Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Back to school!

Today's the first day of school so all the kids were out the door bright and early this morning.  They all wear uniforms no matter where they go to school.  We visited some members, Nildo and Silvina Ledesma, and 3 of the 4 children came home while we were there.
Their son's uniform looks like a labcoat doesn't it?  He also has a tie he wears with it.  Then the daughter in the back is also wearing a tie.  It's extremely common to see the school uniforms include a tie for the girls.  With a light blue skirt and a blue tie, she's wearing the colors of their flag.  They're a great family and are a wonderful help to all the missionaries.














Yesterday we had all the missionaries from our zone over for panqueques con dulce de leche/pancakes with a carmel spread. The sisters arrived later but here are pictures of the elders.
From the lower left:  Elder Neville/UT, Leandro - a youth missionary, Elder Puma/Peru, Elder Gossling/GA, Elder Guymon (in light blue T-shirt)/UT, Nicolas - a friend of the missionaries, Elder Bilbao/Chile, Elder Mosmann/Argentina, Elder Bethers/UT, and Elder Hughes/UT







From left:  Elders Auma/Peru, Critchlow/UT, Gallacci/WA, and Correa/Chile.  They'd played basketball for a couple of hours before coming to our home so had really worked  up an appetite.  The one elder we're missing in all the pictures is Elder Egbert/UT.  He was over in a corner and I guess we missed him.  Next time we won't!


Saturday, February 25, 2012

A very full Pirquitas Dam

We've had a lot of rain this week and now the dams are getting filled up.  Pirquitas Dam is near to full capacity and the river flowing into the dam is quite a raging mass of water!

















Now isn't that a rushing river?!!!  And below, isn't that the biggest cactus you've seen?  We thought so, too.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Another late night activity

Our stake, La Rioja, had another dance last Friday and we went and enjoyed ourselves.  Those in attendance had a great time.


It was a potluck dinner and we were asked to bring either sandwiches (white food on plate), pizza, or empanadas.  These sandwiches are 3 layers and usually have ham on one of the layers with lettuce or tomatoes or eggs or something like that on the other layer, then they're stacked on top of each other.  They're called sandwich de miga.  The pizza is cheese - mozzarella - with a green olive (seed included) on each slice.  That's an extremely common kind of pizza.  These empanadas (below) were made with hamburger and were fried.  You can get them with meat (hamburger), chicken, ham and cheese which are all cooked before frying or baking them.  Or  you can get a kind called árabe (Arabian) which has the meat uncooked before the baking or frying process.  All are very common.















A few in attendance:  me, Angelica Valdez, Sister Correa, Gladys Pavon, Doug, Gladys Brandan, and Elvita in front.

We were raising our arms like we were dancing...or something like that.  From left to right:  President and Angelica Valdez, Doug and me, Elvita, Hugo and Gladys Pavon, David and Ana Brana, Hector in the back, Bishop and Gladys Brandan.









The dance was in honor of the Dia de Amorosos or Valentine's Day.

Friday, February 17, 2012

Happy Valentine's Day...3 Days Late...

On Monday we went back up to El Rodeo so the newly assigned sister, Sister Steward/UT, could see the area.  And...we found an interesting sign:


Here are a few more pictures of our time up there.

This church was built in 1866 and we enjoyed seeing it and taking pictures inside.












Sisters Brown/UT and Steward/UT enjoyed this little church, too.  We liked this one because it shows the cactus that grows in great abundance in this area.  It's also a cross stitch picture.


Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Fun finds and a fun activity

Isn't this the tiniest van you've ever seen?  It definitely is to me so I just thought I'd share it with you.

Maybe it doesn't look that tiny so we took a picture of a bigger van to show the difference.







See?  Tiny and big right next to each other.













See the sign?  It says parking is exclusively for the bishopric!  In our church the bishop and his counselors are called the bishopric.  We just thought we'd take advantage of this parking place...briefly... even though we're missionaries!


Our zone went to the little town of Las Pirquitas, right next to the dam, and had an activity.  We showed up later on and brought root beer and ice cream for floats.  Yum!!  This is Elder Puma/Peru visiting with Doug while the other missionaries were out in the intense heat playing games.  He'd done it earlier and needed a break.  It was a SUPER hot day.  Some action shots below.