And the Truth shall set you free...

Here are a few truths about a mission that you may not know or have thought of...
1. Your phone can be silent for 8 hours...and then two people will try and call you at the same time.
2. If you eat before a meeting there will always be refreshments but if you do not eat, there will never be refreshments.
3. Raymond Heyman does NOT rhyme when you say it in Spanish.
4. Dogs are not as afraid of you as you are of them. That is just an excuse dog lovers made up to rationalize the unprovoked dog bites missionaries suffer.
5. There is more than one recipe for Seven Up soda. It does not taste the same in North and South America.
6. It does not matter how many Mercedes Benz cars your local dealership sells, the company is going to make gazillions of dollars in profit...because almost every tractor trailer cab outside of the U.S. is made by Mercedes Benz.
7. When a person tells you to come back by their home "tomorrow anytime", they are leaving town tonight.
8. Gallons or liters, miles or kilometers, Fahrenheit or Celsius, it really does not matter. But, pesos or dollars.......now you are onto something.
9. When you ask for a cake decorated in "red, white and blue"..."pink, white and blue" is NOT "close enough".
10. If you are going to be a gentleman and wait to eat until (1) everyone is served and (2) a female at the table has taken the first bite ...you should let at least one of the females know so your food does not get cold while everyone is waiting for you to take the first bite!
And, a bonus...
11. Never, never, never assume that the faucet handle on the left is always hot water and the handle on the right is cold water when you step into the shower!!!

Ruta Nacional 89

Apparently, there are two ways to drive to the Chapel in Villa Angela from Resistencia. The route I took the first time I went...and the way Diane and I went yesterday. Boy, what a difference. The route I took the first time was Ruta 16 a paved road that goes through Roque Saenz Peña and takes about 3.5 hours. The way we went yesterday is a direct route over Ruta Nacional 89, and looks on the map to be an hour shorter! Well, that is until you actually turn onto Ruta Nacional 89, which for the first minute looks like this...




And then quickly turns into this...




Because while there is not much traffic, there is some and you will not be passing while the road looks like this...




When you finally do take a big breath, venture into the dust cloud and pray no one is coming in the other direction, you might get lucky and move in front of the dust bowl...then you have to escape the smoke and the fires...




Avoid the tractors to your left...




The gauchos and the cows to your right...




AND to your left...




Oh, and swerve so you do not make bacon road kill...




And, you have to slow down because the sheep are a little skittish and unpredictable...




But, can you blame them when THESE fine creatures are patrolling the fields and roadside?...




Now, Diane and I have been to Africa, so when we say the terrain is starting to remind us of Africa...it REALLY reminds us of AFRICA!...




Complete with a herd of "free range" goats!...




So, you would think that when we arrived at the Church after 2.5 hours we would be relieved...except this Church was not one of ours!!!!




To make a long, windy and dusty story short, after 3.5 hours we made it to the Church in Villa Angela...the duration of both trips was the same, but WOW, that is where the similarity ended! Yesterday was an adventure...and this afternoon, in the car on the trip back, Diane and I looked at each other and asked ourselves, "Did yesterday really happen?" Yes, it did!

Last Pension Picture...for now

Me: Elder, tomorrow you are to buy a new stove and oven, do you understand? Call the Mission Office and the Secretaries will send the money.

Elder: Ok, but this one works fine.

Me: Tomorrow.

Elder: Ok.

This is what we were talking about....



Yes, it is sitting on a milk crate.

Not Quite Outtakes...

But photos that I ended up not using in previous blog posts. Nevertheless, I thought they might be fun to see...



I was going to surprise a visiting General Authority with my personal GPS unit but then decided against it. As Diane says, sometimes I think I am funnier than I am! (But this would have been funny)



It looks like the Elder second from the left is letting his mind wander a bit...but actually Elder Acuña was lowering the screen because Diane showed the video of when Curtis, Candace and Charlotte surprised us at the airport.



This is the jungle road that eventually leads to the hotel where we were when Diane had her stroke. I never could figure out a reason to post the picture, but it is a reminder that Diane REALLY was deep in the jungle at the time she had her stroke and how fortunate we are that she received such great medical treatment via telephone with Buenos Aires. Thank you, Dr. Brunt.



I was scouting out a trip we were going to take from Goya headed southeast to the Brazilian border. Looks like an easy road until you read at the top that it will take 3 hours and 9 minutes to travel 170 miles...translation...it is a rough road...2 lane traffic and potholes!



I was going to post about our missionaries being superheroes (Diane gave a great presentation on this once) but this picture was not really very consistent with our dress code....still our missionaries really are our superheroes...

More Missionary Pension Pictures...

I have been focusing on visiting the missionaries' pensions lately. In Misiones we visited pensions in each zone...in one we visited all of the pensions. It is an eye opener. Some pensions are very neat and organized. Others look like college dorm rooms. Others, well, let's just say, not so good. In some cases we can replace broken things. In others, we can teach them how to clean. In still others we can change pensions. But in some instances, they live in the best available housing. When your neighbors are living in stick and grass houses, a brick and cement home with a tin roof is luxury.




Here are a few photos I took to remind me of what some of these young men and women are doing in order to fulfill their commitment to serve...




Sink and oven in pretty close proximity...




"Washing machine!"




Look closely at the toes...a gap of about 1/2 inch...(the Rubix cube and Spider-Man action figure perfectly remind me that while these incredible missionaries are young men and women, they really are kids at heart).