Friday with the Waldies

I spent seven months of my mission in a small Chilean town called Peumo -- no doubt you have eaten fruit from the region as most of the townspeople worked in the fields harvesting fruit to send to the U.S. But I am telling you right now that what you get in the store from Chile looks nothing like the amazing fruit I saw and ate there in Peumo. Huge, juicy, and absolutely amazing avocados, grapes, peaches, and the list goes on and on! I was blessed to be there not only for seven months, but also to be with these people: Gary and Joanne Waldie.


They lived in town and helped us with our work and we had to attempt to teach them Spanish for our weekly service. I say attempt because no matter how many time you taught him, Gary would NEVER conjugate. He'd just say a pronoun followed by the verb and the Chileans understood -- "yo hablar" "ella comer" Gotta love him! Joanne did a little better - she at least attempted to conjugate. (Sara I know you're laughing as you read this and remember the frustration...)

Anyway, I am lucky enough to live in the same city as the Waldies. We haven't seen them for a while so last Friday Nate was home from work and we decided to call and drop in on them. We ended up going to lunch and then spending the whole afternoon over there.

I must say that I think they love Nate as much as me (and they really like me -- hee! hee!). In fact, standing in their kitchen talking, I noticed they have a picture of Nate with his bobcat on the wall! It cracked me up that they had a picture of Nate in their kitchen.

I left for a few minutes to get the girls from school because they haven't seen our girls in a while. They were amazed at how much they've grown (as am I).

Reagan would not come to me when we were ready to go which is amazing because anyone who knows Reags knows she's an absolute and total momma's girl. She just held on to Joanne and shook her head no to me. She also calls them grandma and grandpa, as do Savy and London.

What a great way to spend a Friday afternoon!