What do you do?

Since Tuesday through Friday we only work seven hours a day, either in the morning hours or evening, many of you have asked what we do with the rest of our time. Here is a recent, abbreviated version:

Friday:

• Morning shift, 7:30 to 1:15.
• Lunch! (Main highlight as well as main meal of day).
• Six-mile walk along river. 
• Make Chili con Carne and Jalapeño Bread for Sunday guests.
• Bedtime 10:00--two hours later than hoped for!

Saturday:

• Up at 4:15 a.m.--work to 1:45 p.m.
• Lunch!
• Very short, much loved siesta.
• Clean church downtown.
• Soup at Mission President’s house and then the wrapping of 167 gifts for missionaries. Short walk to the “churro” stand for a late night snack.
• Make salad, set table for Sunday dinner.

Sunday:

• Leave early for church due to road construction at both ends of route.
• Practice song for Christmas Sunday program
• Final preparations for farewell dinner for first counselor and wife, who are moving. The second counselor moved three months ago, so that will leave the Bishop counselor-less. 
• Serve dinner to the four people invited and the extra person that the Bishop brought along--rearrange table, find more dishes and cutlery, smile and make many welcoming noises. 
• Take two people back downtown to their apartment after dinner so that the Bishop could go in the other direction to a meeting he had.
• Clean up dinner--trying not to finish off the rest of the chocolate turtles left over from dessert.

Monday:

• Drag ourselves out of bed just in time to get the recycle sacks out for the early pick-up.
• Six mile walk at the park--first snowy egret siting!
• Sweep floors, dust floors, and mop floors of our little bungalow. Clean, clean, clean!
• Wash patio, sidewalk, and street in front of house.
• Quick, very quick lunch!
• Even quicker showers to get ready for Temple Worker’s Family Home Evening.
• Arrive one hour early to fiesta to practice song we are singing with another couple. Hermano Aguirre, the guitarist, arrives on time; but the neck of guitar he borrowed is broken. Using a tuning strap, the guitar is “tied” back together and tuned. Miracle of miracles, it works! We practice with the guitar (for the first time) trying to figure out how to turn the song into a duet. It is too high for Linda’s voice. Fifteen minutes before the program begins, the other two voices show up. One run through the song and Hermano Aguirre quietly says, “It would be much better with the piano.” We tried it with the guitarist both singing and playing, and added Linda on the piano--much better! One full run through and we head to the chapel. (It turned out pretty good, considering the challenges.)
• Everyone is late to the party. It turns out that most of them work for a living. The devotional begins 15 minutes late with only a handful of people present--45 minutes later, the chapel was full. 
• We make 100 photos of the temple to share with our friends that work at the temple--we run out of photos. Many of the people we have never seen before. We wonder where they came from and where they go.
• Dinner and dancing follow the program. Not much visiting due to incredibly loud speakers. 
• We are asked to coordinate the morning shift the next day. 

 Tuesday:

• Work the morning shift at temple as coordinators, 7:15 to 1:30.
• Stop at grocery store to buy Fritos to put in the leftover chili.
• Eat leftover chili and salad, with lots and lots of Fritos.
• Eat leftover chocolate turtles.
• Clean up kitchen.
• Put feet up for 15 minutes.
• Return to temple for afternoon shift, 4:30 to 10:00.
• Returning home, we find that the chocolate turtles are gone--every last one! 
• We discover someone’s Christmas present in the back room. 
• It is chocolate. We eat chocolate!
• Before retiring, we make a note to replace the Christmas present.

So, there you have it--what we do in a nutshell.