Hi!

Hi!  How are you all today? 

      We saw some cool parrots outside our dining room window this morning at breakfast.  Big, solid green colored parrots with yellow beaks and yellow around the eyes.  There must have been a dozen sitting on the wires of the next apartment building.   That was today.

     An elder started liking a girl he was teaching, felt guilty like he didn't belong here, and decided to give it up and go home.  He's supposed to go home in June.  He's been in the office the last few days, we prepared his going home packet, (not his flight, his Mom is paying for that), and we've been praying that he'll change his mind.  He looked kind of unkempt one day and I told him to go shave.  Later, he looked like a missionary. 

     But yesterday in the morning he came and said the President said to ask us for his passport.  We opened the safe, no passport.  It was still in the area offices processing his visa which had expired!  

     No one else was in the office, so Dad and I drove to the area offices to check on his passport.  They are doing the roads there (mostly by hand with maybe a front loader or backhoe), anyway, Dad drove over and around piles of dirt, rubble, near the edge of huge ditches and drop offs.  We got there, the people were on vacation.  (It's 9:30, the AP's are picking him up at 10 to leave for the airport, and his flight leaves at 12:30, at it takes 30-40 minutes to get there.)

     Some other employees hurried to help us, opened a safe, brought out a box, and I found the passport.  They photocopied it and Dad signed for it.  Then we realized, his visa hadn't been renewed.  We got back to the office at 10:10, explained to the elder that maybe they wouldn't check the visa like it was explained to us.  Then the AP called, explained they couldn't make it back and could we take him to the airport (aeropuerto).  Dad said his visa had expired.  The AP, Elder Chinchilla called the president and said to take $100 with us (4000 pesos) in case there was a fine.  We have no credit card, and don't pick up the money for the petty cash or caja chica until 10:30, and there are usually lines.

      Dad said there wasn't time to go to the bank, we swung by our apartment, went through all the locks, got some cash dad had stored, and hurried to the airport with the elder, trying to be encouraging, uplifting, wish him well, etc.  The elder is from Ogden, Utah, his parents are non-members, divorced.  His dad lives in Florida (don't contact the records say), and his Mom in Ogden on 38th and Grant, not a great part of town.  Somehow he found the Church and wanted to serve a mission.  I guess he has a scholarship waiting for him at Dixie State in St. George. 

     We had a prayer with him, got to the airport about 11ish, unloaded his stuff, and got him to the Delta check in, then he went to the immigration line, and we waited near the door in case he needed to come back for the $100.  I guess they never checked his visa.  He was off--(salio with an accent.)  We felt like saddened parents who sent their kid off!  But then back to the office, and back to work.

     Hope all is well with you!! We love you!

Mom & Dad