OUR ANNUAL AAA CONFERENCE AND THE LAST DAY OF OUR MISSION

We held our annual AAA conference on December 6-7.  December 7 was the last day of our mission.  It was a PERFECT day in every way.  We were with the people we had personally visited and connected with and the people who truly made our mission the meaningful experience it was.  We found the assistant auditors to be the most dedicated, kind and compassionate people we had ever met.  There are 27 assistant auditors and over the period of our mission, we visited all but one of them.  We shared meals with them and attended meetings…. we were in many of their homes and we met their wonderful families, and shared spiritual moments as well as many humorous moments.  A few of them we traveled with …. some for three days.  One of those trips was our great road trip with Hermano Tossen through southern Patagonia, through Chile and into Ushuaia, "fin del mundo".  Another three day trip was with Hermano Sosa along the Patagonian Coast to meet with small districts.  For us to be able to visit and give an abrazo to each person before we left our mission was a great gift… and the conference proved to be a perfect venu for this occasion.

Our mission was a grand experience!  It was challenging, fulfilling, deeply spiritual, actively engaging, exciting, adventurous, and a moment never to be forgotten.  We are grateful for all of our family who supported us and encouraged us and rejoiced with us…….  Our mission was truly a family effort.  We looked forward to this mission for 42 years as it was the first goal we set as a newly married couple.  Now it is complete……our vision fulfilled …… we are different people now than we were when we left.  We now move forward with new perspective, new hope and probably new challenges, holding the memory of our mission close to our hearts and letting that experience continue to move us forward in our lives.

Here are some great photos of our last day…..a day filled with joy, lots of work, and love with our dear friends.

SAYING GOODBYE TO ARGENTINE FRIENDS

During our time in Buenos Aires we discovered a few small businesses that we loved!  We made friends with the owners and enjoyed a unique friendship with them.  There were about four or five businesses but I only got pictures of two….  Here are photos of our dear friends..

These two adorable people own "Violraviol"  a wonderful shop with hand sewn items that are utterly perfect in every way!  Most of the female chefs who are on television in Argentina wear aprons from Vilolraviol.  Our little granddaughters wear their aprons as do I and our daughters!  Chelsea made friends with these two wonderful people as well when she came to visit us.  

Their beautiful shop!

This is my very good friend, Victoria!  She and her adorable sister, owned a magnificent pastry shop, MOREMORE,
Their goods were very unique within Buenos Aires as most of the "Panaderia's" are pretty much the same.  We discovered their lovely place while on a walk one day.  We visited their shop frequently and had them cater our AAA annual conference every year.  Their food was always fresh and absolutely delicious and perfectly made and put together!

A perfect example of MOREMORE!  A beautiful cheese cake with passion fruit curd on top!  It was delicious!

Another group that was difficult to say goodbye to were our friends in the finance department.  We worked closely with them and became good friends and working partners.

Left to right:  Axel (a very close friend), Daniel, Osmar (we loved Osmar!), Dante, (a great help and he became a good friend as well). Fernando, Christian, ( we loved him!) Diego, and Andreas.  We bought a MOREMORE cake and had a little party a couple of days before we left.  

These dear friends will always be remembered and will be a part of our hearts forever!

A MORNING AT THE BUENOS AIRES TEMPLE

Michael and I were asked to speak to a large group of youth at the Buenos Aires Temple very early on
Saturday morning.  There were about 95 youth.  They had traveled from Rosario, it was about a five hour trip .  We enjoyed the experience.  I gave a short talk in Spanish, and Michael gave a great message to the kids in Spanish as well.  It was fun and we really enjoyed the challenge and the experience.

Saturdays are very busy at the temple ….. there were some sweet little families and adorable children to take pictures of.  The gardens were beautiful as well.

Our good friend Hermana Acosta from Rosario.

A SPECIAL LUNCHEON!

Last week was a really busy week!  We returned from Ushuaia on Wednesday evening and the next morning we had an office devotional with two of the apostles:  Elder Holland and Elder Christofferson and also a 70, Elder Soares from Brazil.  In the afternoon, all of the office missionaries, and the Buenos Aires mission president wives (three of them) attended a luncheon in the office.  It was a beautiful luncheon arranged by Renee Costa, and Andrea Spannaus.  (Their husbands are area 70's )  Every month Renee and Andrea arrange a luncheon for all of us and the presidency wives…. the first Tuesday of every month.  We all take food and it is always a really lovely event.  On this day, the luncheon was just a little more special as Sister Holland, and Sister Christofferson and Sister Soares were attending.

Andrea is a designer and has an eye for arrangement and this was truly beautiful!  We all had place cards so we were assigned seats which was perfect.  I sat at a table with Sister Christofferson and we all enjoyed conversing with each other and with the special guests!  She is very unassuming and it was fun to chat with her.  We all took special dishes, and Andrea had special artesian bread made to go on each table.

For the program, Renee had arranged for  a couple who perform native dances to dance for us and that was very fun!  Then we have a young girl, Cynthia, who is with her parents who are serving a local mission as mission president of the area service missionaries.  Cynthia has been practicing singing, "I am  a Child of God" in English and so  we as a group of missionaires sang with her.  It was very special.  She actually sang the first verse in English by herself, and then we all sang the rest  of the verses in Spanish.    
We had been practicing for quite a few weeks so it was fun to perform it!

Our husbands all went out to lunch as they were not invited!  It was a really lovely event and very memorable for sure.

All of our husbands!  Chelsea met most of these people.

Starting on the far left:  Elder Soares, Elder Christofferson, Elder Holland,  President Gonzalez, Elder Zeballos, and Elder Vinas.

Hermana Walker and Cynthia

Asparagus is in season now so I made a roasted asparagus salad.

THE MARCELINO TOSSEN FAMILY

After we returned from our boat ride around 2:30 in the afternoon, we walked around Ushuaia a bit more then went back to our hotel to get ready to go to Hermano Tossens's home.  He picked us up at 5:00 pm and drove us to their lovely home to meet his family and have some desserts.

Lorena his wife is simply lovely and so very gracious and beautiful as well.  Two daughters, Cristal and Camil, and a little boy, David.  Lorena is an artist and paints the most beautiful designs on china plates. She set a beautiful table and we all enjoyed special drinks of one kind or another and a lucious strawberry pie and a yummy lemon pie.  We really enjoyed visiting with the children and asking them questions about their schooling.  We were also very interested in Lorena's art work and Hermano Tossen brought out a large pile of china that had been painted by his darling wife.  It was gorgeous!

This lovely table set by Lorena.

After spending a couple of hours visiting with the family, the girls had to go to their English lessons,  so Hermano Tossen took us back to our hotel  for an hour or so until the girls were finished with their lessons then we would all go to dinner.

Many, many young Argentine families live busy lives, with both husband and wife working.  Lorena teaches school every afternoon plus she teaches early morning seminary.  The children return from school very late in the afternoon and then have separate English classes from 8-9:00 in the evening.  Then they usually eat dinner after English lessons in the late evening.  

Hermano Tossen came with his family to get us at the hotel around 9:30.  We went to a lovely restaurant and had a great dinner and great conversation!  It was such fun I would have a hard time describing it!  Here are a few photos.

We finished eating dinner around 11:30 in the evening which is quite common in South America.  It was fun though and we embraced the experience!  We have had a number of late night dinners in Argentina!

One of Lorena's beautifully painted plates.