12 March 2008 – Wednesday

It was P-day and so we did a lot of things around the house including having our air-conditioners serviced. It must be done about every 4 months or the drains get plugged up and they start spitting or dripping water. The charge is very reasonable and the serviceman knows us well enough that we do not even have to tell him our apartment number.

During the day I worked on getting the vocabulary lessons for IEC sorted out. I have a tendency to just toss them in a box when I am through with them which is not a recommend style of filing. Mary finished up a couple of the HS English class teachers supply sets – this has been a major undertaking and she and Daisy has almost all the work.

We read twice from the Kitab Mormon – we are moving right along. The other gospel reading for the day came from the PH manual – lesson 6 on John the Baptist. I found the comments that he made in the temple especially interesting. I do not remember reading them before. I could almost see him before me bearing his witness as a Prophet of God of the things he knew were true. Over coming what he knew to be false doctrine that was probably being taught in the Church by those who considered themselves wise. It reminds me of how the brethern continues to remind teachers in the Church to stick to the manual, scriptures and the words of the leaders when they prepare lessons so they are not led to teach things that may be true but not spiritually enlightening. I am afraid I have not always heeded their counsel. However I have finally matured enough to realize that if it does not add to the spirit of the lesson, it is best not brought up.

An interesting event happened this evening. We knew that the Davises and the Taylors were in town to get their visas renewed and I mentioned to Mary that we should call and ask them and the Marchants and see if they would like to go to the new Amigos we discovered. We decided not to because I really did not want to get dressed up and go out. About an hour later President Marchant called to ask me where the new Amigos was and then he called and asked if we would like to go to dinner with all of them! Great minds do think the same…<g>

Of course we said yes and hurried to get dressed. When we asked for a cab it turned out there were none and we ended up waiting 15 minutes for one to appear. We had a little trouble finding the right area but arrived about the same time as the group from the mission home. We had a great time and a number of interesting moments. First sister Taylor knocked over her smoothie and that had to be mopped up. Then the poor waiter tripped while delivering drinks and managed to spill on both sister Marchant and sister Walker. It only caught the arms of their blouses but the manager was really upset and even went as far as sending one of the staff up to buy sister Marchant a clean blouse. They assured him that was not necessary and so instead he gave us free chips before the meal and fruit afterwards.

There was a lot of sharing of thoughts about our mission and laughter about what we all thought when we got our calls. The President suggested that we should probably revise the information that is given to newly called missionaries so that they know that they will need to buy a car so they need to arrange for getting the money sent before they leave home.

I think we all were sorry when the evening ended and we had to part company. As I have often said, getting to know the other couple missionaries is one of the joys of being on a mission.