Even bigger Taco Tuesday!

Doug and Dee wrote:
Wow, what a day! It was cold, well below freezing, but the sun was out all day. There was ice on some of the sidewalks and parking spaces, but the roads were quite safe for driving. Here is the view of our piazza in the morning.

The schools and universities were closed for a second day, even though most of the snow is gone. As a result, kids had a free day, and everyone came to Taco Tuesday! It was even bigger than the one a couple of weeks ago. There were nonstop kids and energy all day, which was awesome. Dee and I never really had any down time. We went into the Institute plenty early to prepare for Taco Tuesday. We made two kilograms of meat (about 4.5 pounds), then, as more people showed up, we defrosted about 3 more pounds that we had cooked last week to prepare if there was another crowd. Good thing -- it was all gone fairly quickly! We went through over 50 tortillas (we lost count). When all the meat was gone, we switched to quesadillas, which they don't know by name. Tacos is not a common word either. One young man asked if he could have another "tacos". It was standing room only in the big classroom where they eat.

We kept having to slice more cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, and put out more beans and sour cream. I cooked the meat and then did dishes continuously for a while. Several of the kids helped out a bunch in the kitchen as the need arose. 

 

At 3pm, after the food was gone and most of the cleaning was done, we had an Institute council meeting, where we discussed future activities, as well as reviewing policies for some of the new council members. The meeting lasted 90 minutes and was very productive. Ugo is a terrific leader and always talks about the purpose behind what we do, very inspiring and unifying.

While that was going on, Torrey, one of the BYU Study Abroad girls, made cookies for everyone to enjoy. We had one room with the council meeting, one room for kids studying, one room with kids playing games, and the entryway with kids hanging out, playing the Ukele, etc. It was a crowded and delightful bedlam. There were over 30 people there total during the day. I think we broke the bank again, which is great! 

Lorenzo never showed up for choir. Apparently he thought nobody would be there with school cancelled, so with so many ready to sing, Dee took over and had us practice parts. I had ordered some choir notebooks with rings and used our new hole punch to insert all the music, which made things much nicer for all of us. There were eight of us, and we sang a couple of numbers, practicing our parts and then singing a capella. We're starting to sound pretty good! We moved up the start time of choir by half an hour so we could have treats afterwards, before evening classes started. We think the visiting time over refreshments will help people feel like they belong. It seemed to work well. 

In the evening there was a missionary discussion going in one classroom, the missionary English class in another, and Ugo's Institute Zoom class in the library. The rest of us were banished to the kitchen and the entryway, which were crowded and buzzing with activity the whole time. The group included four nonmembers, three less-active members, two young men about to leave on their missions and a girl who just got baptized. 

 

 

We finally left for home after the English class got out at 8pm. We were both yawning and moving slowly. Dee had to lift that cold metal parking spot blocking thing out of the snow, not a pleasant experience. It was really cold outside, but the forecast is for warming in the next couple of days. If snow brings out this many kids, let it snow!