party prep

In an unusual set of circumstances, we ran into our Bishop for our ward in Argentina when we were in the MTC for our Mission Presidents’ training. We talked with him about our activity in the ward. The previous mission president did not have children with him. Therefore, most Sundays they did not attend the ward, but rather, attended the wards and branches throughout the mission.

This is still something that I am working through. Of course, I want to visit the wards and branches in the mission with my husband, but, I also want to share the Sunday experience with Brianna in a ward that feels like home.

Well, back to the MTC. Bishop Paz forewarned us that the parties start late and end early in Argentina. In other words, the parties start at 11:00 at night and end around 6:00 in the morning. He advised that we let her go as long as she knew that she had to make it through church the next day.

So…it’s party night. We told Brianna that she had to be home by 3. Her friends wanted to come over late this afternoon and eat “real” macaroni and cheese and then “get ready”. It was a warm afternoon, and Brianna set up lunch out on the patio.

Afterwards, it was girl stuff. Their friend, Gonzalo decided that this would be a good time to take a nap.

not planned

I have been looking forward to today because Doug and I finally had an opportunity to play tennis this morning. However, my racquet felt like it weighed 50 pounds, the wind was blowing off the river and the court surface seemed like some kind of rubber since the balls were bouncing way high all over the place. I played terribly.  (I don’t think that I have ever cried over tennis before. Seriously, even at my best, I wasn’t good enough to cry over tennis. But today, I was so devastated that I cried! and  asked to go home after about 45 minutes.)

We stopped off for pastries and orange juice on the way home. I discovered about a teaspoon of sand in the bottom of my glass, AFTER I had consumed most of it.

Since Doug told me that we could do whatever I wanted today, I decided to pull myself together and asked to go downtown to a multi-cultural fair. He said that it looked like it was going to be a food fair, but I told him that it said there were going to be crafts. 

We decided to take the train. My husband loves to walk cities so, at the end of the line, we started our walk.

We walked and walked and walked. It was great because it was a beautiful day. I wanted to enjoy every second of it because it is the only warm and sunny day we have had, or are going to get for at least another week.

I have been wanting to capture  pictures of these advertisements for Cristina, and I had the perfect opportunity. Her husband used to be the President of Argentina, but he died and now she is the President.

 

I also enjoyed the sun shining on some of the downtown buildings.  

We stayed at the food fair for about 20 minutes.

 

Then we walked over to Puerto Madero where I took a picture of this lighthouse for all my lighthouse lovers on the east coast.

We  had an incredibly delicious lunch at Bice.   We walked some more along the port. We sat in the sunshine. We walked some more. We waited on benches in the sunshine for the little tourist train to take us back to the real train station.

 

We both fell asleep on the way home. Luckily, I woke up one stop before ours and woke up Doug. We plowed our way through all the people who had joined our car while we were snoozing

–permiso- permiso- permiso- permiso- permiso- permiso-

and exited the train just in time.

phillipe and regula

Tonight we had dinner at a Peruvian restaurant in Chinatown, Buenos Aires.

Phillipe, who was born in Bolivia, and Regula, who was born in Zurich, joined the church in Switzerland. They have lived all over the world in various capacities with his employment. The Kradolfers served their mission in Arizona. They have now lived in Argentina for six years in his capacity as director of temporal affairs for our area. To read more about this fascinating couple click here.