Happy Anniversary!

 

This last week Hermana Merkley and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary.  I had no idea when I married her that we would be spending our 30th anniversary near the end of the world.  OK,  so the picture above is not on our anniversary, but that is Tierra del Fuego in the background, the place that they call the "End of the World."  So how did we really spend our anniversary?

We got up and went to meet a single sister with two children that didn't have any food in the house.  She was so grateful to have someone care about her and help her out. With all her other concerns, it was nice for her not to have to worry about where the next meal was going to come from.  For those of you who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, believe me, your fast offerings make a huge difference! She is trying to get on her feet and she has had some jobs, but the last one didn't pay her for the work that she had done.  We see that a lot here.  People feel like they can take advantage of poor people because they don't have the resources to seek help.

After that, we went to the airport to find almost half of the active youth from our branch.  The family had thought about moving from Calafate to Buenos Aires and two sisters and a brother had flown there to live with the Dad.  Unfortunately, the father is an alcoholic (He won't admit that he has a drinking problem, and says that he can quit any time. He has quit at least 100 times!) He was not fixing up the apartment where they were living, and he was not taking care of the kids. The mom finally decided that she would be better off staying here where she is building a lovely home than moving back to Buenos Aires with the school issues, crime, and the problems with her husband. She fed us pizza to thank us for picking up her kids from the airport.

Then we had to deal with physical facilities in the chapel.  The heating went out on Thursday and by a miracle (especially if you understood how things work in the Patagonia) it was fixed by 5 pm Saturday.  We had to get the workers paid and get all the necessary people together to make that happen.  Once again, we were able to do that.  Money matters are way more complex here than at home!  Miracle!

We then went to an appointment with an older couple in the branch.  They really wanted to talk.  They fed us an apple tort and ham and cheese croissants.

We finished up with one more appointment where we were able share a message about the importance of marriage and family.  We left that humble little house with a feeling of peace and tranquility.  We finally got home at about 9:30 pm.

What a way to spend our anniversary!  We were exhausted, but it was great!

On Saturday, we got around to actually celebrating our anniversary.  We held a "quiet little event" where we fed 60 of our closest friends an asado, or Argentine barbecue.  We grilled 20 kilos of chicken and another 20 kilos of good Argentine beef.  The church here is in a rented building that used to be a restaurant.  There is a parilla, or grill built into the back of the church.  The technique here is to grill at a very low temperature for a very long time.  We grilled the chickens for about 3 hours and the beef for about 2 to 2 1/2 hours.  It turned out spectacularly.   People brought salads, sodas, bread, and desserts to share.  We had lots of food and enjoyed visiting with everyone.

Preparing the asado on the parilla! This is a great asador!

This is just part of our chapel!

This isn't everyone, but it is about all we could get in the photo!

After the party, we cleaned everything up rapidly and set up for a baptism of an 8 year old girl.  She was so excited.  She wanted one of the missionaries to perform the baptism.  It was great to end the day with a spiritual feast.

 

Some Days Are Like That!

Like I've said before, Hermana Merkley writes much better than I do.  I thought that this note from her deserved a wider audience!

Sunday morning we had ward council at 8:30 so I was hurrying to get ready. Since we've had several very late nights this last week, my brain was in a fog. Just before I walked out the door of our apartment, I realized that I had forgotten to put my contacts in. Now you have to realize my eyesight isn't really that bad.  I am a little nearsighted and have a slight astigmatism. In my small apartment, I hardly notice the difference. It only makes a difference when I am driving or shopping in a large building. Without my contacts, all the signs are just a touch fuzzy and I can't pull them into focus.

Back to Sunday morning. I hurried into the bathroom and put in my left contact. (I always put my left one in first.) Then I put in my right contact. As soon as it was in, it felt wrong so I tried to take it out. I loosened it on my eye, and then it popped back into place and felt just fine. I sighed in relief. Being in a hurry I went to wash my hands only to find a contact in the sink. Thinking that my right contact had actually popped out when I tried to adjust it, I quickly rinsed it off and popped it back into my right eye.

We arrived at the church only a couple of minutes late due to my struggle with my contacts. After ward council I went to practice the the hymns for sacrament meeting before our three hour block started at ten. With my sleep deprived brain slowly waking up, that was the first time I realized something was wrong with my eyesight. I couldn't get the music to come into focus. I tried moving closer or further away but to no avail. I tried putting on my reading glasses since sometimes I need them with my contacts. (Yes, I have finally reached that age where I can't always get my eyes to adjust from near to far easily.) They made my vision even worse. I started to wonder if my vision was changing. I was relieved to find that the hymns for sacrament meeting were well known, and I practically had them memorized. I quickly stumbled through them and figured I could convincingly fake my way during the meeting.

For the next three hours, I struggled with my eyesight. I developed a slight headache constantly trying to pull my world into focus. With effort I could still read the scriptures and follow along with the lessons, but everything was slightly blurry. I survived playing the hymns without anyone really noticing that I could hardly read the music.  After we arrived home, I hurried into the bathroom to take out my contacts. To my amazement I didn't have a contact in my left eye. Instead I had two contacts in my right eye, one on top of the other. When I had found a contact in the sink, it really was my left contact. Somehow in my daze I hadn't realized I never got it in my eye correctly.

The next time I put my contacts in correctly I was amazed at the clarity of my world. Compared to earlier, my vision was crisp and clear. Everything seemed brighter and purer. I started thinking how the Gospel does the same thing for our vision. Without it we see a good deal. We can even make sense of most of it at times, but everything is a touch fuzzy. But with the clear lens of the Gospel, our purpose here on earth comes into focus. We understand why we have struggles and trials in this life, and we have a perfect brightness of hope in the life to come.

What We Eat!

 

Eggplant Parmesean with pasta and a green salad.

My children have asked us, "What do you eat?" So, I thought I would take some time to actually document some of that for you.  We don't eat what would be classified as a "normal American" diet, but you have to understand that we didn't eat that way even when we lived in the States!  We tend to cook from scratch, using the freshest ingredients that we can find.

 Finding fresh fruits and vegetables is somewhat of an issue in the Patagonia.  Here in El Calafate we are a long ways away from any of the agricultural areas.  All groceries are shipped in from hundreds of miles aways.  Our normal staple of vegetables includes carrots, bell peppers (both red and green), potatoes, onions, butternut squash, and a little round zucchini type squash.  At times we have also found fresh chard, cauliflower and eggplant.  Apples, oranges, and lemons are staple fruits.  We can also get pears almost all year around, which has really surprised us.  They have to ripen a while, but they are great for cooking.  During the summer we have peaches, nectarines, and plums.  When we get the fruit it is typically pretty green, so we have to let it sit in a paper sack for a few days to ripen.

Argentina is known for its beef, but for the normal person, beef is pretty expensive here. The locals claim that the best cuts of beef are sold for export and that drives up the cost of beef in Argentina. A higher quality grade of hamburger costs about $3.50 US per pound.  It's still not great but at least it doesn't contain a lot of gristle like the cheapest hamburger.  A good cut of roast runs about $6.25/lbs.  A whole chicken costs about $3.25.  We have eaten a whole lot more chicken here than beef.  This does put a crimp on one of traditional Argentinian forms of cooking.  Cooking on the "parilla" or grill is something that people do to celebrate.   We have had grilled chicken many times.  We have had grilled beef as the main course twice because it is just so expensive.  The restaurants here serve local lamb, and we still haven't made it to eat out at restaurant.  We can not get pork here.  We have been told that you can get in Buenos Aires, but we have never seen it here.

There are some other things that are different about cooking in Argentina.  The sugar is a little coarser and works a little differently in baked items like brownies or lemon bars.  We cannot get brown sugar or molasses so we work around, that for chocolate chip cookies, chocolate chips are hard to come by.  More than once, I've just chipped up a bar of chocolate. I don't know what they do to the salt.  The first time we saw Sister Rogers heavily salt a salad we thought she was crazy!  No, the salt just seems weaker somehow.  We are not the only ones that have noticed that. Even the other Latin American missionaries have said that they use more salt here.  

Milanesa with Cauliflower/Potato/Carrot Mash and a green salad.

Argentina has a strong Italian influence in its cooking.  One sister in Rio Gallegos taught Hermana Merkley how to make gnocchi from scratch.  One of the more common meals here is milanesa.  A milanesa is typically a breaded and fried piece of thin meat.  It can be either beef or pounded chicken breast.  Milanesa a la Napolitana can include tomato sauce, cheese and a fried egg. Although, the an eggplant milanesa, pictured above is not unheard of or that uncommon.  When we make milanesa we typically do a much smaller piece of meat and add more to it.  In the meal below, we added a green salad (finding good lettuce is a summer luxury!) and we made Jacob's suggested potato/cauliflower/carrot mash (Dutch stamppot?) to go with it.  We eat way more vegetables than the Argentinians!

Empanadas with roasted butternut squash and potatoes.

Empanadas are are an Argentinan staple.  The most common kinds are beef, chicken or ham and cheese, but there are many variations to that theme.  In Salta, a province in northern Argentina, they add potatoes to make the empanadas heartier.  Eggs are also a frequent addition.  We have even tried apple empanadas.  With a flaky crust, those are almost as good as apple pie! Our empanadas have a different take than the Argentinian variety because we add carrots, zuchini, tomato, and whatever other vegetables we have on hand.  We also do a roast of diced potatoes and butternut squash with olive oil.  This wasn't really my whole dinner.  I just forgot to take the picture until I had eaten half of it!

One thing that we eat that they don't eat much of in Argentina are beans.  You can buy dried beans in the store but, other than lentils, most people don't eat them.  We use garbonzo beans, black beans, and navy beans.  We made a white chicken chile for the missionaries that they mostly enjoyed.  I think the elder from Buenos Aires just thought it was weird.  The elder from Panama couldn't get enough!  The Argentinans don't do spicy, but here in the Patagonia there are more Chileans and Bolivians so there is a market for spicy.  We can't get chiles here but we can get red pepper flakes.  The white chicken chile still wasn't very spicy so we will have to work on that.

Chicken Pot Pie

One common dish here is a torte of chard, ham, and cheese.  You can buy pre-made crusts for the torte.  We decided to try to make a chicken pot pie using the crust.  It turned out really well.  We tried serving it to company and we were told, "Hmm, very flavorful."  Diplomatic, yes.  I real complement, I'm not sure!

Butternut Squash Soup

One of our favorite dishes has become this butternut squash soup.  We buy chorizo, a type of sausage somewhat like a keilbasa, and cook it on low our crockpot for about 8 to 10 hours.  This renders out the gristle and makes for a really nice flavorful sausage that we use to many dishes.  Here we combine red pepper, onion, garlic, corn, cream or homemade yogurt, and butternut squash with the chorizo to make a really nice soup!

Dulce de Leche

No discussion of food in Argentina would be complete without talking about dulce de leche.  For those of you who do not know, dulce de leche is similar to a thick carmel sauce, but the chemical reactions are different so that dulce de leche is smoother and maybe a litter sweeter.  When you walk into the store there is half an aisle dedicated to dulce de leche.  They use dulce de leche on almost everything sweet.  A birthday cake will have a dulce de leche as the layer between two cakes.  The bakeries have cones of dulce de leche dipped in chocolate.  The pièce de résistance of dulce de leche in our experience had to be a flan.  An older couple invited us for lunch, and for dessert she had prepared a flan.  I have to admit that I have eaten flan before, it was popular in Spain, and I'm not a big fan.  When she brought out the dessert, each serving had a huge scoop of whipped cream and another huge scoop of dulce de leche. Best flan I have ever eaten.  I decided that anything covered in enough dulce de leche is wonderful!

Just as a side note on the dulce de leche.  This is the cheap store brand.  The most common grocery store (nearly a monopoly) in the Patagonia is called La Anónima.  The name comes from the term Sociedad Anónima or S.A. which is equivalent to Inc. in English.  The best translation for the name of the store would probably be "The Corporation."   I try not to think about it too hard, but buying your food from a monopoly called "The Corporation" seems like something out of a creepy science fiction story.

Oatmeal with peaches, homemade yogurt and cinnamon.

The meal that we are the most un-Argentinan is breakfast.  We eat a pretty boring breakfast.  Pretty much every day we eat oatmeal, with some kind of fruit cut into it (we can get peaches right now, yum!) a scoop of yogurt and cinnamon.  We have finally found a brand of cinammon that tastes like cinnamon and not bark.  We buy Quaker oats because it is the cleanest.  We still pick out hulls everyday.  I'm not sure what the difference is in the processing between the US and Argentina but we still get oat hulls with every breakfast.

Making yogurt.  Scalded milk in jam jars in a warm water bath in our warmed crock pot.

Yogurt is another staple of Argentinean society.  When you walk into the grocery store there is a cooler 20 ft long full of yogurt.  There is only one problem.  There are basically two flavors, vanilla and strawberry, and it is all sweetened!  It is not just a little sweet, it is really sweet.  We are really grateful to Sister Rogers for giving us a crockpot.  We use it for many things, but it really helps with the yogurt.  I scald whole milk, and put it into cleaned out jam jars.  The jars go into a warm water bath in the warmed, but not too hot, crockpot crock.

That gets put into a box with our towels and the whole thing gets wrapped and covered over night.  The cardboard box just helps with the insulation so it doesn't cool down too fast.  I have found that it takes some experience to get the temperatures just right so we don't get super tart yogurt.  At the same time there seems to be more leeway than the 100 F that the internet suggests!



By morning, we have three jars of creamy, unsweetened yogurt! As you can see, fresh out of the jar it isn't supper thick, but after curing in the fridge they seem to thicken a little more.  We don't wait for the first jar to cure.  It just gets eaten that morning!  The three jars typically last us about a week.

As you may be able to tell, we do spend quite a bit of time shopping, cooking and eating.  We feed the young missionaries, and we invite branch members to our house to try "American" cooking. At least we eat well!

El Calafate Branch

 

It has been a long time since my last post.  In that one, I commented on how wonderful it was to spend almost all of our time ministering and not having to administer anything.  Well, that has all changed.  Our assignment was changed and we moved from Rio Gallegos to El Calafate.  El Calafate is a city of about 30,00 people set on the banks of Lago Argentino. It is about an hour from the Glaciers National Park and the Perito Moreno Glacier.  The summer months, October to February, are the high tourist season and many of the locals are working two jobs. I have been called as the branch president (the local lay leader of a small congregation).  We have between 35 and 60 people show up to church every Sunday.  I have responsibility for everything from the physical facilities to the welfare needs of the people.


The Argentinian economy has some interesting (as a foreigner) and difficult (as an Argentinean) quirks.  Even people with full-time jobs in reputable companies sometimes don't get paid.   It is just part of the system.  Many of these people live on the very edge of poverty.  Saving makes almost no sense because money will be worth less tomorrow than it is today.  We have seen the dramatic effects of inflation in our time here.  We knew one moderately well-to-do family in Rio Gallegos that told us that when they have extra cash they buy staples, like rice and noodles, or building supplies, like bricks and cement.  The food you can always eat and the bricks you can always sell or use to add on to your own home.  Those things retain value.  Money does not! This leads to situations where people living on the edge easily fall off.  I try to keep on top of some of the more precarious situations and make sure that people have food in the house so that children aren't going hungry.

We are also organizing activities in the branch to try to help people improve their economic situations.  One of the members is teaching an introductory computer class.  This is just a simple "how do you" class so that someone could work in a job that requires basic computer skills.  Hermana Merkley and I are teaching an English class.   El Calafate is a tourist town, being able to speak even a little bit of English is a skill that can help people improve their income.  We had one young woman who came to the class and wanted to learn some terms for cutting hair.  If she could give an English speaking tourist a decent cut, she would likely earn more money! We are also learning about teaching English as a second language.  It is fascinating to understand that some Spanish speakers can't even hear the difference between "ship" and "sheep" or "bit" or "beat."  The short "i" sound doesn't exist in Spanish and their ears are not accustomed to that sound.  It makes me wonder how badly I mangle the Spanish language.

El Chaltén juts abruptly out of the Patagonian plain.

Hermana Merkley and I had a great day when we visited El Chaltén.  The views were spectacular!

We are trying to organize youth activities.   On Saturday November 15, we took  8 youth to El Chaltén and did a hike.  Unfortunately, the weather the day we took the youth was not as nice as when Hermana Merkley and I first made the trip. (Actually, President Rogers would tell me that for a youth activity, the challenging weather was bonus, not a problem!)  El Chaltén is a small village situated at the base of Mount Fitz-Roy (also known as El Chaltén).  It is truly a breath-taking site.  Many of the youth here have never made the three hour drive, and had no idea what the tourists here are actually doing.   The youth were excited about going and that turns into excitement from the parents. My second councilor told me that this was the first youth activity in the eight years that the branch has been in existence. President Rogers told me that if we want to help the parents, do things to help the kids.

El Chaltén from Laguna Capri the day of our hike with the youth from El Calafate. I understand that this is a pretty common view for many tourists!

My primary duty here is to train someone else to be the branch president after I leave.  There are some good people who could serve, but they either lack the experience or the vision.  One of the things that has struck me serving here is that trying to change people just wears you out.  If your goal is to change someone, you will just grind yourself away.  However, if your goal is to love someone, it is not wearing.  You open yourself up for lots of pain and rejection, but the love can deal with that.  The  healing spirit of Jesus Christ is what leads to real change.  We just try to model His love for everyone and try to help them seek His love in their own lives.  I'm attempting to get a branch council, and a future branch president to understand importance of loving even those that don't seem to want to change, and leaving the changing part to the Atonement of Christ.  It is a big task, but if we can accomplish that goal, our time in El Calafate will have been very well spent.

I've been trying to come up with something to post on my LinkedIn account to show how I'm spending these 18 months.   I think our job description would be something like the following.
Position: Volunteer for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 
Duties: Feed the poor. Visit the sick. Care for widows and single mothers.  Strive to strengthen marriages and family relationships.  Listen to sorrows and grieve with those that mourn. Comfort those in need of comfort and search for those in need of help. Our motto is "Do Good!"

Benefits and Blessings

First, just a note on the weather.  People keep commenting on how cold we must be down here because all the pictures show us all bundled up.  Many of those pictures are in front of a very big glacier, and a chunk of ice that big does tend to make things cold, even during the summer.  It is winter here, and it is cold, but we find it interesting that it is not that cold.   All the locals keep telling us how unusually cold it is this winter.  The humidity is high, and when the wind blows it feels cold, but it gets colder in Utah.  Montana winters were way colder than it gets here.  The average daytime temperature is above freezing and today it was over 40 with blue skies and no wind.  Gorgeous!  The locals are telling us that the worst of winter is over already.

If any of you look at our experiences (and us being all bundled up), and wonder if you should serve a mission, especially as member and leader support, there are some great unanticipated benefits.

We are walking a lot more since it helps us be visible in the area, and we bought yoga mats and try to exercise for 30 minutes most mornings.  There is time built into the schedule for exercise and we can take the time we want or need.  We actually eat together all the time and we are good about reminding each other that we probably don't really need seconds.  As a result, each of us has lost about 2 inches around the waist.  My doctor will be very pleased if I can keep up or improve those results until I get home!

We don't have to keep the same schedule as the younger missionaries.  Our schedule can still be rigorous, but it is also more flexible.  I have really enjoyed taking an afternoon siesta when I need it!  I'm going to really miss that when I get home.

We spend almost all of our time together.  We do have the freedom to occasionally go off by ourselves with the understanding that the other one has to know where you are.  For example, we do home teaching and visiting teaching with members of the branch.  But, if you really need time away, you can get it.  We don't need it very often.   We can still get frustrated with each other, but we are learning to repent and forgive faster!  It is amazing what spending time with your spouse does for your relationship.  It also helps that we have a set of common goals, and that we are more concerned about other people than we are about ourselves.  We had a good relationship before our mission, but we have found that our marital relationship is sweeter and more tender now.

The opportunity to spend all our time ministering and not have to worry about administering is incredibly unique.  We visit people in all circumstances and have the opportunity to testify of the power of the gospel.  Multiple times in a day we have the Spirit testify to us and them of the existence of God and of the Divinity of His Son.  The Holy Ghost has a special calling to witness of God the Father and His Son and every time we bear that witness the Spirit comes with incredible strength.  That is a blessing that is indescribable.

I really don't know what we will be doing when we get back home but this experience certainly doesn't feel like a sacrifice right now.  

Note to Self . . .

 . . . the next time the young, single missionaries offer to find housing for us on a road trip, inform them that it is OK but we will make our own arrangements. And it is probably worth it to pay for the upgrade.  I'm not a big fan of the Dick Van Dyke-Mary/Tyler Moore sleeping arrangements they found for us in our hostel in El Calafate!

  The Argentina Comodoro Rivadavia Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was established a year ago, and President Rogers gave the missionaries a day to go do something to help them understand more about the place where we are all serving.  The missionaries here in Rio Gallegos chose to go to Los Glaciares National Park.  Since we had already been to the park just a few months ago, we thought about skipping out on the trip, but then we decided that as part of our cultural experience, we were going to take this trip like the young missionaries do.

  We were scheduled to take the "colectivo," which is the Argentinian word for bus, from Rio Gallegos to Calafate.  The inter-city colectivos are large double-decker buses with seats that recline more comfortably than your standard airplane seat.  The missionary in charge of organizing the trip apologized that we only had the half-bed and not the full-bed seats.  So apparently, they have first class seating on the busses as well.  Things started getting interesting as the schedule started bouncing around.  First we were leaving at 8:00 p.m., then at 4:00 p.m., then at 8:00 p.m. again and finally we found out that the bus would leave at 8:30 p.m.   We didn't want to leave our car in the bus terminal overnight, so again in the spirit of doing things like the young missionaries do, we packed up our overnight bag and took the 25 minute walk to the terminal.  Fortunately, the wind wasn't blowing so even though the temperature was just above freezing it didn't really feel very cold.

  The bus ride was pretty uneventful except for a little slipping on icy roads.  I was glad that I wasn't driving in those conditions.  The drive that took about 3 1/2 hours by auto during the summer took closer to 5 hours by bus in the winter.  We got into El Calafate at about 1:15 a.m. and waited for a taxi to take us to the hostel.  The missionaries had gushed over how nice the hostel was, and I will admit that it was clean and at least had a private bath, which is better than some places I have stayed at in my life.  However, the quality of the mattress left a little to be desired.  Even though the mattress was hard, it didn't matter that much since it was such a short night.  Lights out by 2:30 a.m.

  Our alarm went off at 6:30 a.m. so that we could be up, showered, and dressed in time.  We walked to the chapel and met rest of the missionaries and made our way back to the bus terminal to catch a bus to the national park at 8:00 a.m.  I did find it interesting that the round trip bus fare from El Calafate into the park, about an hour drive, cost more than the 5 hour fare on the big colectivo.  Tourist towns!

  The time in the park was cool and rainy.  We were amazed that there wasn't much snow on the ground.  The brochure says that the mean temperature during the winter is 0.6 C, just above freezing.  When we first got into the park, the pathways were icy, but as the day progressed the ice melted.

Missionaries climbing the paths around the glaciers

 The park was not nearly as busy as it had been in the summer so we were able to enjoy some parts of it in peace and quiet.  The walk through the woods around the glacier was particularly captivating.  The deciduous trees were all bare but there were still many signs of life and growth even in winter.

The path and woods surrounding the glacier.

Winter-time in the woods around the Perito Moreno Glacier.

Even though the park was quieter in winter than in summer, we still met people from Italy, Belgium, Japan and the United States and we got to tell several of them why were here living in Argentina. 

Members of the Church in Rio Gallegos have told us that they enjoy coming to the park more in the winter than in the summer because they think it is more beautiful.  I don't know if it is more beautiful, but it is certainly a different experience.  The glacier is constantly growing, moving and changing so it appears different than the first time we came.

The Perito Moreno Glacier on a cool, wet day.

We really are here, even though sometimes we can't believe it ourselves!

Don't they have something like this in Park City, UT?

After spending several hours wandering around the park we jumped on the bus and went back to El Calafate.  We had pizza for a rather late lunch.  The normal pizza here has ham, cheese, strips of pepper and whole green olives.  It is pretty good pizza, Hermana Merkley's crust is better though!  This time we actually got a little more variety and I think we all enjoyed it!  We then got a chance to wander around the town of El Calafate.  It is interesting how similar tourist towns are all around the world.  We did look at a number of interesting crafts but we really weren't tempted to buy anything, except for chocolate.

Our new shirts from President and Sister Rogers!

  We also got a gift from President and Sister Rogers in honor of the World Cup and the mission anniversary.  They are selling a lot of Argentina shirts worn by the Argentinian soccer star Lionel Messi with a #10.  I had considered buying one of those because they are admittedly pretty cool,  However, I have to concede that the shirts with the mission logo are way cooler and much more unique!  Considering that we were running on four hours of sleep and suffering from "hat hair" we don't look too hammered!

  We left El Calafate on the colectivo at about 8:00 p.m. and made it back to Rio Gallegos at about 12:30 a.m.  This time we decided that it was worth it to pay for a taxi to take us home.  It was an interesting experience, but the one thing I know is that I'm not 20 any more! 

Winter in Rio Gallegos

San Benito Muñeca de Nieve.  This is kind of dark because we are only getting 8 hours of sunlight right now.

Here is another of Hermana Merkley's emails.  I'll make some editorial comments afterwards.

 

Winter has struck with a vengeance. Last Wednesday we were out making visits in the mud wearing or jackets, enjoying the balmy temperatures in the high 30's or low 40's. On Thursday morning a winter storm moved in. Elder Merkley and I bundled up in our winter coats, gloves, and scarves and walked to Centro to do our errands. While Elder Merkley got a haircut, I headed off to buy a few things and pay a bill. The snow was falling and sticking to the roads and sidewalks. I was fascinated at the number of people who came outside just to take pictures of the snow.  They haven't really had snow on the ground in Rio Gallegos since 2006, (though all the people here don't agree on that date.) By the time I finished my errands, I was slipping and sliding my way down the sidewalk. A thin layer of ice had formed under the layer of snow. Cars were sliding all over the roads. By the time we walked home, Elder Merkley and I were very happy that we had decided not to drive.

That evening we started seeing snowmen, muñecas de nieve, all over the city. We watched our neighbors make one with their children at 10:30 at night.  The next couple of days we watched the children running and playing in the snow, having snowball fights and loving the novelty. Many of these children have never really seen snow on the ground.

Now the snow is all crusty and icy. The roads and sidewalks are treacherous. We've tried to limit our driving to give everyone here the opportunity to first practice being on hazardous roads. Yesterday while walking back from Zone Conference we watched a car rear-end another that was stopped at a light. All day and night we hear tires spinning on ice. On the plus side, the potholes in the dirt roads of San Benito are all filled with ice, which makes for a much smoother ride. And the mud is frozen so our boots stay clean!

At church today we only had about 50 people show up.  Many didn't want to make their way to church in these conditions. The missionaries asked us to give a ride to one of their investigators and her three girls, ages 10, 11, and 12. The investigator is pregnant and she didn't want to hazard walking in the icy conditions.

 When we arrived at the chapel, the power was out. While the heating in the building is gas, the blowers are electric, thus no heat in the chapel. (Thank goodness the gas heaters in our apartment work even without electricity.) Outside the temperature was -5º C or about 21º F.  During sacrament meeting, the building was growing colder and colder. The speakers were at the podium wearing their coats and talking in the dark while the congregation was trying to stay as warm as possible. Shortly before the end of the meeting, the power came back on. Still the branch presidency decided to dispense with the other meetings because it would take awhile for the building to warm back up and everyone was cold. Just another adventurous day here in Rio Gallegos.

So now for my editorial comments.  Most missionaries have one day a week, typically Monday, as their preparation day or P-Day.  It's not really the whole day; it just lasts until 6:00 pm and they are out working again.  We have found that our schedule can't be quite that regular.  We have some people who have one day off a week which may just happen to be Monday, and the only time they have available is before 6:00 pm.  We go visit them when they are available.  Our personal time gets jostled around into odd times during the week.

Most missionaries are also supposed to never leave their companion to go do something like run errands.   Our mission president told us that as an experienced married couple we could split up as long as we each know where the other is at.  In general, that is how we have worked our married life as well so this is not a big change.  The advantage is that here in Rio Gallegos as a missionary I get to spend a whole lot more time with my wife than I have in the last 29 years, and that is something truly beautiful.

The other thing Hermana Merkley left out is how much courage it actually took her to go off and run errands by herself.  She still struggles with the language and we constantly run into people with odd accents that even I can barely comprehend.  She acted like Paul counseled Timothy, "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love" (2 Tim 1:7).    In the end, missionary work requires a great deal of courage.  We meet people that we have never met before and just assume that they will open their doors to us, let us in, and share the deepest thoughts of their hearts.  That takes a lot of courage.  I'm grateful that I have a companion that exemplifies that for me.