A Wonderful Experience

June 2015 brought a release from our mission to the South America South Area. We had to say lots of good-byes, which is not easy or fun when there is a GREAT chance that we won't see so many of those that we have come to love and appreciate again in this life.
We had a celebration in our Pathway class and Janet made treats. Tuesday, June 16, they asked us to speak in a special devotional. It was not easy to say good-bye but we spoke about what we have learned while serving in Argentina and Janet had made fudge (Darin's recipe) and banana-chocolate snack cake for everybody. We took lots of pictures and then went home from the office and with tears and huge lumps in our throats, we made our was down Paseo Colon one last time, jumped onto the subway and went to the apartment.
Wednesday we cleaned our apartment really well and it took most of the day.  We went to eat at the home of Terry and Linda Spallino (he is the DTA) for the area and she was in our Spanish class.  They showed us that they were learning how to use a loom and then they took us into their Family History room, WOW! They are really good examples of being anxiously engaged in a good cause.
Thursday, June 18, we packed and went to the Temple in Buenos Aires with some of the other missionary couples before we went to the airport.  A really kind man helped us get our boarding passes, go through customs and we gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon.
The flight was 10 hours to Atlanta, then on to SLC, and after an hour delay, we landed in Idaho Falls, where it was really hot!  We were greeted by all of the Idaho Falls family, Dennetts, Meservys, and Brenda Bird. They had flowers for mom and balloons and big greeting posters with welcome home and it was a great reunion.
We met with President Hal Wright of the Lincoln Stake Presidency to be officially released and had a great visit with him. We love to talk about our mission, and he seemed eager to listen.
Sunday, June 28, we reported our mission to the Stake High Council and spoke in Sacrament Meeting in the Lincoln 3rd Ward at 9:00 a.m.  Dennetts and Monsons came along with Alan, Oswalds, Hales, Casey, Ryan, Sara, JoLyn and much to our surprise and joy Paul Andreason and his wife Melinda and their 2 youngest children came.  It was great to have the support of family!
Our dear friends from Coltman, who helped us get through the first 30 years of our lives, the Oberhansleys, the Horkleys, the Birds, the Harwoods, and the Berretts all came to support us and it was awesome. Our former Stake President, Mark Fuller, who helped us get the ball rolling for the mission 2 years ago also came.
It seems like the words of Jacob from the Book of Mormon in Jacob 7:26 sum up the past two years the  best. "...also our 'mission' passed away like as it were unto us a dream,"

...And it came to pass...

Placas-Missionary name tags 2013-2015



The best part of our mission...meeting new brothers and sisters.
Capilla Abierta # 100 in San Fernando, June 6, 2015.

Our calling card


 

And a child shall lead them...

Elias Montano is a 10 year old member of the church who lives in a ward in Buenos Aires, Argentina named Villa Soldati.  His father is the ward mission leader.  When we did our training in this ward for our Open Chapel, we challenged Brother Montano to involve all of the ward members by asking that they invite a non-member friend to the event.  He started with his family.  He told each one that they would be expected to bring a friend to the Open Chapel.
The day of our Open Chapel visit to Villa Soldati one of the first visitors was Elias, (shown here in a suit) accompanied by his non-member friend, Benjamin.  Elias took Benjamin on the missionary tour of the chapel and then headed straight to the display by the Primary where he explained the "Faith in God" program to Benjamin and gave him his own copy of the "Faith in God" booklet.  Next he took him to the Family History display where he gave him a copy of the booklet "Mi Familia" and told him he needed to fill it in with all of the information for his family members.
After they were finished, I saw them laughing and enjoying all of the treats at the refreshment table.
What a great little missionary!  Can you imagine what he will be like when he hits the mission field in a few years and is doing this full time?

HELADOS (Ice cream)

The most important word in the Spanish language is "helados" pronounced ay-la-dos.  Just ask any missionary and you will find that this is the word that brings comfort, joy, and the courage to keep going.  It helps that Argentina is known worldwide for its delicious ice cream, and Buenos Aires boasts an ice cream shop on nearly every block.  We live in the Palermo district of Buenos Aires which is known for its parks with their beautiful trees and flowers.  There are also many paths to follow and park benches to enjoy, so of course there is much ice cream.

There are some flavors of ice cream here that you just cannot get anywhere else.  McDonalds which is just two blocks away does not have chocolate soft ice cream like you find in the States.  Instead they have soft dulce de leche ice cream (also available in twist with vanilla).  It is to die for!  It has a very rich caramel taste and is everyone's favorite down here!  They also have the McFlurries and Sundaes which are available with this flavor.  Yum!

We have 4 little ice cream shops within 2 blocks of our apartment.  They are pictured below.  The little shops do not have soft ice cream.  They sell it either by the cone, the quarter kilo, half kilo, or whole kilo.  It comes in Styrofoam containers with fun little plastic spoons.  It is expensive, with a quarter kilo sometimes costing 30 pesos.  That would be about $2.50 USD and is usually what one missionary orders.  Desiring to be dedicated missionaries and good neighbors, we have become very good friends with the owners and workers in these shops and are certain that they all have pass along cards and copies of the Book of Mormon!  We remember what Elder Ballard said in conference about "follow up" being important and feel a need to stop in often to make sure our "contacts" are progressing!

The chocolate "flavored ice cream comes in dark, very dark, and almost black!  They have almonds, swirls of dulce de leche, brownie chunks, raisins, or little crunchies if you like.  By far my favorite!
Janet likes dulce de leche the best and depending on her mood chooses, chocolate chips, almonds, brownies, swirls of chocolate, raisins, or all of the above. 

They also have cream flavors, with any word you want in front of the word cream, like almond, cherry, strawberry, cookie, chocolate, peach, coconut, banana, orange, mango, American, or lemon.  Of course you can have your ice cream bathed with a number of sauces, dulce de leche, chocolate, strawberry, and caramel to name a few.  You can have nuts put on top if you choose as well.

The non-cream flavors are more the fruits and are so rich and delicious.  They are not really sherbets like in the States, they are much richer, smoother, and creamier.  Lemon is by far the favorite flavor of the non-creams and especially if you add chocolate chips and nuts!  Delicious!  The watermelon and mango flavors are also really good and cherry is one to make your mouth really pucker!  Janet likes the orange with fresh peach chunks.  We also really like one called "Coco My Place" which has coconut flavored ice cream with swirls of dulce de leche, chocolate chips and almond slivers.  It is really good bathed in chocolate.

We have an open chapel to present every Saturday afternoon and it has become kind of a ritual to go a little bit early, drive around the area until we find an "heladeria" (ice cream shop) and stop for a treat before we start the program.  It has been really fun and we have become well-acquainted with lots of ice cream shop owners all over Buenos Aires, who now have copies of the Book of Mormon and our Open Chapel cards.  We love this work!

Well, now you know the truth.  The truth is, we have fallen in love with the ice cream capital of the world and have to work really hard to fit into the clothes that we brought down with us to Argentina 22 months ago!

Church Welfare Argentina Style

Tuesday, April 14, we were up early and made it to the Church Office by 8:00 in order to pick up a van.  We had some deliveries to make to the Deseret Industries because two couples are headed home and wanted to leave some items behind.  We picked up the Wallaces and the Fords at their apartments to go with us. I have done the most driving of anyone here in Buenos Aires, so they always make me drive.  We were headed out to Escobar before 9:00 which had been our goal.
Buenos Aires has 3 Bishop Welfare units.  The one in Escobar has clothing and food.  The others in Villa Amelia and Adrogue just have food.  Escobar is a suburb of Buenos Aires about half of an hour to the north on the freeway.  There was a lot of morning traffic. 
When we pulled into the parking lot there were people waiting outside of the building, ready for help.  We chuckled at the old, beat up car in the parking area.  It belongs to Brother Aguirrebarra, who is the director of the facility.  He was working under the hood of the old rattle-trap when we got there and we asked him what was wrong, he said, "oh, nothing is wrong with the car, but each day when I get to work, I take the battery out of it so that nobody will try to steal it!"  I laughed, but inside I thought, you know, the way that car looks, I don't think you have to worry about someone trying to steal it!

 

 

 

We enjoyed our tour of the facility.  It is very small compared to what we have seen in Utah and Idaho.  There is a little clothing shop, but it is not a Deseret Industries, per se.  No one can shop in the store or purchase any clothing items.  When someone comes to get clothing, with a Bishop's order, the person must first work for two hours and then the order gets filled.  What work is done?  Workers sort clothing, iron clean clothing, launder clothing items, stock shelves and put clothing items on hangers.  Working on both industrial and home sewing machines, they sew new clothing items which have been donated by stores, do hand stitching as needed, and help to put clothing on shelves  and displays.  Sister Trapp is the director of the clothing shop. She has a son who lives in Provo, Utah.  She has worked in Deseret Industry stores up there.  It is actually very impressive.

Brother Auirrebarra runs the actual Bishop's Storehouse.  Here again, those who come with an order for food scrub up and then get dressed in gown, hat, mask, and gloves.  They are responsible to fill plastic bags with product (rice, flour, sugar, milk, beans) from big bulk bags that are trucked into the facility.  The bags are sealed and placed on shelves. Unlike the ''storehouses" at home, they only have non perishable items and the only canned item is tuna fish.  No non-food items like soap or TP are available. Once two hours has passed, workers can proceed to the  "store" where their orders are filled by church service missionaries.  It was interesting to learn that the product is all manufactured right here in Argentina.

 

 

 



We jumped back into the van and drove across Buenos Aires, being guided by our faithful GPS, Adelina.  It took us about 45 minutes and towards the end of the trip we wondered if Adelina knew where she was headed, but Sister Knapp and I have been to Villa Amelia for Open Chapel purposes and were relieved when things started to look familiar.

We were greeted by a delightful staff of workers at this Bishops' Storehouse.  The directors are Brother and Sister Ahumada.  They were so fun and anxious to welcome us to their little facility.  It is located in 4 rooms of an LDS Church house.  It is run just as the other one is, where workers must first work for two hours before they are allowed to have their food orders filled.  Sometimes if a member is ill or unable to work, a family member can work for them.  Sometimes this is not a member of the church and they told us that there have been many great missionary experiences as a result of this kind of service within families.  Brother Garcia and Sister Lasso are not members of the church due to strict rules regarding divorce, which prohibits baptism.  They are anxiously awaiting approval of divorce from her first husband, so that after many years of service in the church, they can take their 16 year old daughters, who are church members to the Temple.  They are loving, kind people who volunteer at the Bishops' Storehouse every day. 





 

 

 

We learned much today about the way the Lord provides for the poor in His church in Argentina and met some of His humble, awesome servants.





Marching into Spring

March has been great for missionary work here in Argentina.  We are really starting to see the members catch the vision of their responsibility to share the gospel.  A combination of things are making that happen.  We have seen quite a change since Elder Ballard of the Quorum of Apostles came to dedicate Argentina to the preaching of the gospel, and the prophet, has continually challenged members that NOW is the time to bring souls to Him.  How blessed we feel to be part of this great work at this important time.  The 2nd Temple in Argentina will be dedicated in May. The Temple is in Argentina's 2nd largest city, Cordoba.  What a blessing that is for these people who have to travel so far in this huge country.  We were able to see the Temple when we went to Cordoba,  to train a couple in the Open Chapel program.  It is truly beautiful.

We have had 5 Open Chapel events in March and they have all been very well attended. We began with a presentation in a very poor, rather scary neighborhood.  We arrived early to find gypsies selling old cars out in front of the church, a dead dog on the lawn, which smelled, and a crazy soccer game going on in the field next door.  Just when we were starting to get really nervous, a bus pulled up and out jumped the 8 Elders who were assigned to help us.  It was truly great to see them start across the lawn with their smiles and such a great spirit.  We couldn't help but feel like we had been rescued by the "Army of Helaman".  It turned out to be a great Open Chapel with lots of humble visitors who were very receptive to the message of the gospel.

The next week took us to a place called Rivadavia.  Bishop Montiel was so excited to show us this huge poster he had made to put out in front of the chapel.  It was all about the Book of Mormon and Christ's visit to the Americas.  We were very impressed, it was very well done.  Later, a member shared with us that Bishop Montiel was unable to read and write when he joined the church about 8 years ago.  He had patiently taken lessons from many sets of missionaries until he could read and then he learned to write.  That gave a whole lot of meaning to his Book of Mormon display.

In Garin we met a sister named Evangelista who told us that she loved being a missionary.  She proved it by bringing so many different people from the street to meet Janet and have the Open Chapel tour.  She brought in over a dozen investigators just by herself in the couple of hours that she was there with us.  We were so impressed with her loving, kind spirit, obviously we were not the only ones!

In General Rodriguez I had to take a picture of the beautiful, huge double story building with an elevator.  This building, was all lit up at night and was such a beautiful sight in this cozy little neighborhood.  I could live in this little town just outside of Buenos Aires.

We had the misfortune of being sideswiped by a moving truck.  He took of my mirror, scratched up the fender a bit and completed hooked into our bumper with his rear bumper and yanked it from the frame.  It went flying off of the road.  Of course this happened at night, after one of our Open Chapel events, but the road was well-lit and the fellow who crunched us was good to accept his fault, after some coaxing.  We have been without our van now for two weeks, which has been a real challenge, but we are so fortunate to have been protected from what could have been much worse.

National elections will take place here in October of this year.  The people are very frustrated with their current president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.  They demonstrate all of the time.  Where we work just two blocks from the Pink House, we often see demonstrations in the plaza in front of government buildings.  One day the whole street was blocked by marchers carrying a huge Argentine flag.  The flag blocked all 12 lanes of traffic and caused much chaos.  Another day as we headed for the subway to come home, there were buses with people banging on drums lining the streets and the demonstrators were burning tires in the streets sending up clouds of black smoke.  It was scary!  We are seeing more anti-Yankee graffiti because her supporters blame everything that is wrong here on the USA.

The Church Office closed for another national holiday and so we took the train with our dear friends the Fords out to Martinez to see if we could find the mission home that we lived in as missionaries here in 1972.  Elder Ford was also here in the late 1960's, so it was his mission home too.  We found where it had been, General Pacheco 1380, but it has long since been removed.  We did walk a few blocks further down the street to "The Embers", which boasts being the first American Restaurant in Argentina.  That very well could be!  It was just as I had remembered it many years ago!  We had hamburgers, fries and a drink for 90 pesos!  It was all painted up in red, white, and blue and was just as I had remembered it!  That was a lot of fun!

March missionary madness

Missionary work just gets more fun!  We went to an Open Chapel in Parque Avellaneda and there we were helped by two young men who found the Church at our last Open Chapel there.  We went to an Open Chapel in Rivadavia and a sister missionary told us that as a result of the Open Chapel we had in Moron 1^st Ward (pronounced moroan) the husband of a faithful sister there got baptized.  Then as we were presenting the training in Garin an Elder Anderson told us that as a result of the Open Chapel in Parque Patricios a less active sister came with her family and her husband and son were baptized.

Saul y Luis

 

 It is fun to hear about the results of our efforts because we seldom do.  We just love being out with the people both for the trainings on Sunday and the actual Open Chapels on Saturday.

Of course the highlight of the month was mom’s birthday.  She got breakfast made by me, but then things started to pick up.  The other missionaries got her ice cream and treats.  I had one of the sisters surprise her with a really pretty blue (as in the Argentine flag) sweater which she really likes.

We are loving the Pathways class that we teach.  It is a course in the Book of Mormon in English to 24 students who after this semester will be able to enroll in BYU-Idaho as fulltime online students.  We are learning so much.  We made it through 2 Nephi and Isaiah and actually enjoyed the allegory of the olive tree in Jacob. 

One of our latest challenges now that school is back in session and people are back from vacation is getting to the office each morning.  We have to ride the subway.  There is no limit as to the number of passengers on the subway cars.  Just when we think the car is full and we are all standing there crammed together, nose to armpit, and literally “cheek to cheek”, a large middle aged lady decides to board and it gets really intense!  Of course there is no air conditioning inside the subway.  It is so hot and so humid and there are so many bodies that after just a stop or two, we wonder why we bothered to shower and wish that the teenage boy next to us had.  We have to ride for 10 stops which takes about 25 minutes and we are always sweating profusely when we emerge above ground at the plaza in front of the Pink House where we go every day.  What a relief to be above ground and to feel fresh air and to have 7 hours to look forward to repeating the process to get back to the apartment!

But summer is almost over here and the leaves are starting to fall, so the weather will make life in general and especially the subway trip to and from work more pleasant.

We gave away another Book of Mormon to a little man we pass by as we walk to the subway each day.  Hope he takes time to read it.

This month we have 6 Open chapel events scheduled.  We have two back to back on Saturday, March 7th and 8th, then on Sunday evening with a training in between on Sunday morning.  Some of the bishops that have had one in the past asked for another and since our Saturdays are all booked through June, we have had to schedule them on Sunday, Tuesday, or Friday.  The Tuesday or Friday have been holidays here.  They seem to be a good day because no one works.  All in all we really enjoy our weekends.  It has been so fun to get to know so many great members of the church here in Argentina.