Día de los Reyes

January 6th is Día de los Reyes or Day of the Kings - the day Argentines celebrate when the 3 wise men came from the east to visit the Christ child.  The night before the children leave hay/straw and water to feed the camels and in return, they leave toys for the children.  So...in Argentina, Santa doesn't bring all the toys and surprises to the children.  That morning, we found a surprise in our freezer (and we didn't even leave hay/straw and water) and the sisters had a conspiratory smile on their faces.  Here's the proof:

We first saw this little sign on our refrigerator...

Then when we opened the freezer, we saw a wonderful ice cream gift.  Lucky us!!!

Gracias Hermanas/Sisters Brown/UT and Adair/AZ!  Saturday morning they moved out of our home into their own pensión/apartment.  We're empty nesters once again and miss their smiling faces and happy spirits.  They're great missionaries!

Happy New Year!!

We hope you had a marvelous new year's eve and are enjoying the start of 2012!  We didn't do anything to celebrate and bring in the new year but were awakened with the noise from all the fireworks being shot off.  In fact, some sounded like they were in our backyard.  As I was walking around the plaza this morning, I saw TONS of debris from all the fireworks.  Now that would have been the place to be...if we could have lasted that long.  We found a fun Santa decoration so wanted to show that.  Today we also went to the main plaza - Plaza 25 de Mayo - and took pictures of that as well as pictures from inside the main cathedral.  We were tourists for awhile this morning and enjoyed it.

This Santa was displayed on a rather busy main street in town.  He was waving to everyone as they passed by and we really liked it.  We didn't see many decorations so got excited when we saw this one.  It just seemed so out of place to find all the "winterized" decorations (Santa wearing long sleeves and jackets, etc.) when we're in the middle of summer. 












The following pictures were taken inside the Cathedral.  The ceiling had exquisite murals and the walls had some very old and beautiful paintings.  The "bodies" of the Savior and Maria were underneath one display, as you'll see.

An outside view of the cathedral.










Here's a view of General San Martin at Plaza 25 de Mayo, the date when the first government from Spain was set up and...Doug's birthday.  It's fun for him to see street signs and plazas honoring his birthday.  Plus we couldn't miss taking a picture of the Coca-Cola sign as they happen to be everywhere.  Frío means cold.  Remember, it's summer down here right now and quite hot so this really draws attention and appears very refreshing.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

It was the zone's goal to have a white Christmas - baptisms!  They had 8 baptisms that day so it was indeed a very white Christmas.

 This is the Arpires family.  The oldest son, Nicolas, is the stake executive secretary and baptized his grandmother.  Another son is serving a mission in Venezuela.

To the right are Elders Egbert/UT and Crespin/El Salvador.

                                              Now that's what you call a white Christmas!! 

On Christmas Day we fed all the missionaries pulled pork sandwiches, french fries, watermelon, and each received a bag of goodies - homemade chocolate chip cookies, snickerdoodles, and brownies.  Didn't seem to be any complaints...  :o)  Several also used our Vonage line to call home, one of two calls allowed for the missionaries per year (the other on Mother's Day).

Sisters Brown/UT and Adair/AZ, Elders Hughes/UT, Guymon/UT, Adams/TX, Crespin/El Salvador, Egbert/UT, and Auma/Peru enjoying their Christmas Day meal.

                                                    Elders Correa/Chile and Burton/CA.

Elders Gossling/GA, Nitta/CA, Perez/CA, Critchlow/UT, Bilbao/Chile, and Araya/Chile. 

Elder Gossling, Sisters Adair and Brown relaxing in the living room during the afternoon.

Above, Elders Araya/Chile, Nitta/CA, and Critchlow/UT with Elder Gossling/GA in the corner of the picture.  On the other side of the room:  Elders Guymon/UT, Auma/Peru, Crespin/El Salvador, Egbert/UT.

A district of elders:  Adams/TX, Bilbao/Chile, Perez/CA, and Araya/Chile.  Bottom picture has Elder Gossling/GA helping with the computer and doing some scheduling.

We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and will have a wonderfully Happy New Year!!!

¡Happy Birthday Elder Adams!

Elder Adams/TX had a birthday last week and a member had a little fiesta for him.  We enjoyed sandwiches (typical food item served in the evening) and empanadas, which were made by Elder Adams. We had a great time and the cake was the best we've tasted down here.

The celebrants:  Doug, Nancy, Elder Guymon/UT, Elder Adams/TX, Mario Gomez (gave the party), Lucho Rasgido, Carmen Rasgido.  Emilia Chaile was also there and took the picture.

               Trying to blow out sparklers!

                     WOW!!!

Mario also loves to sing so we sang a few hymns.

Multi-zone Conference and Ward Activity

On Monday we drove down to Cordoba for a multi-zone conference and loved being with the missionaries.  The conference was held with the Catamaraca, La Rioja, and Rio Quarto zones.   Here are some pictures from our day with them.

Some of the elders waiting for the conference to begin.

It was great for the missionaries to be with each other.

A break during the conference let the elders visit a little bit with each other some more.

Lunch consisted of an asado/BBQ with sausage and steak.  It was delicious and Elder Schlachter/Canada, the mission secretary, is ready to dig in and enjoy it all.

Santa, aka President Salas, his wife and the assistants were busy handing out gifts to all the missionaries.  You should have seen the happy looks on all the faces of the missionaries.  It was great!!

Sisters Brown and Adair having fun during the outdoor activities.

Today is a BIG holiday in Argentina, especially in Catamarca, the Day of the Virgin.  Thousands came here from various parts of the country with many sleeping in tents in all the plazas in the central part of the city.  We had an activity at our church for the families to be together and enjoy.

Walter and Emilia Chaile fixed 285 empanadas (the members donated the ingredients) to share with everyone as well as 2 humongous cakes. The other members brought a variety of things to add to the food the Chailes prepared.  Elder Gonzalez/Chile along with his companion, Elder Burton/CA, organized the activity.

                                                            The kids loved the games!

The Crettaz family along with the niece of the Guerrero family.

Elders Burton/CA and Auma/Peru along with Brian and Gustavo Chayle and Karen Guerrero.

Elders Richter/LA, Winger/UT, Guymon/UT, and Adams/TX enjoying the day.

Elvita Alduncin, Mario Gomez, and Elder Guymon.

Ariel Chayle with some flour on his face from one of the games.

 


At one of the plazas we saw this tiny horse and llama - ready to add to the festivities.

Cars for sale and our backyard.

How do you know a car is for sale in Catamarca?  Look and see:

They put an orange cone or something similar to what's in the picture on top of the car and Voila! you know it's for sale.  This is a common site all over town.

I love our little backyard with the Bougainville and flowering trees.  The above ground pool won't be used because it leaks water and we're not here to put it to use nor want to pay for all that water.  But it did a great job drying out all the bread cubes for the stuffing for Thanksgiving (we set all the pans out on the edges of the pool)!  There's no sprinkler system so I water the yard by hand several times a week and my goal is to keep everything alive while we live here and not kill anything. So far so good. :o)