Trying to Focus

First of all....let me share pictures with you of the cute missionaries, so that you recognize that they are - indeed - cute!

I always come away from our time with the young missionaries so happy for the opportunity.  In unguarded moments, they occasionally give away a sense of optimism for the future.  I love that in them.

Today was typical.  The focus of the entire day was the center at 3.  SK went to 3 different stores on his own and on his own feet....walking.  He found all of the necessary ingredients and did quite well on the price.  On one of his forays, he came back drenched in a Spring downpour.  But he survived quite nicely and with a smile on his face.

While he was out and about in the beautiful city, I sat on the couch (!) and prepared the lesson for today.  I thought it was very interesting and full of all kinds of side notes to discuss.  I was actually looking forward to it.

At three we went to the center and immediately set about making 3 gallons of chili.  We had a couple of hours to let it simmer.  I poured about 3/4 of a cup of chili powder in it, and yet it had hardly any bite to it.  We have not yet found local chili powder that is anything but mild.  But it turned out to be quite tasty.  I threw all kinds of things in trying to make it taste good.....and we have several spices in the center cupboard.  Thankfully, all of the additional items didn't ruin it.  (It is hard to ruin chili unless you put awful seasonings in.  Everyone has a favorite recipe.)

We had enough and to spare.  A lot of people filled up their cups (we have large cups we use as soup mugs) more than once and we watched the level of the chili in the pot go down.  But by the time the evening was over, there was still maybe a half gallon left, which I sent home with various YSAs.

We had no English speaking people tonight, so even though I was prepared to teach, what I did with the lesson was "forsake it." It  was about D&C 135 and 36.  They are both meaty lessons and I was prepared to give a lesson about them.

On Sunday, we are having the two Danish stake presidents, the mission president and a general authority meet at the center for a lengthy meeting, so I wanted to leave it clean.)    After class I served cake.  American cake is definitely different than Danish cake.  It is softer and less dense and lighter. Strawberry shortcake....yes!

While everyone was eating their cake, we visited about all kinds of lovely things.

They truly are great young people.  Such a nice day.