December 14, 2012 - Benji's Birthday

Benji 8 years old!

On Saturday December 15th, Grandpa and Grandma visited a boy who lives near us in our apartment complex.  His name is Fernando Perez.  He goes to the same ward that Grandpa and Grandma belong to.  He is 7 years old and will turn 8 in June.  He will be baptised then.  He has a younger brother Diego who is 3 and a 6 month old baby sister.  He loves to play outside with other boys in our apartment building.  They don't have much grass to play on but they like to play on the steps and in the parking lot.  His father plays baseball professionally and Fernando likes baseball.  He loves every kind of toy his mother said so we got him a transformer and a kick ball.  He was very happy.     

This is Fernando and his mom and little sister.  He was a little shy at first.

But when he got his present, he was excited!  He was very happy to get the bright blue bouncy ball and a transformer.  He changed the transformer into a car with fast wheels and grandma wanted to play cars with him!

 

Grandma showed him pictures of all of her grandchildren.

 
 









He liked seeing them.  Then he went upstairs and got his baby album and showed it to grandma.  He was very talkative.

He told us all about his birth and showed us lots of pictures saying, "Esta estoy yo, esta estoy yo" which means "This is me, this is me..."  He got embarrassed showing us the pictures of his baby baths. 

 

Fernando is holding the card we made with Benji's picture and a little letter written in English to Fernando.  He understands some English words but not a lot.  Grandma wrote the letter in Spanish for him, too.  He did the list of Benji's favorite movies or "peliculas." He knew those words well, like Star Wars and Avengers.  The Dominican kids love American movies! 

 

 

This is Fernando's apartment, right across the way from Grandpa and Grandma's.  We were so happy to get to know him.  Thank you Benji for sharing your birthday with a new friend in Santiago!

 

 

 

 

 

October 14, 2012 - Millie's Birthday

 

On Sunday October 14th, for Millie's birthday, Grandpa and Grandma visited a sweet little girl named Orquidea (pronounced Orkeedea) Valenzuela.  She is turning 4 years old on the 27th of October.  She is the little sister of 2 of our students at the Institute, Yaquira and Miosotis Valenzuela.  One of our other students, Jose' Isaias, guided us to her home.  We met him at our church and he rode in a taxi and we followed in our car.  When we got to her neighborhood, he walked and we followed him down the narrow street to her house.  We met Orquidea and her father and mother.  They were very nice.  We gave Orquidea a card with Millie's picture that said, "My name is Millie Partridge.  I am 4 years old today.  To celebrate my birthday, I wanted to give a gift to someone where my grandparents are serving as missionaries.   I am very happy to have a new friend in Santiago.  Orquidea was very excited to receive her gift.  Millie chose to give her a coloring book and crayons.  Orquidea loved it (Winnie the Pooh) and went right to work coloring.  She never stopped the whole time we were there.  Her mother had prepared a treat for us...a cake made out of carrots.  It was delicious!  Her sisters made us some freshly squeezed orange juice.  We had a very good time.  Thank you Millie for sharing on your special day!

This is on the way to her house.  The young man walking with  the white shirt is directing us, while we follow in our car.

 This is an outside view of her house, second story, small, cute and cozy.

This is little Orquidea, smiling as she shows little Millie's picture between us.  I could have reached out and touched the wall on my  left and mom could have touched the wall on her right.

It was hard to get to her look up for this photo.

 As soon as she received her gift, she immediately started coloring. 



So happy!

Receiving her card