La Gran Buenos Aires

I have finally returned to the southern suburbs of Buenos Aires. It has been great to return. After leaving La Colonia, we went to Montevideo. While in route to Montevideo we still had no idea where we would be spending the night. We arrived in Montevideo around 8 pm at the bus station. Luckily, we had a lead of where we could stay. Natasha´s grandma grew up with who is now the mission president of the Montevideo, Uruguay mission. Natasha has never met him before though. However, her grandma had given her his number before we came on the trip. So we told Natasha to call him up and tell him about how we were stranded in the rain without anyplace to stay. She called him up and told him how her grandma had told her that we should go by to say hi, and with a little bit of handy work she got us invited to stay the night. What a great family. We stayed up late talking to President Ashby and his wife about the mission and about our trip. We slept in very confortable beds for the first time since leaving Chile and he had breakfast ready for us when we woke up the next morning. We also got banana creme pie that a senior missionary couple had made. For a day I didn´t feel like the backpacker that I was trying to be. He helped us check into the temple hostal, even paid for us (10 bucks for the 3 of us), and we went off to tour the old City part of Montevideo. Montevideo was alot like a miniture Buenos Aires, alot of the same architecture but a lot smaller. The central cathedral was pretty impressive. It was very ornate and very well kept. We walked down the peatonal which is a streat closed to vehicles with shops on both sides. It goes right by the central square and cathedral. The peatonal is one of the things I like best about Latin America. The peatonal is about 10 blocks long and cuts just short of leading out to the fishermans wharf. We walked out to the end of the breaker which was a couple hundred yards long. We watched people fish for a while, which is much more interesting than actually fishing. After wandering around the rest of the center we headed back to the temple, accidently taking the wrong bus which resulted in a mile walk and a taxi ride. We went to a temple session where Leland and I were the only men. It was pretty empty. Then we went to bed and enjoyed a nice night in the temple hostal. The next morning I seperated with Leland and Natasha. They are going norht in Uruguay and I came down to Buenos Aires. I took a fairy across the river to Buenos Aires. It turned out to be an all day trip before I finally got to the house of the Alfonso Family where I will be staying for a few days. Today I went around and visited people. It was great to see some of the people from my mission. I now have a place to eat for the next week as everyone I visited invited me to eat at their house. Great hospitality.