Lots of things went wrong today. We lost the control to the gate, so when Corey was ready to go pick up the babysitter for our temple date, he couldn't get out of the blue gate at the end of our street. Antonio Trentini to the rescue once again. He picked up Eliziana, a sweet lady who looks like she's 40+ years old, he's a convert to the church four years I think, and offered to babysit for us any Thursday that we want. She didn't know where we lived, so Corey was going to pick her up from the church at 5. When he was on his way, he got out the gate from our yard, and then found that the remote control to the street gate was not in it's place in the car's little coin tray. Wesley and Hyrum had been playing in the car and so Corey was pretty upset, asking where they put it, saying they can't play in the car ever again, and telling the kids they are messy pigs as he looked around the car to find it (amid papers, toys, crumbs, garbage, etc.). I was still calm at this point. I didn't blame the kids, I blamed Brazil. If they didn't have stupid gates on every house and street we wouldn't have this problem. So Corey and I and the kids were all engaged in walking around the grass, around the patio where the car was parked, and picking apart the car trying to find the control. Corey called Antonio and he picked up Eliziana and brought her to our place. We got a neighbor to open the gate so we could leave, but there was no guarantee we'd be able to get back in. We looked up our landlady's address and we thought Antonio was going to go by her place and pick up her remote for us to borrow for a while. We arranged to meet up with Antonio again at 10:30 at McDonald's to get the control from him.
So off to the temple, we ended up leaving for the temple at 6:45. Before we reached the freeway, the high temperature light on the car was blinking, showing it was over the max temperature of 110 degrees.
We finally made it to the temple. I was proxy for Maria Raimunda da Silva. I didn't catch her date of birth or place - I spent most of the time concentrating on understanding the endowment in Portuguese.
Today is Corey's mother's birthday. Yesterday he asked if it would be okay to send her some flowers from "Speaking Roses" - a company that he is doing some consulting work for. They print lazer images of photos or words on the petals of roses. So he ordered them, I think it was like $120. Tonight when we got home, there was an instant message from his mom. Before I read it, Corey said to me with a proud smile (proud of himself): "You know what I like about my mom? She can be bought." It's true, I think we made a huge deposit in her emotional bank account with the flowers. Here is what she said "Corey--been gone most of the day--Had the contractor here until about 11:30 and then went to lunch and on to Home Depot to buy stuff for the bathroom and laundry area. Got back about 5 p.m.--the flowers were waiting by the front door. My goodness--how beautiful they are--and pictures and messages and all--you really blew me away with them. Thank you so much. They were packaged so well--they probably could have lasted for a month in the box--they used every idea possible to get them here fresh and ready to put in a vase. The buds individually had foam around each one and the stems had enough water to last a long time. Great idea--they are a big hit with me. Thank Tiff and the little ones too. Thanks for the call this morning--you have made my day!!!"
