Cool Car

3 Oct. 2013. Thurs.  Visits in Illapel for visits. While visiting new converts Kelly and her Mom Mirella, Mirella taught me the names of all the beautiful flowers and plants they have in the gardens on the hillside in front of their house…. Lots of peach trees, plums, avocados, and other fruit I don’t know the name of.  There are flowers Raya del Sol (all different colors of “sun ray” flowers, small like daisys), clavelina (carnation), savila (like a big juicy yucca), lledra or yedra (like a geranium but smaller, thicker, shinier leaves, Cardenal (germanium), and the funniest name of all, a plant with big fat long leaves that look like big tounges that have little spots all over them and little prickles and a big barb on the end. The name of this one?  Lengua de Suegra….”mother-in-law’s tounge”.  Ha ha ha.  I thought that was so funny.  They kind of giggle too when they say it.

We went to an inactive member's house, in which I was not invited to the "women's only" discussion.  So I stayed in the car in the alley doing some paperwork.  Pretty soon a couple of the member's young boys came out and started asking me questions. Martin an old 4, and his semi-slow older 7 year old brother Vicente were admiring our car.  They were soooo excited to see a car close up.They wanted to know if they could sit in it. SURE!, I said. They were very pleased, and spent a long time exploring every little gadget and knob (believe me, there's nothing really special about the car... it would be pretty plain with no options in the States).  Soon they were asking timidly if they could go for a ride around the block.  SURE, I said, if their mom said it was ok.  They raced into the house and came out about 3 seconds later shouting "she said we could!, she said we could!"  About 5 rides later around the block, up the hill, down the hill, etc., I talked them into going on a walk instead.  "It ran out of gas?, they asked. 

Their infatuation with the car reminded me of our grandson Roman and how much he liked to just sit on the lawn mowers at Lowes and pretend he was driving them, and to look under the hood at the "Ennngine", he would gasp.  I don’t think these kids had ever been in a car before.  They were soooo excited to put their seat belts on and have the windows rolled down and shout to their friends to look at them, they were riding in a car.  It was really kind of cute.

Their dad has been out of work for over a year and there is a lot of financial as well as other pressures on this family.  They have been humbled, and they thoughts are returning to God.  I hope they make some needed changes that will bless their lives and the lives of their 8 kids, only 5 of which remain at home.  Things haven't gone so well for the family since they got off track.