So here I am again, a few days behind. Sunday was our usual busy day with taking William's kids to church along with a cousin. Just love those kids! Then we rushed home to pack our car for lessons in San Crystobol. We are using their ward for the area website page Pres. Anderson wants us to do. There are two younger girls in there that bring me things - this week apples. They are so sweet. I did get their pictures with all of the picture taking we were doing.
The one in pink Scott calls "lancena" because she reminds him of our grandson Lance. The smaller one we call "flaco" because she is the skinniest little thing we have ever seen and flaco in espanol means skinny. We don't even know their names because there have been so many in the class. Now we need to do name tags. This is a great group! They are so anxious to learn and actually do practice during the week which helps them alot.
We left for our Oriental lesson and got there only to find they thought lessons were canceled for the entire Christmas season so we only had one student show up. Luckily enough it was Sarah who we are also using in the web page for the area. She and Stephanie have their papers in for their missions. Sarah is amazing and her dad, the stake president has been so helpful to our music program. Stephanie is the dark eyed girl who always looked so sad and distant. As the time has gone by with lessons she became lighter and lighter in her countenance and happier and happier. She has done so well and I know it has helped her with her self-confidence. She has been playing out of the hymn book for Sacrament Meeting and is an entirely different young woman. And now she is going on a mission .. . that is just amazing! What a difference the gospel makes in the lives of these young people that we teach. We are so blessed to have the guidance of the gospel in our lives and in the lives of our children and grandchildren.
On Monday Elder Yturralde needed a ride to Quesquea to pick up a computer at the church. He still has no permit to drive so Scott drove him out there and Sister Yturralde and I went along. It is about an hour drive but quite pretty and a fairly descent road until you get there. Then it is dirt lanes (kind of like the undeveloped roads on the ranged) between rows of houses. Got some good pictures but am having trouble downloading them. Will add them when I learn how! I went to a Primary meeting with Sister Yturralde at Sister Miller's house that I visited with Sister Snow the only other time I have been there. At that time she was in bed with a broken leg but now she is up and going. They have quite a nice house for the area. There are petitioned off rooms with walls instead of just sheets. I asked to use her bathroom - what I didn't know is they can't flush the toilets there so the big barrel of water at the side of the toilet is their bath, wash and flush toilet water. So I learned you dip out the water and fill the toilet basin until it flushes. Never did work for me however! What a peaceful area though. People just milling around visiting, children playing in the dirt, teens on their phones. Sunday must be the day they go to the beauty shop because we saw women all over with dye in their hair walking around, girls with 3" curlers and many open beauty shops. A bit different than the ones you see in the states but still full of women getting their hair washed and straightened or put in huge rollers. The barbershops were full of men getting their hair cut and getting shaved. Of course if there were more than two people in there at one time the room was full! Many things here are like you see in old movies - about 40 years behind the times that we live in at home.
When we got back to Santo Domingo we decided to go down to the old part of the city they call the Colonial Zone because it was the first area colonized by the Europeans. It was fun to see the old buildings and the home built by the son of Columbus in the 1500's. On one street they have converted the buildings to restaurants and we had decided to eat at one of them that Yturraldes had been to. Great atmosphere up on the balcony with a cool breeze blowing and music playing. Scott and I had a specialized meat platter. We never did ask what the meat was because we weren't sure we wanted to know until after we had eaten. It was good but the only thing I recognized was the chicken.
We arrived at the Casa just in time for the New Year's Eve party. They had set up eight groups of tables with different games and each half hour you changed tables but couldn't be with your spouse. It was actually alot of fun. Then they did white elephant gifts that were hilarious! They showed a movie after that but we figured we'd just fall asleep so we came home.
On Monday Elder Yturralde needed a ride to Quesquea to pick up a computer at the church. He still has no permit to drive so Scott drove him out there and Sister Yturralde and I went along. It is about an hour drive but quite pretty and a fairly descent road until you get there. Then it is dirt lanes (kind of like the undeveloped roads on the ranged) between rows of houses. Got some good pictures but am having trouble downloading them. Will add them when I learn how! I went to a Primary meeting with Sister Yturralde at Sister Miller's house that I visited with Sister Snow the only other time I have been there. At that time she was in bed with a broken leg but now she is up and going. They have quite a nice house for the area. There are petitioned off rooms with walls instead of just sheets. I asked to use her bathroom - what I didn't know is they can't flush the toilets there so the big barrel of water at the side of the toilet is their bath, wash and flush toilet water. So I learned you dip out the water and fill the toilet basin until it flushes. Never did work for me however! What a peaceful area though. People just milling around visiting, children playing in the dirt, teens on their phones. Sunday must be the day they go to the beauty shop because we saw women all over with dye in their hair walking around, girls with 3" curlers and many open beauty shops. A bit different than the ones you see in the states but still full of women getting their hair washed and straightened or put in huge rollers. The barbershops were full of men getting their hair cut and getting shaved. Of course if there were more than two people in there at one time the room was full! Many things here are like you see in old movies - about 40 years behind the times that we live in at home.
When we got back to Santo Domingo we decided to go down to the old part of the city they call the Colonial Zone because it was the first area colonized by the Europeans. It was fun to see the old buildings and the home built by the son of Columbus in the 1500's. On one street they have converted the buildings to restaurants and we had decided to eat at one of them that Yturraldes had been to. Great atmosphere up on the balcony with a cool breeze blowing and music playing. Scott and I had a specialized meat platter. We never did ask what the meat was because we weren't sure we wanted to know until after we had eaten. It was good but the only thing I recognized was the chicken.
We arrived at the Casa just in time for the New Year's Eve party. They had set up eight groups of tables with different games and each half hour you changed tables but couldn't be with your spouse. It was actually alot of fun. Then they did white elephant gifts that were hilarious! They showed a movie after that but we figured we'd just fall asleep so we came home.
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