Thanksgiving

This Thursday is Thanksgiving Day, but we will be celebrating Thanksgiving this Monday at President and Sister Burks home with all the temple missionaries. There will be 32 including the MTC President and his wife and the nurse and her husband from the MTC.

Because we have been counting our blessings, I thought I would name a few of them.

T - Testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He lives and He loves each of us.

H - Heavenly Father. It is wonderful to know the many many ways that He has blessed us. Especially the blessing of His Son, our Savior and Redeemer.

A - Ancestors. Those who went before us and taught us many lessons in life.

K - The kindness and love that we have received from the Guatemalan people. 

S - Safety in the knowledge of the Gospel. If we keep the commandments and our covenants we will be blessed.

G - Grandchildren. Each grandchild is a son or daughter of God. Each is an individual. Oh how we love each one of them.

I - Individual choices. We can choose for ourselves what we want. There are consequences to each choice and we can learn from our choices.

V - Valuable lessons in life. Sometimes we learn from our successes and sometimes we learn from our mistakes. Hopefully we can have more successes than mistakes. But, this is the plan, to learn.

I - the Internet, so we can communicate with our families while we are in Guatemala

N - No one is left out if we do the temple work for those who have past on before us. They will have the opportunity to become members and accept the work done for them so they too can live with our Heavenly Father again.

G - The gifts of the beauties of the earth. The flowers, trees, waterfalls, lakes, rivers, streams, clouds, sun and stars and the moon at night. Everything was made by Him for us to enjoy, and to make the earth beautiful.

Who would have known that in our beginnings, born in Colonia Dublan in Chihuahua, Mexico and in Pocatello, Idaho, that we would have the opportunities of visiting so many places.

We have been in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Central America, Indonesia, Taiwan, Africa, Spain, Portugal, Panama, Columbia and Peru. Well, Blair has been in a few more places than Joan, but that is amazing that we have seen so much of the world without even wishing it to be so.

Who would have known when we began that we would have been blessed with five children who are wonderful sons and daughter of God. He loves them and so do we. I remember praying that I could have help to raise them to have faith in the Lord, and He has helped us. They each learned to pray themselves and we have seen them teach their children (our grand children) to pray and have family home evening to learn the Gospel plan for them. What a blessing that is.

 

Expo SUD

On Friday we were invited to go with President and Sister Burk to an Expo Fair at the Montufur building, which is one of the Stake Centers here in Guatemala City. It is the first Stake center and was also the first ward building here in Guatemala City. It is a very nice well kept building. Every year about 100 church members come to sell their wares and display their businesses and let others know they are here. SUD stands for "Santos de los Ultimos Dias", which translated stands for "Saints of the latter days". We met so many people there who we now know because they either work at the temple with us or they come quite often, so it was fun to see them and talk to them.

This lady owns a restaurant where her specialty is crepes fixed different ways. We saw her after we had already purchased food from another restaurant owner.

This young man was so excited about getting the scuffs off my shoes. It was fun to watch him work.

There was a play ground set up for children. This little guy is a future BB player. 

Adults where there to make sure the kids were okay

You have heard of the helping hands, well here is a vest that identifies us. This is one of the ushers that helped direct visitors into the fair.

All the people in the food court area. Those balloons were done so they looked like tomatoes.

This is the group we went with. Roberts (she has a pink blouse on) President and Sister Burk (Sister Burk has a dark jacket on) Pitchers (both in white tops) and of course us. I am taking a picture of us. At the foot of the chair are some of the packages of some things we purchased from the booths.

As we were leaving the temple to go to the fair there was a family outside waiting for the rest of the family who were doing temple work. These three children were so cute that we had to take their pictures.

Some families have deep roots and some families have shallow roots, just like some trees have deep roots and other trees have shallow roots. Are our roots deep or shallow. Do we make our roots deep by doing our family history so we can tie everyone together or do we just let them wonder around on the ground.

This women is making a swath of fabric. You can see in the back ground all the fabric she has made. It is very fascinating to watch fabric being made by these ladies.

Yard work, Break the Fast and the Temple Devotional

Our view into the back yard from our front room. There are potted plants here and there.

 The story of our back yard is coming.

the hole in the wall between us and President and Sister Burk

the stairs as they will look when done. The tarp is to keep the rain off the new cement

On Sunday, November 10 we went to a Temple Devotional at the Montufar Stake Center. President and Sister Burk spoke. Also President Harris and President Galvez. All the temple workers, temple missionaries, and temple employees were invited with their spouses who had temple recommends. We enjoyed seeing other workers and meeting some of their families at this Devotional.

What a cute little girl. She was smiling at grandpa (Blair). We had to take her picture.

The Padilla family. (Sister Burk is in the back).

We love this couple, the Padillas. They are the greatest!

Last Sunday was break the fast. That is where all the North Americans get together on Fast Sunday and eat in the evening after all meetings of the day are over, usually on fast Sunday. We are assigned a main course, dessert or salad. Some of the people are working at the Embassy and others are working at the District office or the church in one capacity or another, and the temple missionaries. The break the fast is always held at the area office.

We find a place to eat, sing a song and a prayer is given then.....

Do you think we're all hungry?

And visit while in line

The couple at the back, Aponte, are here for six months for the church to teach "Marriage and Family Relations" (I think that is what it is called.) They are from Kentucky, but they are both originally from Puerto Rico. They have 12 children, but 8 are with them.

Sister Seale in red

ummm! the food is good

There isn't much left for seconds

but there is the desert table. Two young men are there for seconds. One of the Barney boys and one of the Aponte boys.

This was our back yard when we moved in.

One day we got home from our shift at the temple and the men were making a hole in the wall just opposite our bedroom glass doors. The head engineer knocked on our door to tell us that they were making a gate into the back yard of the Distribution Center. At the Distribution Center in the waiting area there is a back door where people can go into the back yard. Most of the time it is used by people who leave their families to play or watch videos or eat something while they go on a session or do sealings or other temple work. The Distribution Center is just across the street from the temple. In the space where the man with the red hat is, there is a door where they keep all the garden tools like a lawn mower, weed eater, etc. There are no side yards on the building that houses the four casitas. Now the yard men go through the empty casita next to us with the lawn mower to mow and trip the back yard. When someone moves into that casita they would go through our casita or their casita with a lawn mower and yard tools. Not desirably. 

The men are getting ready to mix cement for the steps

the path he is mixing cement on will go to the hole in the wall between us and President Burks back yard. That is so they can get to his back yard also. President and Sister Burk do have a side yard, but because the tools are in the closet that is in the Distribution Centers yard, they are making a shorter path to do the Presidents yard also. 

The metal in the open wall serves as the closure until they get a gate up and as a pad to mix cement on.

Kites at Sumpango

Along the trail, which was up hill all the way, were all kinds of things that were being sold. Here a lady is selling beaded necklaces and earring's.

On November 1 we invited the Lopez's to go to Sumpango with us to the Kite festival. The kite festival is a national celebration. There are families, organizations, or groups who make a kite, much like the floats for parades. It is an art form. Some of the kites were made with paper from China. Each kite had to have a theme of some kind as you might be able to see from the pictures. Some of the kites were over 6 meters which is  about somewhere just under 14 feet. The time the kite stays in the air and how high it goes determines the winners of the competition. We had fun watching the kites and also watching the people.

In going up hill, we would go back down hill. It was steeper than it looks in this picture.

You could buy corn grilled on the cob here. They put lots of line juice and sea salt on the corn and gave it to you in a corn husk. The Lopez's purchased some to eat on the way up and back.

You could buy your self a kite and fly it. There were many kites besides the ones in the competition. Someones kite got tangled with one of the kites that was in the competition.

This is the field where the festival was held

Below you will find many pictures of the people in their native dress. Even the children were in their native dress.

This is the one end of the field.
Below is the other end of the field. 

This is where the kites were launched from.

And these are the crowds of people who were there.

We thought this was a cute couple. Notice the colors in her dress. This is typical.

Up on this stand are all the announcers and judges.

Here is one of the kites about to be launched.

from old to

young

families

and singles

Here is a cute little girl in the native dress

This boy kept watching us. He was bashful when we said hi to him.

 Kites in the air. Small and large. All shapes and sizes. Some soared and some crashed. Such is life.

This is one of the two winning kites.

This one climbed the highest

This one tried two times and came crashing down. 

This is the last one to go up while we were still there. It is one of the prettiest ones.

On halloween afternoon we took a bunch of candy in this bowl and went to each of the temple missionary apartments and gave them a small plate full of candy.  Some of the missionaries were still on their shift at the temple so we left theirs at the door.

This was a table of sweet treats that was being sold at the Kite festival.

this little girl was so cute in her pink hat. She was up with the judges during the festival.

And this little guy was making eyes at me. When I talked with him he was so bashful. I think he was thinking I was the most different grandma he had ever seen. OR he was seeing something that I didn't know about. Maybe I had a bug in my hair or something.