GETTING STARTED

ARRIVAL AND GETTING SETTLED

We touched down in Buenos Aires a little after 9 am local time on October 21, 2016. We had been given instructions by the Area Legal Counsel, Brent Gardner, how to negotiate immigration and customs, where to pick up our bags and where our hosts, Sister Ann and Elder Dean Wiese, would meet us (Brother Gardner had planned to meet us but was tied up in a meeting with the Area Presidency). The instructions were right on and after about an hour of landing, we said hello to the Wieses and we were on our way to our new home for the next 18 months. On the way, we passed the Temple and we drove on the largest avenue in the world, 9 de Julio Avenue, with 14 lanes of traffic, and many other new, strange and wonderful sights. There are many parks and the people use them a lot for picnics, running, fairs, walking dogs, and other activities.

Elder and Sister Wiese

We arrived at our apartment in the Palermo neighborhood, unloaded the car and got settled in a little. The apartment is in a building with 12 floors and we are on the 3^rd. There is an elevator and the buttons are for floors -1 (the basement, parking, laundry, etc.), 0 (the ground floor), 2, 3, etc. The Wieses explained some of the apartment systems, such as water, gas, electric, toilets, etc., that are a little different than we’re used to, and then gave us some time to unpack before they then came back to take us to a late lunch at one of their favorite restaurants, Coco, just a block away from our apartment. Then we walked around our neighborhood while they introduced us to the stores, currency exchange, where to buy and recharge our subway cards, where the other missionary couples live, etc. We walked to a large nearby grocery store, Jumbo, and a Home Depot-like store named Easy, to get an idea what they have. They had bought us a few groceries and after our tour, we returned to the apartment and finished unpacking and organizing. Elder and Sister Huling stopped by to meet us. Elder Huling is the district leader for the 9 missionary couples and 2 single sisters assigned to the Area Office. Elder and Sister Ashton also stopped by and brought us some spaghetti. Elder Ashton is one of the 2 doctors assigned to the Area and they have been assigned to a ward that meets in the same building as the ward we have been assigned to, the Villa Crespo Ward, so they have been assigned to help us get to church on Sunday. After a very long night on the airplane and a busy first day in Buenos Aires (BA), we were exhausted and ready for a light meal and a long night’s sleep.

SOME PICTURES OF OUR APARTMENT

Kitchen

Dining Room

Living Room

Our bedroom

The view from our balcony

On Saturday, the Wieses had organized an excursion to the Temaiken Zoo but Sister Nielsen, wife of the other Area doctor, Elder Nielsen, was sick so it was postponed a week. Instead, the Hulings dropped by to take us shopping to Jumbo. On the way, we ran into Elder and Sister Smith, who were returning from Jumbo. Elder Smith is the executive secretary to the Area Presidency. We had made arrangements with the Wieses to go to a nearby food fair at a park adjacent to the Hipodromo (horse race track). These food fairs and/or craft fairs are held frequently in the area and this one was to feature hamburgers. We ran into the Wieses at the store and they had checked out a car to take to church the next day so they gave us a ride back to our apartment. We met Elder Nielsen outside our apartment and then met up with the Wieses (Sister Nielsen was sick and stayed home) and headed to the hamburger fair. We had our choice of probably 30 or more vendors. We chose Hard Rock Café and the food was truly scrumptious. We ran into the Hulings and we all sat and ate and got to know each other. Sister Wiese, who has a reputation as a social secretary/tour organizer, and Elder Wiese then accompanied us to find a bus to take us downtown to look for a crock pot. They are hard to find in BA and quite expensive. We found some but for what would have cost about $75 back home, they are charging about $200, so we passed and will continue our search. We did pause for some refreshments and found that the store had wifi so we connected and sent some e-mails and text messages to our family and others back home. The Wieses then introduced us to the Subte (“SOOB-tay”, the local name for the subway) to get back home, since we had gotten our subway cards the previous day. Elder and Sister Norton, the Area Open Chapel coordinators, stopped by with a salad and we had a wonderful visit with them. Their assignment takes them all over the area and they are gone nearly every weekend on an assignment. They are headed to Chile on Tuesday morning. After another busy day, we hit the sack early and slept soundly.

CHURCH

On Sunday we met the Ashtons and headed to church on the bus. After about a 20-minute ride and a short walk, we arrived at the small building where the Villa Crespo Ward of the Palermo Stake meets. We were warmly welcomed and enjoyed getting to know the ward members. The secretary to Elder Packer, First Counselor in the Area Presidency, attends the ward and saw to it that we were introduced to the bishop and the congregation. Dennis introduced us and bore his testimony and Robyn also bore her testimony is Spanish. After meetings we headed back with the Ashtons. The Wieses had invited us to dinner with the sister missionaries at 5 pm and we snuck in a short nap before heading over to their apartment. The missionaries were Sister Muro, from Peru, and Sister Anderson, from Utah. In fact, her father works at GE in Logan and, we found out later, knows our son-in-law, Jonathan, who also works at GE.

WORK

Monday, we met the Smiths so we could learn where to go to catch the Subte to get to work, where we finally met Brent Gardner, the Area Legal Counsel, Marcos Cardoso, a Senior Legal Coordinator, David Frol, also a Senior Legal Coordinator, and Julia Villasboa, Administrative Assistant. These are all really good folks with excellent legal skills. Because the Area Presidency has to travel most weekends for ecclesiastical assignments, they are off on Mondays but the rest of the Area staff was there. There is an Area devotional each Monday morning to begin the week so we attended and then had a staff meeting to get acquainted with the legal staff. Brent assigned Dennis to be responsible for all matters in Chile until someone comes to take over for the prior Associate Area Legal Counsel (AALC) that was in Santiago until September. He also made other assignments to us and, because of our training in Salt Lake the prior week, we were able to hit the ground running. Although we don’t yet have computers or a permanently assigned space in the Area Office, we were busy all day.

FAMILY HOME EVENING

Monday nights, the senior couples have family home evening together so we got out our map and headed to the apartment of Elder and Sister Williams a little before 7pm. There, we met the other couples we had not yet met, Elder and Sister Licursi, from Argentina, and Elder Williams (Sister Williams had to go home for a brief visit and wasn’t back yet). We played a game, ate cookies and generally had a good time getting together.

 CHALLENGES

Did I mention that we don’t have internet or local phone service in our apartment and we have turned off roaming on our cell phones so when we are in our apartment we can’t contact the outside world? People can call us on our local number but we can’t figure out how to make local calls yet. Elder Huling has called in the problem and they are working on it. Also, they came Monday to install the clothes washer but it is too big for the space, so that will have to be fixed. However, we are getting along just fine. We have plenty of cash and can get to and from the store, so we won’t starve. We can connect to wifi at the other missionaries’ apartments and at work so we can catch up on messages and e-mail. And we have each other to rely on. What more could we need. (Sister Love says “wifi and a clothes washer!”)

We don't look too much the worse for wear

Well, as the week progressed, the wifi and clothes washer situation got resolved. We were able to set up our Ooma phone so we could have instant contact with family back home, pay bills, read the news, etc. so all is well. More soon.

WE’RE OFF!

Training in Salt Lake City and the Trip to Argentina

After finishing at the MTC we spent a nice weekend in Idaho Falls moving Adrienne and Josh and family into our home, taking care of other last minute details, packing and saying our goodbyes. After a late (really late) Saturday night packing, we attended our last sacrament meeting in our home ward for 18 months, had a nice meal with Adrienne, Josh and girls, and headed for John’s house in Kaysville, where we were based for the next few days of training.

Early Monday October 17 we headed for the Church Office Building to begin our training with the Church’s Office of General Counsel (OGC). Church General Counsel, Elder Wickman, and Assistant General Counsel-International, Bill Atkin, welcomed us and explained in more detail how the OGC is organized and the makeup and functions of the various departments of the Church. Brother Atkin indicated that in terms of size and scope, most of the Church’s departments, if they were to stand alone, could each be a Fortune 500 company and that each is international. We were extremely impressed with the quality of the training and the technology the Church uses. Most of the training was given by Regional Legal Counsel (RLC) who assist Brother Atkin. Each has served at least once as an Area Legal Counsel (ALC) and some had also served in other functions, such as mission president, counselor in an MTC presidency, etc.  Each RLC is responsible to help several Area offices of the OGC and each also has one or more specific functional areas of responsibility for the Church, such as temples. As a result, the training they provided was very insightful and full of hands-on experiences. We learned how to use the excellent technology the OGC has developed for its legal counsel and where to find the extensive array of policies and procedures relevant to international Church operations. As a side note, each RLC used his own assigned Church laptop to conduct the training and it was interesting to see the email notifications that were frequently coming into their accounts from area offices literally all over the world. OGC provided a continental breakfast and a wonderful lunch each day. After our training, we felt well-fed and very well-prepared for the basics of our responsibilities.

On Wednesday, Robyn snuck away from the training for lunch and a visit with Mandy and Taysum. Also, in the evenings we were able to go to dinner and spend some time with Rachael, Randy and Cannon and with John, Sarah and Ali. We stuffed ourselves both nights. We spent Wednesday night repacking and weighing our bags.

On Thursday, John, Sarah and Ali went with us to the airport and helped with our bags and kept Robyn company while Dennis turned in the rental car. We were each allowed 2 large bags of up to 50 pounds each, plus a carry-on bag of up to 40 pounds and the fees for exceeding the weight are hefty (pardon the pun) so we needed to get it right. Right up to the time we had to check in we were redistributing items to ensure we met the weight allowance and we made did it with not much to spare. After checking in and getting free of our bags we said our goodbyes to John and family and headed for security, lunch and our gate. One stop in Atlanta and an overnight, 10-hour flight brought us to Buenos Aires. We’re finally off!

Saying goodbye at the Salt Lake Airport.

Our MTC Experience

The traditional photo at the huge MTC map to show where we have been called to serve

Preparations

On Sunday, October 9,2016, we attended our last sacrament meeting at the Mesa Branch and then met with our stake president, President Heber Andrus, his counselor, President Manwaring, and several family members and we received beautiful blessings as Pres. Andrus laid his hands on our heads and set us apart. Then we were off to finish packing so we could head to our hotel in Provo to be there the next morning to check in at the MTC. 

 At the MTC

We arrived at the MTC on Monday, October 10, 2016. We were directed to leave everything in our car and go register. We received our name tags, ID card, keys to our room, parking tag, and a list of places to check in, then drove around to our building to drop off our bags. Two young missionaries helped Elder Love carry the bags to our room on the 3rd floor (there is an elevator), where he dropped them to be unpacked later. After parking we were to check in at the book store, immunizations, general services to pay for our meals for the week, and travel before going to 2 different orientations, one of which was with Elder Braithwaite, who, with his wife, is serving a full-time mission the MTC Senior Missionary Coordinator. One of the most important things he did was familiarize us with how the cafeteria works before we went to lunch. This really helped as we were able to easily negotiate our first meal there. We had a nice visit during lunch with Elder and Sister Allen, who are headed to Lima for him to be medical advisor. Their son-in-law is serving as mission president in the Lima North mission and he requested that they be assigned to his mission. We learned that Sister Allen and I attended Ogden High together (Patricia More) and graduated the same year, so we enjoyed going down memory lane together. Earlier, Robyn had run into Marie Hadley, whom she had worked with at Bonneville School District. She and her husband are headed to Africa for their second mission after returning from their first mission in Indonesia just last December. After lunch, there was a meeting with the MTC presidency to welcome the 89 senior missionaries (44 couples and 1 single sister).

Our group at the MTC

 President Snow, of the MTC presidency, had each couple introduce themselves and tell about their assignment. There are four other couples with assignments as Associate Area Legal Counsel. Besides us there are the Garfields, going to Lima, Peru; the Fergusons and the Corys going to Hong Kong; and the Adams, going to Manila, Philippines. We will get better acquainted with them next week during our legal training in Salt Lake. After lunch, Elder and Sister Braithwaite outlined our schedule for the week after which we received training on our missionary purpose by one of the young trainers, Sister Yazzi. Then Elder Braithwaite announced the assignments of district leaders and I was surprised to be one of those assigned. In our district, in addition to us are the Lunds, from Payson, Utah, headed to Berlin Germany to serve in the mission office; the LeBlues, from Ogden, Utah, headed to serve from home in the Utah Logan mission; and the Hills, from Florida, headed to The Michigan Detroit mission to help with member and leader support. After getting acquainted and exchanging contact info with our district members we finally got about a half hour to go unpack before dinner, where we took the opportunity to visit with the Corys and get to know them better. They are from Las Vegas and he just retired from a bankruptcy practice and is still finishing up his practice. After dinner we saw a wonderful video of Elder Bednar speaking about the character of Christ. A wonderful way to end a busy day.

The next morning we received great training on our missionary purpose from another of the young trainers, Sister Yazzi, after which we met our trainer, Sister Donakey, a lovely young returned missionary who served in Milan, Italy.

Our MTC district with our morning trainer, Sister Donakey

She shared with us that she was married in April and is 9 weeks pregnant. She advised us that tomorrow morning, we will get to teach some volunteers a discussion on The Restoration, our first lesson together as a companionship. It will be fun. After lunch we had a short lesson on the importance of the Book of Mormon in missionary work and then went back to our class with our afternoon trainer, Brother Hatch, from Linden, Utah. He served in a the West Indies mission.

Our MTC district with our afternoon trainer, Brother Hatch

We learned and then roll played how to introduce people to the Book of Mormon. After dinner we went to the weekly devotional, which was broadcast to all the MTCs throughout the world. The speakers were Elder and Sister Bednar. They spoke about how to get the most out of general conference by studying the messages of the 12 and the First Presidency and taking note of the principal or doctrine taught, the invitation to live the principle or doctrine, and the promised blessings. There was a missionary choir of about 400 that was marvelous. After The devotional we prepared for our first discussion with a volunteer tomorrow at the Teaching Resource Center.

The next morning after breakfast, we met for about an hour with our district to practice our presentation and then went to the Teaching Resource Center (TRC), where we met Sister Connie Anderson and gave her the first discussion. All of the volunteers are members of the Church and are temple recommend holders who give of their time to help prepare the missionaries. Sometimes they take a fictional investigator role and sometimes they act out their own conversion but as missionaries, we don't know. We were nervous but did our best and enjoyed the visit and the feedback we received was quite positive. We then spent the rest of the morning and the afternoon discussing how to make sure our teaching is centered in Christ and preparing for our next TRC presentation tomorrow on the Plan of Salvation. But before our afternoon classes we had a class on making the most of the Gospel Library app. It was neat to see all the senior couples learning to use this technology to improve their study and preparation to teach. After classes we went to the BYU Bookstore and Walmart. The senior missionaries don't have the same restrictions as the young missionaries, though we had to log out where we were going and when we expected to return.

In the morning, we had another great general session on focusing our teaching on Christ, then off to our class for a more intimate discussion on the same subject.. Virtually all of the training in the MTC is by the younger returned missionaries, almost all of whom are students at BYU and a few at UVU. Sister Donakey did a excellent job of inspiring us and I think each couple in our district probably made some adjustments to their lesson outline as a result of her beautiful presentation to focus the discussion more fully on the Savior. Another Gospel Library app lesson after lunch and then off to class to finish preparations for our next discussion at the TRC. When we went to the TRC we were assigned an "investigator" who had received the first discussion but the missionaries had.been transferred so we were to follow up to teach the Plan of Salvation. Our investigator was Sandy, about 60, a retired teacher and never married. The time was short but we did our best.  We felt it had not gone as smoothly as the one on Wednesday but again, did our best and our feedback was quite positive. Much of the instruction we have received has been videos of talks given at the MTC by apostles, such as Elder Bednar, Elder Holland, President Eyring, etc.  It has been awesome and inspiring. One this morning was by Elder Bednar about an incident when he was a missionary in Germany and Elder Packer was visiting. Because his flight was cancelled and he and his wife had to take the train, Elder Bednar gave him a 20 Mark note just in case they needed a meal. That 20 Mark note ended up being used in a very miraculous way. Elder Bednar taught us that usually, we don't know we are receiving revelation but if we strive to do what is right and be obedient, the Lord will use us to advance his purposes. After dinner we had arranged to visit with my nieces, Tammy Merrill and Debbie Briggs and their families in Pleasant Grove. We had a nice time catching up and chatting about family. They are such good, faithful families of which I know Howard is proud of them. On the way back to the MTC we stopped to buy some thank you cards for our trainers and then, when we got back, completed some papers for our last day and did what packing we could. Hard to believe the week is coming to a close tomorrow. We have come to love our district members and Robyn and I have made a special connection with Elder & Sister Hill. We have both had some similar experiences and Robyn feels a special connection with Sister Hill. We intend to keep in touch with them.

The last day in the MTC. We had a wonderful presentation by Elder and Sister Hawkes, who have served many missions (more than 10), about how we can use the spare time we have when we are not in the office or doing our normal assignment to build up the kingdom. Then it was off to prepare for one more role play. This one was a less active couple. Each senior couple got to act as both the missionary to get to know the less active couple and then act as a less active couple for a different missionary couple. All of the visits were with missionaries in different districts. After getting to know the couple, we each had a half-hour to prepare a lesson and then meet together again to give the lesson and later, to act as the couple receiving the lesson. It is remarkable how prevalent the Spirit is in these roll-plays, event though they are not actual situations. In the afternoon, we received a presentation from Elder and Sister Borget, who have served 3 missions, with a district discussion about various scenarios. The Borgets are really sweet people. Finally, a general meeting to evaluate the week together and then take district pictures.

The week has flown by. It has been a great week and a wonderful experience. We have enjoyed getting to know at least one other new couple at each meal and enjoy their company and we feel really good about what we have learned and accomplished during the week. We certainly feel much better prepared as we prepare to head to Argentina. Next week, training in Salt Lake and off to Buenos Aires on Thursday, October 20.