The Chayle family

We've been working with this wonderful family since we arrived in Catamarca.  By "working" I mean visiting them, inviting them back to church, etc.  Last Sunday their 2nd son, Brian, was ordained a deacon in the Aaronic priesthood.  Ariel, the older brother, is already a deacon.  They came dressed so clean and ready to help pass the sacrament, that we had to take a picture of them after the block of meetings.

Monica and Manuel are behind Ariel (left) and Brian. 

We wanted to be in the picture, too!  And where were the other two boys?  In bed, sleeping away.  I just love the church's name on the building because it's just like our name tags.

These boys love their birds.  They have 9 cages in all and have caught every single one of them.  They can sing along and make the same sounds as the birds make.  Facundo (left) and Gustavo (right) in the front were the two missing on Sunday.  Maybe next week!

Stake Married Couples Activity

Last night was the LaRioja stake married couples activity.  The same activity was held in Catamarca as well as LaRioja.  We attended the Catamarca activity.  While there weren't too many in attendance, we really enjoyed the evening...night.  It started at 9 p.m. and ended after 1 a.m. (and we're awake to tell about it!).

                                                               The decorations were so pretty.

                  Bishop Diaz and his wife from the Catamarca ward.  They've been members for 5 years.

                                       President Valdez, the stake president, and his wife, Angelica.

             Bishop Brandan, Ambato Ward, Gladys Pavon, stake RS president, and her husband, Hugo, former stake president.

                                                                            The dancers...

                                                                    ...and the non-dancers.

                                      Gladys Brandan, Monica and Ignacio Sachetti from Ambato Ward.

Snow in the mountains and dogs on the street...

Now that's a pretty disconnected title but I thought it would be fun to show both items.  It rained last week and we woke up the next day and saw a small patch of snow so had to record it.

See that white patch up at the top of the mountain?  Yep, that's really snow and not clouds.  Also, doesn't it look like you can walk down the street and right up into the mountains?  They're truly that close.  Pretty amazing! 

Dogs are everywhere in Catamarca but more so in the area where we work.  One day as we were leaving someone's home we saw 4 of them taking their nap on the street.  There's one in the shade down past the first 2 dogs.  And...none of them moved when we took off in the car, so we drove around them so we wouldn't disturb their comfortable spot in the sun - or shade.  One elder even had a dog jump up and bite him on the shoulder.  Ouch!

More asado pictures

Elder Barraclough sent these pictures to us as we didn't have one of the group photos.  You'll enjoy his rabbit ears again behind me. 

Back row from left:  Elder Flake/CA, Elder Gil/Argentina, Elder Kindt/Canada, Elder Richter/LA, Hector, Elder Crespin/El Salvador, Elder Gossling/GA, Brother Medina
In the middle:  Elder Auma/Peru
Front row:  Nancy and Doug/CO, Elder Barraclough/VA, Elder Gonzalez/Chile, Elder Burton/CA

Now there's a good looking guy!!

Our Zone Asado/BBQ

                         The elders from our zone came over on Monday, our Preparation Day (known far and wide as P-day) for an asado/BBQ.  We had quite the amount of meat and not a scrap was left at the end of their visit!

The Pro:  Hermano/Brother Medina came along to help with the asado and did a fantastic job!

While the meat cooked, Elders Gil/Argentina, Gonzalez/Chile, and Barraclough/Virginia played Uno and Elder Gossling/GA sliced and diced the tomatoes for the salad.

                                                  Ahhh, finally uncovered for a view.  Yum...

Does it make your mouth water?  Remember, it's Spring down here in Argentina so the weather was perfect as was the company.

Working shoes and memories

We took pictures of the missionaries' shoes this past week.  They're hard working and their shoes prove it!  The roads and streets are very dusty.  Some of the elders were trying to clean off their shoes when we said we wanted a picture of them.  Some were even dustier!

When we were missionaries in Argentina about 40 years ago we saw this type of car all the time.  It's made by Citroen.  Every so often we see one out on the streets and had to take a picture for old times' sake.

Casa Dulce Casa/Home Sweet Home

We moved to our little house!!  On Monday we fed 4 elders some delicious empanadas along with soda and alfajores and ice cream then they worked hard with a little moving company (cost less if we provided the muscles/help) and got everything moved.  So now we're working on getting settled inbetween doing our missionary work.  One step at a time...

                                                        What you see from the front door.

                                                                      Our bedroom.

                                                       Our WONDERFUL kitchen.

                                                                 Look - a real bathtub!!

Our little washer and "dryer".  The washing machine is big enough to wash less than half of the loads we're used to washing and it takes 2 hours to wash one load.  The "dryer" actually is a super spinner.  It really gets the water out of the clothes and then we hang them out to dry.  The dryer is pretty small - comes up to the middle of my thigh. 

                          Our pretty backyard - yes, that's an above ground swimming pool, too.

The easist way to explain where we live is right next to the orange house.  You can find it in the dark!

Moving day was also my birthday and Elder Lawson surprised me with this darling bouquet of flowers.