Ned & Mary Argentina

 Mary's Birthday The mission has a WhatsAp group in which all missionaries participate. The most common posts contain birthday wishes. Yesterday, many missionaries posted birthday greetings for Mary, beginning with the president. (I have included only a few.) His says, "Happy Birthday, Sis. Lunt. Thank you for your service to all of us. Thank you for serving your third mission. You are an example of sacrifice and consecration. We love you much."

  A Blessed Reconnection We helped teach this couple (Jose & Carmela) when we were in Chile and I baptized him. (The above photo is from when we took them to the temple to complete baptisms for their deceased family members.) We had to leave Chile in a hurry because of the pandemia so we didn't get to say goodbye. I tried to reach them but the phone number I had didn't work. I tried to reach others to get a valid phone number without success. We were blessed in that the son of my niece, Stacy, is serving in that mission and is in the same zone as Gorbea. He was able to get me a good phone number and I began interacting with Jose. I might have cried. We called them last night and had a wonderful visit. 

  Elders' Quorum Social - May 21,2026 The Elders' Quorum Presidency sponsored a second social last night. I had two hotdogs and that made me a light weight. Several stated that five was the anticipated consumption.Three non-members were in attendance and sincerely seemed to enjoy themselves. In the second picture, the Elder's Quorum President, Noe, is standing and his second counselor,Tico, is taking the picture. Dinner started at about 9:20 and I was among the first to leave at 10:00.

  We Are Officially Moved In - May 12,2026 Mary placed all the family pictures on the most prominent wall in our apartment. They remind us of the most important reasons we are here, our family.

  A Mixture of Topics - May 2026 The mountains west of us are always beautiful. On this evening, we enjoyed a  beatiful sunset like none other we have seen for a while. The young elders in our branch put together a branch FHE and got a better turnout  than expected. We very much enjoyed the evening with these good people. This huge work of art, made entirely out of metal, is in a roundabout between Mendoza  and San Rafael. We finally stopped to make sure we got a good picture of it.  It reminds us of Woody from the Toy Story movies.

  Youth Temple Trip - 5/2/26 On May 2, we had a delightful time participating in a youth temple trip. There were a total of 17 youth and new converts that chose to come, along with the Young Women president, her husband, us and a sister receiving her endowment before her mission and her mother. To get them all there, we had to hire a tour bus. All who went seem to enjoy the experience, in spite of the 4 hour drive each way, and having to be at the church by 4:00a.m.  I printed 34 family names and several of the youth made baptism and confirmation available to them.

 Malargue Branch Elder Quorum Socia l - 5/7/26 Last night, I experienced my first Elders Quorum social in our "new" branch.  (We have now been here a month.) What did we eat?We had various hard-crusted rolls into which we placed these sausages with various condiments. True to Argentine custom, we didn't start eating until about 9:30. I asked several of these brothers when they normally go to bed at night and most of them were around 1:00 a.m. The Elders Quorm President who returned from his mission about 1.5 years ago said he still tries to hold to the mission norm of 10:30.