets to hook it onto the bed.  We have made a few design changes along the way but for the most part it works pretty well.  We found the conduit at the Sodimac store (think Home Depot). The problem that we ran into is the conduit comes in 3 meter (10 foot) lengths and do not fit in our car.  So we get to stand out in the hot sun and humidity and cut them in half.  We have a pretty good tool to do it so it goes pretty smooth except it is REALLY HOT.

Getting ready to do mosquito nets.
Doesn't this look like fun in 85 degree weather and 90% humidity?

We have purchased over 30 lengths of pipe so far and over 60 elbows.  I wonder if Sodimac is wondering why there is such a run on the pipe.  We have purchased all that is available and are hoping that they get some more in soon.  This is not like the states where they get a shipment each week or you can special order stuff.

From there we go to each apartment and hook them on.  It really is quite fun and we have a great time with the missionaries.  The challenge is we have to do it 190 times.  It ends up being a lot of travel and time spent in the heat.  When we go in the apartments we need to plug in the drill to screw the brackets on the beds.  Too often this is the outlet where the fan goes so we get to melt in the heat of the apartments.  We really have a lot of respect for the way the missionaries are able to stand the heat.  You can see that from the pictures that we really enjoy the time with the missionaries.  The best time to do it is on Mondays when the missionaries are having P-day or Fridays when they are in the house doing planning during the morning.  This way we do not interrupt their work time.

The best part is when they are able to share some stories of the miracles they are seeing in their areas.  Speaking of miracles, you may recall last week when we challenged Elder Limas and Guale to find someone and they called us five minutes later to say they had.  Well, they are still teaching this investigator and they have come to Church.  That is exciting, especially to hear these two animated Elders tell the story.

We are still plugging along with our friends, Humberto and Cristina.  Cristina is anxious to get baptized.  She has almost finished 2nd Nephi and has read all of the pamphlets that she has been given.  We had a good visit last night and the Sisters have plans to finish the charlas with them.  This is a great friendship and a great experience for us.

New Year’s Eve is spent just like Christmas Eve with Fireworks, only bigger.  We invited the Temple Couples to our apartment last night where we played games and ate snacks until midnight.  That’s when the show begins.  The sky lights up with fireworks from all directions. We had a real good view from the seventh floor.  There were some going off real close so we had a great time and a great view.  Our only problem was getting to bed real late, so we were kind of dragging today.

We finished off the week by going to Church in the Camion Carasco ward to meet with them to set up a time to do a Capilla Abierta.  It was good to get to know the great members of this ward.

So last week we passed the one year mark in Uruguay.  We now know what to expect for the next 10 months.  We are ready for the next three months of really hot and humid weather.  We kind of get used to it and I still like it more than the cold.  We appreciate all the support from home and have had a great time the past two weeks enjoying the holidays with our kids and grandkids by facetime.  I really don’t think we could do it without this wonderful blessing.

We love you all and look forward to the coming year.
Happy New Year

Love
Gordon and Renee