Buenos Aires Oeste Mission Blog: argentine snow globes

One day, I saw this blogpost about making snow globes.

http://www.ourbestbites.com/2011/12/how-to-make-a-homemade-snow-globe/

I thought it would be so great to make them for the missionaries for Christmas. My biggest worry was about coming up with the jars. I called our favorite remis driver and asked him to take me to Easy. It is a store kind of like a cross between Bed, Bath and Beyond and Home Depot. They had a very big jar, but only one and it cost 14 pesos, which was way out of range for this project. I bought it anyway. Then I showed it to the driver and told him that this was what I was looking for, only smaller. I then asked to go to Sodimac, another store similar to the above mentioned ones. On the way there, he asked if we could make a stop.

This has happened once before and I said yes because I figured he wouldn’t be long. Sure enough, in just a few minutes, he was back at the car, but instead of getting in he told me that he had something he wanted to show me. We went into the nearby ferreteria (hardware store).

There, sitting on a shelf was the perfect size jar.

However, it didn’t have a lid. When I asked the owner if the jar had a lid, he said no. I asked him, if he could get a lid and he told me that it would take several days, but yes, he could. I asked him if he could get more jars. Yes, he could. I asked him how much the jars would cost. He took one of the binders off the shelf, flipped through several pages, seemed to find what he was looking for and he told me 3 pesos each.

I asked him for 200 jars.

That was a bit of a surprise for him. So then he asked me why I wanted 200 jars. Of course, I explained that my husband and I are missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormons, and that we have the care of about 200 other missionaries among our responsibilities.

Then he told me that he is a member of the Rotary Club, and would I like to come and give them a discussion about The Church? Yes, I would. I absolutely would! So I ordered my jars.

Afterwards, when I got back into the car with the driver, I went through the whole conversation with the remis driver again, slower, because you know my Spanish isn’t that good, and I wanted to make sure that I really understood what went on in the ferreteria.

Yes, I had ordered 200 jars for 3 pesos each and yes, he did want my husband and I to come and give a discussion to his Rotary Club.

That was a very good day!

Making 200 of anything is labor intensive and without the help of Brianna, I don’t think I would have managed. During the zone conferences, I photographed the missionaries individually. Originally, I had intended to put only one missionary in each jar. But then the missionaries were so awkward, in a very sweet way, about being photographed alone. Of course, that added another dimension to the project. I bought several librerias in my area out of gold glitter, which represents our summertime snow. As it turned out, the hardest part of the whole adventure was getting the color photocopies!

When I went back to pick up the jars, Mr. Pipo said in the kindest way possible, “I really like your accent, but does your husband speak more Spanish than you do?” I assured him that he does, and I am hoping that soon I will have another post about Mr. Pipo and the Rotary Club.

It seems like every year, there is some Christmas gift that needs a little miracle to make it happen. Absolutely, this was the miracle this year!