The Great and Spacious Building

For the last 19 months we have been curious about a big red building on a hill next to one of the main routes we always take.  It seems like we are always in too big of a hurry or it is dark or something.  Well this week we had time.  It turns out it is a large Catholic Church built in 1919.  You can see that it is quite the building.  We made the stop on one of our trips to deliver stuff to the missionaries.

This week did not include quite the travel as last week.  We started out Monday by going to Florida to pick up the paint supplies from the Elders.  We are so impressed by the good job they did.  I can’t thank them enough.  It takes quite a bit of leadership and desire to go the extra mile and paint your house.  Elder Johanson and Elder Zacarias are the Zone Leaders.  Elder Waite and Elder Rivera are the other two Elders in the house.  I can’t thank them enough.

Wednesday we had kind of an unusual day.  Sister Marreiro, from Brazil, had to go home early on the change so she could get enrolled in college.  Before she went home she wanted to do some Temple Work for her Grandmother as her home is a long ways from a Temple.  We picked her up about noon at the bus station and brought her to the Temple.  We decided to help her so I ended up baptizing her for her Grandmother and also several others.  It was kind of fun to do this again, as I haven’t done it for quite some time.  After the baptism, we went through the session with her also.  On Thursday, while they held Oro Conference, Renee and I were able to take her to the Airport.  We remember when she arrived.  She has grown so much and done such a great job.

Also on Thursday, while Renee did the cooking for the Oro Conference in the morning I ran the finance elders to the bus station to buy bus tickets for the return trip for those that were attending Oro Conference.  Are you kind of seeing a trend here about going to the Bus Station?  I seem to do it about 20 times a day.  So Thursday was a busy day of service.

Friday we had the Minas Zone Scheduled for inspections.  This zone only has four houses.   They were four of the worst houses in the mission with walls filled with mold and other gunk.  But in the last couple of months we have painted three of the four so now they are bright and happy.  There was a little mold starting on some of the walls but we got that off pretty quick.

If you have followed the blog you will remember the term “Minas Pizza”.  There is a pizza shop in Minas that makes pizza just like in the states.  It is really, really good.  You can see from the picture that we didn’t need to push the Elders to go with us.  They also helped with the painting so it was kind of a pay back.  We had a good time.  Three of the four Elders go home about the same time we do.  Let’s just say things got “a little trunky”!  It started with one of them saying, “So what is there to do around Blackfoot?”  Wow, the flood gates opened.  But enough about that.

After that we stopped at the Pan de Azucar.  Look how the bright smiles of the Sisters are highlighted by the bright white walls.  I hope you can imagine how much fun it was to visit with them.  They don’t have pizza in Pan de Azucar so they had to settle for Renee’s lemon cookies.

After that we stopped at the Piriapolis house.  Elder Rodriguez and Elder Mereles also had a clean house.  I didn’t take a picture of them because I have some from them from a couple of weeks ago when we cleaned out the La Capuera house.  Also, Elder Rodriguez served in the office and I probably have more pictures of him than any other Elder.  I have to say his face likes the camera and my camera likes his happy face.  When he served in the office we would often stop at McDonalds to eat or at least get a treat.  Instead of saying McDonalds we would always say the jingle, Buda bump bump bum!  So when I called and told him we were coming I asked him what we should do and he sang the jingle.  It made this old guy pretty happy.  Sad news though, the McDonalds in Piriapolis is closed for the winter.  So we settled for another ice cream shop.  It was still a lot of fun.

Saturday is supposed to be our P-Day.  I think that means we are supposed to relax.  Elder Richmond went home on the last change.  His parents came to get him and brought us Maple Syrup.  That meant we had to do Wafflemania ll.  We did wafflemania l about a year ago with Elder Brumble and Vallecillos.  This time we did it with all the office Elders.  Renee mixed up a mixing bowl of pancake batter and a bowl of waffle batter.  They ate all of it.  They can really put it away.  It was a lot of fun.

We had to hurry and scoot them out the door so we could go pick up Sister Campbell, Sister Ortega and Sister Parada at the bus station.  Sister Campbell came to Montevideo from Melo with the other sisters to attend the Temple with a family she baptized a year ago in La Paz.  What a fun day for them.  So we picked them up about noon and then took them back afterwards.  They had a little extra time so we brought them over to our house to relax for awhile.  Sister Parada is in the middle in the picture.  She is from Santa Cruz Bolivia and remembers Emily Park who served there about a year ago.  Small world.

We finished off the week with Church and the monthly Fast Day lunch afterwards.   We certainly have some good friends.  I have started to read Jesus the Christ.  It really helps build my Testimony and understanding of the Savior.  I think that is one of the reasons we are here.  We love and appreciate you all.

Love, Gordon and Renee