Entropy

When I worked at the Hansen Planetarium, we produced a show called "The Last Question"  It was an adaptation of a science fiction story by Isaac Asimov.  The "last question" was whether the total amount of entropy in the Universe can be massively decreased.  This question was given to a newly invented machine, Multivac.  Newer and newer computers were given the same question but they could not answer the question.  At long last, a very advanced machine was able to answer the question, and the results were astounding.

Entropy is the measure of disorder in a system.  Those are fancy words that mean how worn a system or object is.  Here in Argentina the Last Question has certainly not been answered.  In fact, entropy seems to have its way even more.

The first example is during a visit from the Swainstons last Tuesday.  The Swainstons are parents of a missionary who is returning to the States.  We made friends with them when we went to the mission home to attempt to send a large file through the internet.  It was not successful, but we made some good friends from Preston, Idaho.  I helped Allan move some luggage to their hotel Tuesday evening, and when we returned my key no longer worked in the lock.  In fact, no keys worked in the lock.  It was broken!  Thankfully, Claudia and Becki were inside and were able to open the door for us. Claudia stayed home from the temple the next day to wait for the door to be fixed.  If she had not stayed home we would have been locked out of our apartment and no one would have been able to get us in.  A locksmith came and made a repair, but the lock is now very hard to turn the last bit that opens the latch.

Episode two.  We returned to our apartment on Friday night at about 9:00 pm.  When we walked into our apartment and looked in the bathroom we discovered that the mirror had fallen off the wall! Remarkably, it was still in one piece - mostly.  There is only a small piece that has cracked away in the bottom of the mirror.  It was lying face up on the floor, and had scarfed up the edge of the door and bent the toothbrush holder.

Episode three is hearsay, but we were told that a ceiling fan in the Baptistry had fallen and struck a teenage boy.  He can't be too hurt because there was no major ruckus in the temple.

Ahhhh.  The older I get the more I appreciate entropy!

Last Monday we took the opportunity to ride el Tren de las Sierras and return to Cosquin with the Mays and the NeVilles.  We all wanted to see more of that town, and particularly one of the mountain peaks nearby.  It is known now as Pan de Azucar (Sugar Loaf), but in the past it was known as el Pecho de la Virgen.  There is a large cross on the very top, and a chair lift will take you up there.

We arranged for a taxi to take us to the base of the chair lift, wait for us, and then return us back to town.  Total cost for this taxi ride was about $13.50 per couple.  You can see the cross and the chair lift in this photo.

I don't like selfies, but Claudia likes to see us both in the picture.  Here we go up the mountain on the chair lift.  The safety bar only sits lightly in a groove and disengages very easily.  Going over the ridges our feet actually brushed the grasses.

Claudia looks pretty happy here.  The cross is in the background.

The view from on top is beautiful.  Looking to the southeast you can see Cordoba.  Notice that Cordoba is on the plains up against the mountains (Sierras Chicas).  I tried to recognize some of the landmarks around town but had a bit of a hard time.  The elevation of Pan de Azucar is 4284 MSL, and we were about 14 miles from the temple.

When we returned I took the first shot and zoomed in to see what we could see.  The temple is circled in yellow, and our apartment building (vivienda) is circled in orange.








Well, if you can see our building from Pan de Azucar then you can see Pan de Azucar from our building.  I got the binoculars out and started looking.  With a little help from Google Earth to get the direction right, I was able to find it.  It is the high peak in the center of this photo behind the tree with no leaves.

This photo is a zoomed in version of the last photo.  If you click on the photo you can see the cross on top of the peak.

One of the greatest treats in the temple is to see families who are being sealed.  This is a fairly common occurrence because Argentina does not recognize sealings as marriages.  Therefor, couples are married in a civil ceremony and then sealed later in the temple.  Folks here are generally much shorter than I am.  Some grown people only come up to my waist.  It is a real treat to see small (and I mean small) children dressed in white being escorted through the temple for a sealing.  Brides, of course, are always very beautiful.  It always takes my breath away to see families together like this. It is such a wonderful blesing.