You Don’t Know What You Got ‘til It’s Gone

March 5, 2017

So another change week has come and gone.  It was busy and fun.  We do a lot of the same things so I try not to duplicate what we have talked about.  Our weeks are filled with fielding calls to help missionaries with their homes and working on contracts.  This continues to be a real challenge as we work to understand Spanish and work with the different individuals.

This is one of my favorite pictures! Everyone is full and Happy

I decided to put the “supper picture” first because I love this picture.  It was a highlight of our mission to eat dinner with these special missionaries before they went home.  We are so sad to see them leave.  We know that some of them we will never see again.  I write this with tears in my eyes as we love them so much.

Just like other change weeks, we start with the arrival of new missionaries on Tues.  We had nine new ones come in which is just about the right size.  They are a happy and energetic group.  It is fun to get to know them.  We participate in the training as Renee helps with the food and I run things around and help Sister Eddy with translation.  I have to say that Sister Eddy is very patient with my translation skills.

I really like the picture of the new missionaries eating.  You can tell how happy they are.  I had to sneak in the picture of the office elders sneaking some cake from the kitchen.  They always seem to be good at “cleaning up”.  After training and the evening meal the office missionaries sponsor a “cultural show”.  This includes a “jeopardy game” with facts of Uruguay as the answers.  It is really fun.  At the end program, the office missionaries show the new ones how to “milk alfajores”.
Alfajores are a cookie with dulce de leche or creamy caramel in the middle and covered with chocolate.  You milk it by biting a little off each end and then putting it in a bowl of milk and sucking the milk through it.  If you do a good job you can get the milk to come all the way.  It is really quite tasty.  As I said they are a happy group.  Well, as one of them was working on his alfajores, he exclaimed, “That’s life changing!”  We all laughed and went back to milking.

Wednesday morning I spent my time picking up missionaries going home.  I dropped off Renee at the mission home to cook at about 7:00 A.M. and then picked up two of the missionaries that are going home and live close to the mission home.  After that, I took the mission van and the trailer to the bus station, Tres Cruzes, to pick up the rest.  I had all of them at the mission home by 11:00 A. M.  Then we started the process of getting ready to send the old missionaries home.

Our evening dinner was wonderful.  The food was excellent.  I was amazed at how much the missionaries can put away.  You can tell by the picture at the top that they are happy and feel very good about their missions.  I am really sad because we have come to love the missionaries so much but realize that we probably won’t see a good share of the Latinos ever again.  We really enjoyed the testimony meeting as they have learned so much and are so full of the Spirit.

Thursday was quite hectic as there were five flights for nine missionaries.  The Peruvians left in the middle of the night so we were not able to say goodbye at the airport.  I am so happy that they have already joined us on Face book so we can keep in touch.  One of the twists to Thursday was that Elder Orme did not leave until 8:30 P.M.  So he had the whole afternoon to wait.  That worked just fine for us as we had some errands to run and took him with us.  That gave us more time to spend with him including dinner.  Elder Orme quickly became one of our favorites as he was so good to fix the things in his house.  Instead of calling to tell me what was wrong, he would call and tell me what he had fixed.  He did a lot of things with his Leatherman.  That’s why I called him “MacGyver”.  He made us twin ties that are really a great souvenir for me. His late flight was due to the fact that he is flying to Guam to meet his family.  His dad is a career Air Force Officer.  So his final salute was really appreciated.

So another change has come and gone.  We are still feeling pretty bad that our friends have left.  We love them so much.  We are looking forward to another fun week.  We expect to make some more contacts with people we can help along the way.

We love and appreciate all of you.
Love
Gordon and Renee