Wednesday, June 5, 2013

          It was dark in the ordinance room and the film was in progress when Glade spotted something on the floor that seemed to be moving.  He watched it and it really did move and headed in my direction.  As an ordinance worker I was seated in the front on the side facing Glade across the room from me.  There was a pause in the film and the lights came up revealing what looked like a huge red beetle right in the front of the room next to the wall and too close to me for comfort.  As realization dawned that this was not just a two-inch rock or random piece of fabric, I watched carefully to see if it would move.  All of a sudden, this “la cucaracha” made a beeline for the front row of sisters!  They saw it coming and in a flash had skirts and feet off the ground as it disappeared under their seats and into the empty rows at the back of the room.  Those nervous feet did not touch the ground until the sisters left the room.  When we were changing rooms, I slipped out and tried to explain to a Spanish-speaking sister that there was “el insecto grande in la sala” and they should check it out before the next huge session started.  I don’t know if anyone did anything about it; but later in the day I heard the house-keeping lady excitedly telling about a “la cucaracha in la sala;” and then she made the spraying sound and motion of RAID! 

          The last session I was in was interrupted by a loud noise and Pres. Amado came into the room and had the officiator hold the patrons in the current room instead of proceeding to the next room as usual.  I thought it was thunder again and didn’t think too much about it.  Glade was the officiator in the session that had just ended and it was his responsibility to push the button that raises and lowers the large heavy curtain at the front of the room for each session.  Wow did he get a surprise!  The mechanism mal-functioned and only half of it dropped.   The cables were jumbled up and it was separated at the top from the pole.  Frantic temple workers found the head engineer (who was 20 minutes away) and had him hurry back to fix it.  Somehow it all worked out with a minimal wait time, but a very temporary and somewhat unsightly fix.  It is amazing how many things come up—even in a new temple—that have to be taken care of and this poor engineer is extremely over-worked.  That is why the organ pedals are still not working.  It is very low on the list of important items.

          Four more school buses from Nicaragua arrived yesterday afternoon so it was another busy night and day.

          We decided to get groceries today since Glade’s vertigo prevented our doing shopping on Monday.  We walked down the hill to the main road and hailed a taxi.  The car was old, had no seat belts, and was quite worn; but the driver was friendly, had music going, the windows rolled down and managed the traffic very effectively.  We arrived safely, spent an hour and a half filling our cart with items from our list, and then hailed another taxi to take us back up the hill to the temple with our “store” as it started to rain. 

          Thanks for your love and prayers.  We feel them both and are grateful. 

The white car is the first taxi and is leaving the parking lot.

Glade in front of "De Prova."
 Notice the armed guard at the left.  We see them everywhere!

Sign in the parking lot.  Lots of people ride motor cycles.

Glade waiting with the groceries for a taxi.

A house across the street showing one of the many gates or fences on most buildings.  They also have rolled barbed wire on the tops of the buildings and fences.

This gate was shutting via remote when I took this picture.  Notice the large metal "box on legs" in the center right.  I think it is a gargabe recepticle like the ones in some of the pictures we received from missionaries.

Just looking down the street for a taxi.

A young man from the store helped Glade load the groceries into the taxis and earned his tip.  It's strange that Glade didn't get an ice cream from this passing vendor--maybe because it was raining?