27 February 2013

At the institute, we are often called upon to make cookies, brownies, and use the  kitchen.  Many times I am asked to make popcorn.  We are continually there, wishing we had hot water, for as most of you know, hot water helps cleaning greasy and dirty dishes.  Often while there, we bring the dirty dishes home to wash them.  The other day, we asked our director if there was any way we could get hot water, it would help us out immensely.  He said he would put it on the list to speak with the "officials" and see if it was a possibility.

The institute opened two weeks before we arrived in this country.  We have always been wondering why anyone would build a building without hot water.  It is sort of difficult to get hot water in this country, but in the apartments with hot water there is a small unit in the closet to heat the water.  You must turn on the switch twenty minutes before you need it.  So every day, one must climb out of bed early and wait until the water is heated.  Then we have a limited amount of hot water.  Just another challenge of living in this "third world" country.  (Ever heard of a second world country?)  (I have not.)

In our institute building, we have cabinets in the kitchen where we have put cooking tools, supplies and they are all behind lock and key.  It is interesting how often "things" walk away.  So, we have been shown where the key is, behind lock and key.  So, when we need something, we go and get the key to get the key to get the key, to get the key, to..... (oops I got carried away.) whatever we need.  It is also interesting.

Try to have a kitchen without hot water.  (this is our Institute hot water-less, kitchen)

This morning, Bonnie came in to me and started laughing.  "You will never believe this..."   I replied, "I really don't believe that anything can happen that would surprise me."  I was wrong.  We got the key, went in and checked behind one of the locked cabinets, shelves, and guess what, we found a water heater.  WE DO HAVE HOT WATER!  Even the director didn't know.  We showed him the water heater and he was totally surprised.  He laughed and said he better take that request off his list to talk to those responsible about getting a water heater.

We turned it on, and just laughed when we found hot water coming out of the tap, first time.  It was refreshing and wonderful.  Now we need to go back and make cookies, pop corn, and many other things and clean the dishes there at the institute.  I cleaned one greasy item, and it actually came clean with hot water, first time.  WOW.

Here is the play room.  The kids sure enjoy being there between classes at the University.  I have put together some tournaments, chess, ping pong, pool, and foosball.  We, at times, also play with them, even mom has played a few games of pool, and even won more than she has lost.

Well, gotto go and enjoy the hot water, just washing my hands, if nothing else, and smiling, or should I say laughing.... but enjoying HOT WATER.

21 February 2013

Greetings from the purple girl.  Lots to share.  From the sublime to the ridiculous.  The sublime was sitting at the feet of an Apostle and being fed spiritually.  What a grand experience!  The sweetest part for me was listening to Elder Andersen speak in Spanish.  He was not fluent but he did a great job and I followed most of it.  When does an Apostle have time to hone his language skills, pray tell?  It was a great confidence booster for me to hear him struggle with words and get help from others and still carry on with a smile and the spirit.  Amazing!  As he called the niños to come up to shake his hand after the conference (interesting how old the "little children" became as the line got longer and longer), I thought how like the Savior that was.  And he shook hundreds of hands, of all ages, with that same smile and genuine love.  It was a treat to be with him Saturday and Sunday.  A memorable weekend.

Here's Elder Andersen with a soon-to-be missionary and sweet Elder Dominguez (an area authority) and his wife.  We love them.  Their daughter Lisha, one of our students, just left on her mission to Mexico.

Here's my new personal hair stylist, Rocio Santana.  She cut my hair last week.  Her first try.  She was scared to death but did every bit as good as Elder Partridge!

Last week I was the cookie queen again.  Since it was "The week of love" of course the students needed cookies.  I baked about 100 sugar cookies, 140 chocolate chip cookies and 96 brownies.  Thankfully, our director located a nice heavy duty mixer that was sitting upstairs in the employment center not being used, so we "borrowed" it.  (I have no idea why they had it...there's no kitchen facilities there...who knows?  It's the DR!)  What a difference from the last time I did big batches by hand.  This time I only half-died.  They weren't kidding when they said, "You'll be baking a lot of cookies on a CES mission."  No duh!

Next we helped serve 120 plates of "pollo y pan" (chicken and bread) - which was the council's menu of choice for the Valentine's Party.  We received cute little valentines of love from lots of students.  What sweethearts they are!  The best part of our mission is getting to know and love these wonderful students.

Elder Partridge serving pollo y pan. 

He's the popcorn man again!

Now, for the ridiculous.  Concerning cucarachas, rats, butterflies, dogs, and car alarms.  Oh, and out of control fires.  We're in a new apartment, on the 3rd floor and I'm safe, right?  Crawlies don't do heights... right?  Wrong!  I was greeted on our first Sunday morning in the new apartment by a large-black-fast-moving-many-legged something in my kitchen!  It ran fast across the floor into the laundry room under the washing machine.  ERG!  I ran fast out of the kitchen calling white knight who came sleepy-eyed to my rescue again.  He used the last of the RAID all around the washer.  We raised up the washer to look under it (I was grimacing, holding my breath, ready to scream!) but no sign of the critter.  Double ERG!  If there's one thing I hate, it's a crawlie on the loose!  Thankfully, he hasn't shown his face again (of course it's a he...) and the fumigator has since come and worked his poisonous hazmat magic.  Now my hero will only have to kill the dead ones!  So far, so good.  

Except for the rat.  Well, I think it was a rat.  I saw it's tail end scurrying around the garbage on the street  near our casa.  Piles of garbage are everywhere so now I know rats are everywhere, too.  Eww...

A couple of days ago, there was a big brownish black triangular shaped object on the wall in the hallway leading outside our bldg.  I cautiously got a little closer to see what it was...and it started to fly.  Scared me to death.  It was a very, very large moth...we're talking a wing span of at least 6 inches!  Think Gandalph in Lord of the Rings on top of the Tower being carried off by the moth-turned-eagle.   It was on the wall again yesterday when I came in from my walk.  I motioned for Antonio, our maintenance man, to come over from his little guard shack and see it and he smiled sweetly and said, "Oh, a mariposa," and walked away.  Now butterflies are supposed to be colorful and sweet but this mariposa was more like a small bat and someone needs to take a bat to it!  Where is my grandson Sammy and his hand-made butterfly net when I need him?  It could have carried me away!

And let's not forget the fire yesterday...next to our ball park, across the street from our apartment, roaring out of control.  It burned half of a big tree and a big area just outside the fence around the park.  People were just walking by unconcerned.  We asked our neighbor if we should call the fire department (I'm not sure they even have such a thing) and she said, "No, it's just somebody burning garbage."  Oh, well...OK, then.  So we watched it burn for a while from our window and then left for the Institute hoping we'd have a place to come home to.  All the buildings are cement so I guess they don't worry about fires so much.  There's usually something burning somewhere every day.  It's the DR!

Here's our cute little ball park last week.  Don't you just love baseball in February!  Notice the tree on the right rear of the park.

             Here it is today.  After the fire.  I wonder if anyone said, "Whoops, sorry about that."  

Then, there's the happy new sounds we hear at night.  We left the busy street noises and now we have roosters even closer, but that sound has now been drowned out by barking dogs (sometimes hours at a time).  You know how I feel about dogs in general (with the exception of my friend Dawn's sweet Marley) so it's all I can do to not to try find a stun gun or a very large sling shot with something to knock it silly.  How do people let their dogs bark all night?  Are they deaf?  Sister Douglas said she sleeps with ear plugs because of the dogs near her home.  And then, there's the car alarms...2 nights ago for 2 hours!  So that sound drowns out the dogs.  And the drinking and singing baseball players drown out the car alarms.  Oh, and of course dominoes.  We couldn't escape that national pastime.  But really, do these people ever sleep?  Maybe the roar of cars and motorcycles wasn't so bad after all. 

       All in all, we do love our new digs. 

Our apartment is roomy, airy, sunny and 

hopefully bug free for another 5 weeks!

Plenty of room for company...come on down!

And now we have places to sit so we can invite missionaries over and share our dinner!  These are some of our favorite sisters...Cordova, Schillamat, Dahlia and Porter.

Eating salad...my favorite thing.  Yes, that's an avocado.  And check out this fruit.  That's a very small papaya in the middle.  And the funny looking green thing on the left is called a guanabana.  Never tasted one before but I hear they're good!  

                                                                                 

Elder P's favorite place...power nap time. :)

17 February 2013

We just finished a special weekend.  Elder Neal Anderson of the twelve visited us.  About three weeks ago there was four brethren from Salt Lake inspecting the room where he would be speaking.  They were discussing if there needed to be curtains on the windows, how many people would be there, what about the sound system, and many other things I didn't know about.  There were there about four hours, and left.

Two days ago, another group showed up asking much the same questions.  They asked how many students we had in institute, how many teachers, who was the institute director, where they would park their cars, did we have maps, etc how to get there from different parts of the city, etc.

Yesterday, we had a few who stayed the whole day, setting up the sound system, the cameras, wanting to know how we would set up the chairs, how many once again, got into the rafters for the wiring, etc.  It was interesting that he had playing on the sound system George Strait's music, and singing right along with him.  I joked with him a bit, and he spoke quite a bit of English, for he was from the DR. 

Then last night, Apostle Anderson was supposed to be there at 6.  About five, another influx of visitors showed up making sure that the way was clear, there was a place to park his car, where would he enter the building and how far to the room where he would speak.  How many chairs would there be in front, and so on.  Then at about 15 to 6, Elder Anderson, the area Seventy, the Temple President, all of them with their wives, and a few I didn't know showed up.  As he walked in, we all rose and honored him.  He went up front, made sure that everyone was seated, and then stood, and started to shake hands of those on the front rows. 

We started at 6, and he, and those he asked to speak, spoke for 90 minutes.  What a sweet, loving man.  He spoke in broken Spanish, for he had been a mission president in France and Brazil, and Germany.  He had five languages going around in his head, but spoke quite well in Spanish.  There was fifteen minutes where he had an interpreter speak for him, but the rest, he spoke in Spanish.  His subject was butterflies.  That is another blog.

Then today, Sunday, we were pleased to hear him again speak in a special Stake Conference.  He passed by us and said, "Hello Partridges, shook our hand."  It was a wonderful weekend.

It was the  first time, might be the last time, that I wore the suit coat and long sleeve shirt I brought.  It was about 90 degrees and we walked to church, and home.  WOW, HOT, in  February.

13 February 2013

Well, well, we feel like the cookie monsters. There was a time in December, or November when our director said that I needed to make popcorn for every class as they got out of class.  There are 15 classes, and thus I was making popcorn every day for most of the day.  I am the popcorn king.  Well, he approached us last Friday and said that this week was the week of LOVE.  Thus, more popcorn, no, more cooking for Bon.

So, she made 60 sugar cookies Monday, 140 chocolate chip cookies yesterday and is supposed to make 160 brownies today.  In addition to our classes, we are bakers now.  Monday in our weekly meeting our director said, "Elder Partridge, I need your help."  I knew it was coming.  So he asked me to teach yesterday, Doctrine and Covenants section 88.  Boy that section has so much doctrine in it.  Loved it, even without much preparation.  We fed four sisters dinner Monday to thank them for helping us move.  We fed four elders last Friday for helping us move.  Since then those elders are telling all the other elders in the mission that Sister Partridge feeds missionaries "Celestial Food."  Whenever I see them, they say that her food will be served in the Celestial Kingdom, nothing else.  Needless to say, she was a big hit.  Or at least the food was.  She fed noodles (boring) to the sisters.

This weekend, we are having  the Apostle Neal Anderson come to our city.  He is going to speak to the Young Adults, thus we get to be there.  It should be fun.  Then on Sunday, we will be  in a conference with him again.

Next Monday, one of our favorite sisters, missionary sisters is going home.  She is from Virginia, and she is a doll. She sings like a song bird, has a beautiful voice, soprano voice, and has sung when we have been able to hear it.  Her name is Sister Schillamatt.  She reminds me of some women who I have known in the past, that have sung so beautifully, that one never grows tired of listening to her.   Below is a photo of her and her companion.

She is the one with the checkered blouse and glasses. She sings so wonderfully.

We will miss her, she is so happy to be going home, but first will sing for the Apostle.  She said she may wind up at the Y.  We shall see.






Here they are again, mom and I are there also.  The other two are wonderful sister missionaries also.

It is pure joy to talk to and relate with the full time missionaries.  We have made friends with them.  And they are working hard to find investigators.

It reminds me of 42 years ago, in Mexico.

7 February, 2013

Yes, It's me, Hermana P...one year older and wiser, too!  It's been a beautiful day.  We're in a lovely new apartment, new to us, that is.  So many things are better. After my intense Dominican yellow , these pale yellow walls are much easier on the eyes.  

The apartment is very spacious. 
This is our sitting area.  Not sure when we'll get to sit

in it but it's there.  The theme for the apartment is wrought iron and white.  A nice change from orange and yellow.

 I took a nice hot shower this morning which is a big change!  Water pressure to spare...I didn't have to dance around to get wet...and HOT water.  It was heavenly.  I could get used to this!  We're across the street from a baseball field so we get to hear the sounds of baseball which I love.  At night, some of the players like to drink after dark and they're noisy but not as noisy as the old apartment complex.  We're on a much more quiet street.  We have a couple of roosters that haven't  read the memo about crowing protocol and like to begin at 3 am and continue throughout the day.  But we're getting used to that sound.  We're on the 3rd floor.  That'll keep us young!

                              Here's the view from our front window.  

We have lots of light.  I love that.  On my walks, around the new streets, I pass a big hedge of honey suckle.  It smells divine!  Offsets the other not so pleasant smells so prevalent.  My favorite whistler comes by this apartment too so I still get to hear his familiar "aguacate, guinea" (avocado/banana) call.   And the woman with fruit on her head comes by here too.  We hear her calling several blocks away.  I need to sign her up for my choir!  

                                            She's got quite the load today.

  I'm busy memorizing all the black marks, the cracks and chips on the white tile floor so I know what not to worry about (don't want to call my favorite bug man to rescue me from a crack in the floor!)  So far, so good, except for mosquitos.  They love me and I'm getting big blistering welts from their bites.  They don't bother Bill at all.  I guess he's not sweet enough. :)  So Deet has become my perfume of choice. 

The office elders came down to our office today to surprise me with a song and some chocolate.  They sang Happy Birthday in English - it was adorable.  And then some of the students also surprised me by singing I am a Child of God - in English.  They tried their best to harmonize...I think they'd better stick to unison for a while.  I'll be putting those cute videos in my drop box soon.

Life is good!  My Spanish isn't but it's getting better.  I taught yesterday without my notebook (left it home by accident) so I muddled through the music lesson with the words I knew and a few I made up and between Bill's help and the students calling out the words for me (they could totally teach these lessons to each other...they don't need me, but I definitely need them!), I made it through and I didn't panic, just carried on.  What a change from my first few weeks when I could barely open my mouth.  Yes, things are looking up!

Here's Elder P. in his element...

Oh, I'm eligible for Medicare.  Whoopteestickin'do!  Wonder if they'll be anything left of it when we get home?  I have a long list of things I'd like to get tuned up, hooked up or raised up if possible!  :)

5 February 2013

Well it has been a time, thus I am writing, much to say, little time to say it.  Last night we were coming home from one of our many shopping trips.  Much traffic.  I drove up to a car in front of me.  It was the far right lane.  We were waiting for the light to change.  The car we were behind was one of those taxis driving all around the city.  Well, after a time I saw a guy leave a little shop around the corner holding a drink in his hand.  He walked around the car, got in the drivers seat just as the light turned green and drove off.  I half expected him to stop at the next corner, with his passengers all waiting, (for his car was full of people), go and pick up a taco or burger, or something, plop back into the car and drive off.  We really have seen it all I believe, but as soon as I say that, we see something else that totally amazes us.

Then the other day, I was driving down this street and all the cars were coming straight for me.  I was frustrated  and ask, 'What do they think they are doing?"  My sweet navigator quietly, and rapidly said, "You are going down a one way street and you are the one out of place"  She was right of course.  But with the drivers down here, you never know. So I quickly got myself out of there.

I finished my little "passalong" cards.  Got them printed and the missionaries are excited and using them as a tool.  The  people down here are so outgoing, accepting and wonderful.  So when we/they meet someone we don't have time to convert, we give them this card, with names and numbers so they can contact us.  We shall see how, if it works.

This is front and back.  I had this revelation, feeling, or something long ago before we ever received our  mission call that I needed to create one of these.  The people love their country, thus their flag in the middle, and on the back a quote about the promise land from the Book of Mormon.  

Here is one of the many places where the man hole cover has been stolen, and someone has placed a tree in the hole to prevent a small car from being swallowed up by  the undertows of the secrets of the lower city.  I assume there is a lower city down there, but I don't know.

That is about all I have in my mind, cept classes I get to teach soon.  Much to say, but my companion will share more later today, I believe.