Great grandparents had been slaves in US.

We sent another group of missionaries home this past week. It is getting harder each time. I guess it is because we know the missionaries more now. The sisters seem to have a harder time returning home than the Elders. Sister Cueto was an outstanding sister. She is from Lima, Peru. She is the only member in her family. She was helping me in the kitchen, when she told me how it was that she spoke such good English. Her great grandparents were slaves in Pennsylvania. They bought their freedom and moved to Peru. They never learned English. English was the spoken language in their home and the homes of their children, and so on. Sister Cueto said her mother had always spoken English to her in their home. She said she now felt she knew how to talk to her family about the gospel. We wish her well.

First baptism.

I guess we can say that Dad/ Grant had his first baptism Sunday. Sometimes he gets involved with some of the investigators either to help with a discussion, or he has to interview them. This was the case with Sister Dolly Hernandez. Dad/Grant had a special interview with her. She was very nervous that Dad would not give her permision to be baptized, but all went well. Dolly told Dad that he was very easy to talk to and that he should be a minister. Dad said, "Well, I sorta am." About two months later, we got a phone call from the two Elders saying Dolly was requesting Dad to baptize her. It was a speacial day for us.

This month has been very interesting. One night about 8:30, Dad/Grant got a phone call that we had two Elders in jail, and he needed to go to the police station to bail them out. The poor missionaries had been taking pictures in front of a military base. This is against the law here. The missionaries were more scared as to what Dad/Grant would say to them. He just had a good laugh with them, and with his sense of humor, he got them out of jail without paying any bail. They had the Air Force police there with machine guns, gentlemen equivalent to the CIA with guns, and gentlemen equivalent to the home land security all there with guns. One of the Elders had only been in the mission for three weeks. I am sure they had an interesting story to tell their parents that week in their letter.

We were on our round of zone conferences when someone walked off with Dad/Grant's brand new computer. Someone took it right off the pulpit in the chapel. We had gone down stairs to eat lunch. We had noticed two fellows walking around there, but didn't think too much about it. Well, I guess they needed that computer more than we did.

We attended the stake conference in Cucuta two weekends ago. We saw our first squirrels in the parking lot of our hotel. We didn't know they had them. While at the conference Saturday night, Dad/Grant was talking with a brother before the Priestshood session. It came out that the young man had served a mission in the Chile, Santiago East mission several years ago. He said he remembered the Watts family. Dad said, we know them. Then he said he remembered the Hacking family. Dad pointed to his plaque and said that's me. After the adult session and listening to Dad and I with our talks, he came up to us and said while we were talking he remembered some more things. He said he remembered eating dinner in our house in Chile, and that we served the missionaries hamburgers, but he also said he remembered that Dad had given him a suit and he had stuck some money in the pocket. We could remember giving a suit to a Latin elder that had a worn out suit, and that he was from another country other than Chile. The young man said he still has the suit. He is a branch president now with a wife and two kids. He said he didn't recognize Dad at first because Dad was thinner then. Can you imagine that?

While in Cucuta, the temple president was there at the conference as well. He thanked the members for being faithful and making the 18 hour bus ride to the temple. What a sacrifice.

When we go to Cucuta we always call the same taxi driver because he has a bigger car than many of the taxi drivers. He was taking Dad to the priesthood session, when he asked Dad, "What is this book you talk about?" Dad asked if he would like to have one? and he said yes. Dad asked if he would like to have the missionaries pass by to explain it to him in his home. He said yes. On Sunday, when he took us to the conference, he said his 19 year old daughter was reading the book Dad had given him and was loving it. When he took us to the airport that evening. We got out and paid him, and he said, "What about the meeting in my house?" We had been so preoccupied that we had forgot about this. We need to follow up to see how the visit went.

We went to the airport to pick up a new North American Elder that was finally arriving after a visa delay. There ended up being two missionaries. The second one was going to another mission in Colombia. They arrive late, so they spend the night in Bogota then fly out the next morning. No one was there to pick him up. He said he had been told in the Provo MTC that someone from the MTC here in Bogota would pick him up and take him to the MTC for the night and then return him to the airport early the next morning. Welllllll, no one from the MTC came. We made a phone call, but no one came for him. We took him home with us and returned him to the airport the next morning. Can you imagine a young Elder arriving in a foreign country with no Colombian money, no phone, and not knowing the language, and not having your contact person there to meet you? We were sure glad our missionary had been on visa delay and was with him, and that we were there to take care of him I guess the Lord is always watching over us.