CENTRO DE CAPACITACION MISIONAL

Note the beautiful kiwi juice !  It was delicious!  The kiwis here are really large thus perfect for juice.

The buffet table.  

The first day of the conference we were in the hotel and had a lovely lunch and dinner.  A lunch we sat with a lovely young friend of ours, Marianna who did much of the translating for the conference.  She is one of the secretaries at the office and we enjoyed getting to know her better through our association in planning the conference. At dinner we met a mission president and his wife who are from Central Point, Oregon and they knew some people we know in our daughters ward in Grants Pass! On Tuesday morning there was a long question and answer period with the area presidency on missionary issues.  (of which there are many)  At 11:30 or so we had to make sure everyone was checked out of the hotel and boarded a small bus and two vans with their luggage .  Two vans for those returning to Chile and another bus for those going to other destinations within Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.  That was a trick!!  Michael stood there with his travel papers with everyone's flights listed and we had to check everyone off and make sure they were headed in the right direction!

After loading the buses, we headed about five minutes away to the Buenos Aires Temple grounds where we had a fabulous lunch at the CCM.  (MTC).  They have a "real" chef that cooks there and honestly the food was totally fabulous!  We had been over to check things out a week ahead of time and had visited with President and Sister Openshaw who are in charge of the CCM.  They are a wonderful and very dedicated couple.  They role up their sleeves and help with everything.  This CCM houses and feeds about 70 missionaries who are headed to Paraguay and Uruguay.  Now with the increase in numbers of missionaries, the Openshaws  are a little worried about the space.

The meal was wonderful with homemade kiwi juice (I had three glasses!) , freshly made foccacia bread with sundried tomatoes, four different kinds of meats, rolls, bread, empanadas, dips, ..... it was totally amazing... and for dessert delicious chocolate cake and freshly made fruit tarts!  These missionaries are lucky!

Most of the mission presidents and their wives attended the temple.... we had too many tasks to finish up so we were not able to join them.... when they started coming out of the temple, once again we had to check off names and make sure everyone was accounted for.

It was a great experience and one we will never forget!

The CCM

The Buenos Aires Temple