We are pleasantly surprised by our nice apartment! It is a one-bedroom in a 5-story building that has about fifteen apartments, ten leased by the Church for senior missionaries. Some of the other apartments have two and three bedrooms. The apartment is about 27x40’, (880 sq ft), divided into two main rooms. One has the kitchen and living area, the other the “office” and bedroom, with the bathroom on the end. A small washer and dryer are in a closet with the small on-demand water heater. The Church has provided basic furniture, but we will need to add to it. A couple of items have not arrived yet, but we still think we will need more drawers and tables, etc. The floors are mostly hardwood, except in the kitchen and bath and the small landing-type entry. The rooms are very light; windows--floor to ceiling-- are at one end of both main rooms. They open on one side and we leave them open all the time, as a nice breeze flows through to our kitchen window. Of course, that allows a lot of dirt to blow in. There seems to be a black dust which we think is volcano ash which settles on everything. It is not really very visible, but shows up on the top of the fridge and on counters and on your feet if you walk around barefoot. We have already scheduled with a Church sister to clean once a week for $14; she cleans several apartments in the building. We have doorman on duty in the lobby and a 24-hour guard outside, and gated parking below. We feel very safe in the apartment. If Rick needed to leave for a meeting I would even be okay alone. The kitchen has a regular refrigerator-freezer, and a microwave, and a small stove with an oven!
The other missionaries have been very nice. There are three dentists who serve in the only church-owned dental clinic in the world, if we understood correctly. They do work mostly for orphanages and the missionaries entering the MTC that is located here. And there are several couples serving in the area offices—the doctor, an auditor, the humanitarian specialists, and ones working with Perpetual Education Fund. The sister next door is a nurse for the South Mission. And one other couple, is serving as Member Leadership Support (like us) in the Central mission. They will only be here another week as they are moving out after four months here in the city, going to “the jungle” in a town towards the Pacific coast called Escuintla. Before we arrived they had stocked our fridge and cupboards with a few necessities. They were very nice to take us around all day Monday to assorted stores to buy bedding, more food, etc. Tuesday we went with another couple to some other stores to buy more stuff.
We have been told that our apartment building is EFY for Seniors! Monday evening was Family Home Evening (FHE) with the couples in the building, and a few others who don’t live in this building. Tuesday night was a 24th of July social with most of the same people, and a few new ones. The mission president for the Central Mission was there with his wife…the Stays from Cottonwood Heights and we discovered that we are practically “neighbors” back home. Much more could be said, but I probably need to study Spanish!
