Journey to Rosario Argentina

Thursday, August 21st: We have our Servicios de Autosuficiencia Missionary badges (we're legit), 4 checked bags, 2 carry ons (not shown in the pic below), 1 very large brief case, 1 purse and off we fly to Atlanta (11:06 am) on Delta (4 hour flight).  We arrived in Atlanta at 4:50pm (4hr layover), departed at 9:08pm for Buenos Aires for a 10 1/2 hour flight.

 Bienvenidos Argentina!!!!  We arrived in Buenos Aires on Friday the 22nd at 8:20am and after passing through customs and immigration counters (long lines) we were welcomed by 2 gentlemen with the sign below to take us to the Area Office in BsAs. Alan recognized this sign, I was looking for a sign with Wheatley's on it and would never have recognized that that sign was for us (I'm a greenie)!

 We had so much luggage that they had to get creative in how to put it in a very little car. We went to the Buenos Aires office and met some senior couples working at that office, had lunch there and then they took us to a bus terminal and put us on a 4hr bus trip to Rosario. (8 missionary couples are based in Buenos Aires)

I am ashamed to say that I did not get a picture of the bus that took us to Rosario.  The bus terminal was wild and did not feel safe to bring out our phones which is our only camera since I left our camera at home (by mistake)!! After some issue with the bus driver telling us that we can't get on the bus, Alan assured the driver that it would be fine and we needed to be on this bus.  It was a double-decker bus with a TINY circular staircase to get up to our seats on the 2nd level. It was hard to get us up those stairs plus our carry ons! Our seats were right above the driver with a full windshield and side windows for a great view, only one problem.... our seats were laying flat... broken. Alan put our carry-ons behind the seats to prop them up which kind of worked.  We soon found out why these last seats were available, it smelled, the seats were very very dirty and the sun shinned in on us and the air was not working!! The bus had red dirty drapes hanging everywhere so we pulled them closed and couldn't see anything outside for the 4 hour bus ride and it got really hot even with the drapes closed. As you can see from the photo below I now had no ankles from flying for 18hrs. (we'd been up for 25 hours at this point)

 We arrived at the Rosario bus Terminal at 6pm to a wonderful greeting from our Mission President, President Zanni and his wife, Veronica and 2 Elders.  They took us to a temporary apartment where we could stay for 5 days until we found a apt to live in.  Once again, I can't believe I didn't take a picture of the welcome committee! (I hope we will see them at least one more time during our time here)  It didn't seem too safe to bring out my phone to take a photo at the bus station again. Yes, our apt had bunk beds! We were invited by our mission President, his wife and another couple (the Orozco's) to go dinner at 9:30pm to celebrate Veronica's birthday and our arrival.  We got back to the apartment at 1am, they eat late here! After 35 hrs of no sleep the bunk beds were wonderful!!!  But we had to be ready at 8am Saturday for Brother Edwardo Orozco to show us where the grocery store was, the church and our office.

President and Sister Zanni