7/30/2013

    Every time we pass this roadside assistance place, that actually is on the side of the road, I am determined to get a picture but usually there is a car parked in front of it so this time I got it!  The funny thing is there is usually a car pulled over that needs some help.  Guess it was a good idea but looks pretty funny.

Today was another busy Tuesday.  The temple is opening today after two weeks of cleaning.  Scott went and did a session this morning while I stayed home and washed and worked on recital programs.

We picked up Grays for our trip out to Los Llanos and were blesssed one more time with a safe trip out there.  There were only three students today.  We got there early and Lizandra, one of our students, was very ill.  Pres. Gray asked us if we would take him to the hospital which we were happy to do.  When he got into the car there was this horrific smell of throw-up but he didn't have a thing on his clothes.  I felt so bad for him.  He told us just to leave him there so we did but as we left he was leaning against a post and looked like he was going to collapse.  Elder Gray went back while we were teaching to see what had happened to him but couildn't find him in the hospital.  He said there was only one patient there and it wasn't Lizandra.  We checked the roadside to see if he had tried to walk to his house, which no one knows where is.  Anyway we just pray that he is ok.

Dropped of the Grays and went on to Santo Domingo Stake to teach and get ready for the recital.  What a bunch of kids were there tonight.  One refused to play his recital piece until everyone else was through and his mother threatened to hit him with her shoe.  We were there for about three hours so got home about 9:30 but the kids wanted to continue to  practice and who would ever put a stop to such a novel thing!                                  

7/27/2013

    These two weeks with the temple closed has given me much time to work on the history report.  On Thursday I finished getting it together and Sister Yturralde helped me put the pictures in.  What a relief!!
Still have some recital information and pictures to add but the bulk of it is done.  Probably end up to be about 20 pages of info.  I have learned quite a few things about Windows 8 but it hasn't been a good time to spend learning when I needed to be able to get things done.  Complain, complain!  Now on to recital programs and a scrapbook for the kids. And just a little over three weeks to cram everything into before we leave.
     On Thursday night we had our lesson at the Santo Domingo church.  Their recital is on the 11th of August and they are doing pretty well.  We will combine the two classes we teach there for the recital so there will be over twenty students.  One of the women students that I am close to told me she felt we would see each other again somewhere in the eternities.  I hope so!  She has a daughter, our student, who is going to Puerto Rico to play in a volleyball competition.  I treasure those experiences with my daughters who played.  We actually got the key and got into the classroom on time.  Michelle went into the chapel and practiced on the piano there.  She does so well.  Wish the other kids could/would practice as much as she does.They actually practiced for two hours now they know the recital is getting closer.  Other than her though, the boys are the most talented of the group.
     We had invited the Johnson's over for dinner to try to repay them for all of the work Sister Johnson had done with our old and new computer.  She retrieved the information from our dead computer and loaded it on the new one and taught me how to use it but the whole process took her many days.  Now I know why I haven't cooked much here - it takes so much time!  It was fun to have them over though and get to know them better.  They are amazing.  Scott had invited the Yturraldes and the McIntyres for dessert.  The McIntyres are from Kansas and are here to work in the record extraction program with the Yturraldes.
       The tienda across the street had loud music playing and people dancing until 11:00 pm so sleeping was not much of an option.  About 11:00 pm the night before these motorcycles went by and made so  much noise it startled us awake and we wondered if we had been bombed  or there was an earthquake or just what the intense noise was.  I have never experienced anything like that before.It really was frightening!  Nancy said she actually got up and watched because they went past three times. She said there were six sets of three motorbikes.  I think they knew just what they were doing and thought it was quite fun to wake everyone.
      Today we left at 9:00 am for our 10:00 am class at La Caleta.  We didn't have a class at Los Molinos because they had their recital last week so that gave us time to come home for an hour before heading out to Hainamosa.  It was very nice.
k.La Caleta is practicing for a recital too so they managed to stay fairly focused.  The two younger boys were at Deacon's Camp.  The contentious part was just who wanted to be first and last at the recital!  These are mostly teenage kids but they are soooo funny. Not much self confidence.  Now that's something I can relate too!  They stayed and practiced for two hours so that was helpful.  We got home shortly after 7:00 pm  so the day wasn't nearly as long as it used to be.  The gate was open when we got there but the man in the churchyard said he could not let us in without permission from the stake president and we couldn't get a hold of him so we waited and waited.  Then when we got in the building the lights were on but the air conditioning didn't work so it was 87 degrees in there.  Way too hot with no fans to circulate the air!  There are three middle aged women in this class that I have really enjoyed.

.We see such interesting things in our travels.  This truck is one of thousands that travel the freeways here and many of them look just like this.  And no - it isn't broken down!

When we got home Elder Yturralde came down to have something copied so he and Scott visited and ate chips and salsa then decided they needed root beer floats so when he left we went up to their place so the men could have floats.  They have really enjoyed their time together.  Actually the Yturraldes have made living here much more fun than it would have been without them. Kind of a shared misery of sorts! They are great and we will miss them very much.

7/26/2013 Los Molinos Recital

    We didn't know if we were ready for another recital or not but we had one anyway!  We got there and hour before it was to start when all of the kids and grandma were supposed to be there.  Well of course no one was there but Grandma did come a few minutes later.  We set up the chairs and got the table and keyboard ready for them to play.  Plus we sat some keyboards up in the back for them to practice before people started arriving.  We were surprised to see the stake music chairman and the high counselor that
we had worked with in the beginning.

This is such a talented group of kids.  I know they were very impressed.  Brother Gonzalez, stake presidency member, told about how they had discussed in their stake meeting how much they needed help with their music program.  We were just randomly calling the few music directors there were in the area to see if we could help them and got hold of Brother Venutura that very week.  They just knew it was an answer to their prayers.  It would have been a shame for these kids not to have had the opportunity to learn to play because they have done so well and will be able to help their wards for many years to come.  We had a prayer meeting and told them that we wouldn't be back and how much we loved and appreciated them.  We were all close to tears.  Scott and I had discussed this earlier and when I told him I was working on some ways to help me keep my composer because I am such a baby he said he didn't even plan on controlling his emotions.  Now does that sound like Scott???   He did well though.  The boys here have much closer relationships with their mothers and are much more vocal about how they feel emotionally than most boys at home are.  What a privilege it has been

to work with this group.

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7/21-23/2013

  I am blaming my lack of blogging for the past two days on the computer.  Better than nothing don't you think!  Can't get the pictures to download that I wanted to include so finally decided that I would do the blog and add the pictures later.
  Don't know what happened to this blog because I did write one so guess I'll have to start over again but with even more days to do now..
 Beginning with July 21 - which was a Sunday.  We picked up the kids, only to find two more that we had  never seen before.  Except I think one of them was standing by the wall watching the kids get in the car with us last week. The real surprise was when Oglidia came out to the car as she usually does to tell me hello but this time she got in the car with the kids.  She hasn't gone to church with us for a long time.  These girls are going to sing in sacrament meeting in two weeks along with a few other girls their age.  We are hoping their parents will come and support them.  The two little girls that went with us last week didn't come this week. It is amazing where all these different kids keep coming from. We took the neighbor lady and her two kids home so there were seven in the back seat and two on my lap in the front.

 We practiced the songs they are going to sing during the second hour of primary.  I don't think the Primary president appreciated the whole thing but I know it will be a blessing in the lives of these girls. Oglidia is a much stricter disciplinarian than we are so didn't dare give her kids the treats we usually have for them!  There are some great things about playing the grandparent roll!  How we love these kids.  I did realize that we can continue to talk to them on gmail like we have with our family at home. That makes it easier to leave them.
   After dropping off the families we left for San Cristobal.  They were just rehearsing for their recital which they moved back to the 11th of August.  I was helping Carlos, 16 year old boy, when he stopped and looked me in the eyes and said " I love you very much, you are like my family."  That was a little surprising.  I said "well you know I feel the same way"  and what was best of all was he touched his chest and said "I know, I can feel it here." If there is one desire both Scott and I have it is for these people to feel the love we have for them.
  While we were teaching, Marie from Oriental called and asked where we were.  She thought we were supposed to be there teaching early because they had a fireside.  She said Scott had told the class that is what they were going to do - if so he wasn't aware that is what he said because we have another lesson at that time.  Scott has been so frustrated with this language the last couple of weeks. I haven't even had time to be frustrated - or ;to study.  So we finished our lesson in San Cristobal, jumped in the car and started for Oriental which is about an hour away.  When we got there all of the students had left or were going to the fireside so we didn't have a class.  That meant we got home at a decent hour Sunday evening!
   On Monday I started on the area music history I have to finish before we go home.  I couldn't seem to figure out how to upload the pictures and I tried everything.  After three hours I was so frustrated Scott took me to the store to get away from the computer before I threw it out the window!  Did get a bit of the history part written though.  No FHE but

the Hammons were back in the country so we went to be investigators for the missionaries at the CCM then to Dunfords for a little party.
    On Tuesday we made our normal trip out to Los Llanos - with no rain this time.  By the time we got back to the city and dropped the Grays off it was time for our Santo Domingo class.  These students are getting ready for a recital also.  Some doing very well and others not so much but they are all trying.
  Spent the morning again on the history report.  Have figured out a few things but there is soooooo much I don't know.
Sister Yturralde came down and helped me with the pictures for a little while.
    

7/20/2013

      At the end of the day, and it has been a long one, I am ready for bed!  We left this morning around 9:00am for our 10:00 lesson at La Caleta.  We got stuck in bad traffic and so were a little late getting there and all but two of the students were there waiting.  You just never expect anyone to be early or on time here.
It was a practice lesson for the recital and boy, do they ever have a long way to go!  When they have no way to practice, and don't practice if they do, it makes for slow learning. We were late getting away so by the time we got to Los Molinos the students were waiting for us there.  This group is one that makes teaching worthwhile. There are six of them and they are all ready for the recital.  One of the little girls can play almost anything.  It's a good thing they are ready because they moved their recital up to this coming Wednesday.  That doesn't give me much time to type up everything and have the rest of the things ready but it will be good to have one of the recitals over.
    When we arrived at Hainamosa at 4:30 pm the gate was open but there was no power.  It was 87 degrees in the room - felt like a sauna.  Nothing zaps your energy like that kind of heat in a closed room. We waited for half and hour then the RS president came and told us that someone would be there in another half an hour to turn on the power.  While we were waiting in the car, to tired to get out and go in, one of the young girls that had started the class came over to the car with a big smile on her face.  She had brought me a beautiful flower and four pages of drawings she had done for me.  What a sweetie!  Anyway we finally got started and it was miserable until someone came and turned on the air conditioner.  Finished the lesson and stopped at Bravo to shop on the way home.  When we got to our door there was this weird looking mask hanging on the doorknob.  Later found out that Yturrales picked it up in the parking lot and put it on our door.  Sure was glad to find out it was them.
   The day ended on a great note though when Joe and Hannah called to say they are going to be sealed in the Brigham Temple soon after we get home.

7/19/2013

My fondness for computers grows dimmer day by day as I try to figure things out on this new Windows 8.
Couldn't use the printer until I loaded it on and then it wouldn't work but kept pulling up this onenote thing that I have never used.  Sister Yturralde was here and with her experience, which is extensive, she finally got it to work an hour and a half later.  So my big plans of getting alot of work done on the history just vanished into thin air. Oh well!  I wish some of this Dominican laid-back stuff would run off on me...
  Thursday was a good day as I was able to get much of the writing for the history. Somehow I just managed to loose half of the blog.  We had a lesson at night that went from 6:30 to almost 9:00 because some of the kids stayed after class to practice more.  This time we were locked out of the church and had to wait half an hour in the rain for the missionaries to return with the keys to the building.  Five of the students were there waiting for us which is very unusual.  Jose, formerly referred as "cool kid" was even there early - he usually comes half an hour before the class ends.  I have actually come to be quite fond of him. His little buddy, Ralph, is out in the country for the summer so we may not see him before we leave.  They were to play one of their recital pieces at the end of class.  There were only two who could do it!  They have four weeks left so here is hoping they will actually work on getting them learned.  One of the funniest things happened with Jose.  He called me over to listen to his piece which he knew well.  So he had the hymn book open to these two hymns and as he played I realized, even with my lack of Spanish skill, that he wasn't reading the music on either one of them.  He had the pieces memorized.  They so often do that but then if they get mixed up they can't find their place on the music page so we encourage them to read the music to play.  He didn't realize the book wasn't open on the right page so it was pretty funny when I asked him if he was reading the music or playing from memory.Caught in the act!!  I would say at least half of our students memorize the music or they play by ear.  We have three older women in our class there that are so sweet but they all struggle with the piano.  One of them asked why it was that her children seemed to learn so fast but she didn't.  It helps me to realize that older minds just don't learn as quickly as young minds do.  Somehow I thought more mature students would do better - but they don't.  When I compare it with how much I have worked on Spanish and still know so little I completely understand where they are coming from.

7/17/2013

  A free morning to work on the history report!  We usually spend many mornings a week at the temple so with it being closed I have more time to work on the report.  The problem is on this new computer we have Windows 8 which I know nothing about.  Trying to relearn how to do everything is driving me crazy. I have so little computer skill anyway..
   We spent the afternoon and night teaching at Las Caobas.  Last week their lessons were the same day we had a tropical storm pass by so the rain kept us and everyone else away.  So this week many of the students were missing from the two classes. Almost every week we have little kids in class who are being tended by one of our students.  Sometimes are really good and others not so good.  Tonight we had a little girl that thought she should be able to play the teclado.  We kept unplugging the ones she sat at because it was so distracting to everyone else but she just kept plugging them back in.  She was probably two or three and cute as can be but was she ever determined to play the keyboard like everyone else in class.
   

7/16/2013

Eight hours of traveling and teaching and we are finally home.  It gets pretty tiring at times but it is good to be able to serve.  The Grays didn't go to Los Llanos with us today because they had to take Pres. and Sister Bair to the airport so they met us out there.  We only had three of the normal ten students show up.  You never know why they come sometimes and not others!  But it was great because there were three of us there to help and with only three students we had good one on one time with them.  Richard, who thinks he is playing a song perfectly when he never counts was a hard sell on the importance of counting but he finally caught on.
  Since we didn't have the Grays with us we didn't have to come back into the center of the city so we were actually early for our lessons at Santo Domingo.  I was visiting in the mission office with the Ewells when one of our students came down and said they couldn't start without me.  Ha!  I think he is afraid of Scott.  Wouldn't be the first person to be afraid of him! They don't know what a softy he really is..These students have known for a month that we will be having a recital this next month but worse is that we are leaving them.  Michelle has not been to a week of lessons so we have been worried about her - not really knowing what her life is like but guessing it might not be too good.  She wants to Skype with me when we leave.  That will be great so maybe we can keep track of her for a little while.  She is very talented and so self motivated that she learns very quickly and all of the other students think it is unfair.  If they practiced as much as she does they would be playing well too.  It was a good two hour practice for most of them and at the end they were to play one of their recital pieces.  Were they ever nervous!  Hope it helped get some nervousness out of them but probably not.
 One of our older sisters who dropped out of the class because she had to work came in to say hello.  It was so good to see her!
The temple is closed for two weeks so that frees up our mornings to work on other things but I will miss the peace I feel there.

7/15/2013

You know when I said we had seen everything on the back of a moto - well this was a first.  A toilet!
We have been off line for a week or so with no internet because our computer died and when we realized it would take months to get it serviced (assuming that it could be) we decided to just get a new one.  They are cheaper in the States but I have so many things I need to get done before we leave on the computer.  And to think I would have to go six weeks without talking to the kids was the last straw.. Our phone calls are made through gmail.  So after a frustrating week of looking for a computer and getting the information off our old computer we are finally back in business.  Sister Johnson from Park City was kind enough to see if she could get our old one working, then got all of the information she could from it before programing our new computer.  What a woman.  We are in debt to her forever!  It took many days of her time to do that for us.
All I can remember about last week is fretting about how I was going to do the area history report with no information from my computer - and no computer.  On Friday night we did go out with the Merinos to a fun little Chinese place:

  She is really a beautiful woman - auburn hair and bright blue eyes.  The two of them are so much fun to be around.  They served three years in Hondorus as mission president and wife and say the Dominican is crime free in comparison.  Would hate to be there!
  The president here has decided to use the military police to help with the crime.  Well it kind of backfired as the criminals went after the heads of the police and the president's daughter's body guard.  They killed three or four. Now we see this:

We followed one on the way to Oriental lessons.  Scott kept telling me to take a picture and we were much closer than that first picture looks.  The men setting in the back of the truck had on masks and were pretty formidable looking.  I was afraid they would shoot us!  But they finally turned their heads so I took a quick shot.  We decided they were wearing masks so no one would recognize them and try to hunt them down.
On the way home we were stopped by backed up traffic where no less than ten of these military police had a car stopped and surrounded at rifle point.  It was scary!  They are all over on the streets wearing their bullet proof vests and carrying their rifles. Until then I hadn't seen as many as as there were in the beginning.
If we are supposed to feel safer, I don't think it is working!
   We picked up the kids for church - only to find two new ones also.  These were two little girls, five and four.  They were all dressed up for church and climbed in the back seat with the others so we took them and no one came looking for them so I guess it was okay.. Hope they come again so I can take a picture because they were such cute kids.  We walked in the church as the primary president was coming out.  She just looked at all of the kids and started laughing.  We probably bring half of the primary each week.  How we love them!
   MONDAY
We first of all called to have them reset our password so we could hook up to the internet and now we are in business!!  Then we picked up Sister Dunford to go to San Cristobal to the doll factory.  I wanted to look at their little nativity scenes which are so unique to this area.  It was fascinating to see their little "factory" at work.  Each worker was putting on hair, a shirt, a head, flowers, etc.  The shop was about the size of a small bedroom.  Then we went to her little store which was about the size of a big bathroom and just crammed with things that she and her husband had manufactured.  Sister Dunford and I are standing in front of the store - which looks much bigger than it is inside!

  

7/3/2013 A day with the kids

Kids visit!  We picked up the usual "take to church" gang on Wednesday morning and brought them into the city and to our apartment.  That is back row:  Leni, Gregory and Carlos.  Front row: Pamela, Cati, and Eliana.

I didn't realize how small William's girls are until these normal size girls started going to church with us.  Pamela is five and taller than Eliana who is ten.  We will always love these kids and hope that some day we get to see them again.  They wanted to come to our apartment before we went to the park.  Leni was fascinated with the keyboard and spent most of her time here with song settings that played by themselves and she would pretend she was playing - pretty funny.  She had never seen anything like a keyboard.  Eliana wanted to exercise with my Richard Simmons video - she never missed a step.  The boys spent lots of their time looking out the window with the binoculars.

Then we went to the park across from the temple that they have spent a fortune redoing.  None of the kid's stuff is finished yet but they do have a big area filled with exercise machines of different kinds.

Scott has decided he needs to go every day to work out so he can regain some arm strength!
The pictures of the kids working out won't load for some reason.
Then we went across the street to the temple grounds where there is all kinds of beautiful lawn.  The kids were in heaven just having somewhere to run and play.

Then of course the girls wanted their pictures taken (this is the typical Dominican pose)

Then it was time for lunch so we headed for McDonalds.  These kids love french fries! 
Making sugar cookies was fairly disastrous, but they did have fun.  The dough was too soft and by the time we added enough flour so they could cut them out - and with the girls that was a lot - they tasted awful.  But all in all they had a great time.

Then it was time to take them back home because we had two lessons in Las Caobas.

In the elevator with their "delicious" cookies - ready to head back home.
We didn't even have time to paint nails.  All in all it was precious time that we got to spend with them!  We are so grateful for their being a part of our lives here.

7/2/2013

  Home at last!  The Los Llanos days are always long but today was much worse than usual because it was raining so hard every low spot on the freeway, and there are many here, were a foot deep in water.  It was so scary plowing through those.  Scott didn't seem to be bothered driving even though he kept making comments about fishtailing and running into the back of the car in front of us, but the rest of us in the car were nervous as can be.  I don't know why it can't just rain just normal amounts here.  Or why some of this rain doesn't fall at home where it is so dry...It was actually better in Los Llanos than it was here in the city.  We have forded many streams to get to the building in Los Llanos!  Richard was so excited to show me that he could play a song in the simplified hymn book.   When he started to play he didn't hit one note right.  It was a song they are not familiar with here so he didn't realize he was playing it wrong and he is just learning to read the music and find the keys on the keyboard.  So we worked on it for some time!
    Coming back was much better!  We got everything unloaded at Santo Domingo and only three students showed up.  Have no idea where all of the others were..  It did give us time to work with the ones who were there though.  Coolest thing happened:  Michelle, goth girl, had gone to the bookstore on the temple grounds and bought two hymn books, one in English and one in Spanish.  She went to church on Sunday and they had sung "How Great Thou Art" and she loved it so much she is determined to learn it even though in the hymn book it is pretty hard for her.  Then after class she said she had something for me.  She said she had been to the store and when she passed this "dulce" she thought of me and just had to buy it.  What a sweet thing for her to do!  Scott says it tastes kind of like fruit cocktail but a bit sweeter.  Just to see the change in  her is the most amazing and heartwarming thing. 

7/1/2013

How fast can a day free of teaching keyboarding go?  Pretty darn fast!  It was wonderful to have some time to study and practice - and get the car serviced.  Made some cookies for FHE 4th of July celebration.  Scott went to Spanish class and I stayed home to finish the cookies and waited for him to come get me for the missionary investigator hour ( you pretend to be non-members so the missionaries in the CCM can teach you) but he never came back.  His phone was here so he couldn't call so I watched out the window for 1/2 and hour so I could hurry down to the car but just like the pot that never boils if you watch it - he never drove around that corner.  The Yturraldes were going to pick me up for FHE but he came just before we left.  We had a wonderful 4th of July program that left us all a little depressed about the high intentions of the writers of the Declaration of Independence and what our country has become today.