Christmas at the Temple

If we were from Utah we would think this weather is hardly Christmas weather, but since it feels about like Tucson in December, it is just right for us.  We still sleep with our windows open and have them open all day for a breeze to blow through.  Love It!

The gardeners started planting these lovely poinsettia plants around our temple about the first of November and they tell us we will enjoy them till the end of January or February.  Aren't they lovely?

They cover them up every night as that is the only time it gets very cold.

They are even out near the front gate where the sign is for the temple.

We recently attended our Temple Ordinance Workers Christmas Devotional where we heard wonderful messages from the Presidency of the Temple and listened to a lovely choir singing carols.  

This adorable little grandma is one of my favorite shift coordinators in the temple.  Isn't she precious in her bright tipica clothes?

We couldn't resist a Christmas photo in front of the temple that we love so much.  

We pray that you will enjoy family and friends this Christmas season in commemorating the most wonderful gift ever given, Our Savior Jesus Christ.

Christmas comes to Xela

Just down the hill from the our temple is this structure called 'The Minerva Temple'. It was built in 1900 under the direction of the new leader of the country, President Manual Estrada Cabrera, who was infatuated with the Roman Goddess Minerva and had several Minerva temples built throughout the country.    

That is not a school bus there, it is public transportation with the name of the school district it originally served in just painted out. Did you ever wonder what happened to worn out school buses? 

 When this huge tree is lit up at night, we can see it from our annex building.  This tree is just a huge frame put together in pieces.  But pretty magnificent, wouldn't you agree?

 This is a beautiful mosiac mural is on a wall across from the Minerva temple.  Notice our volcano, Santa Maria shows up on it too.













We came across a little family in the park there near Minerva temple just enjoying a lovely shopping day.  I asked if I could take a picture of this darling little girl all dressed up and she consented but grabbed her brother to join her.

But you must see her hair do from the back. 

We had to do something to dress up our apartment so this is our greeting on our front door.

Our Christmas tree runs no competition in size with the one by the Minerva Temple but it fits in our little apartment just fine.  Don't you love the Guatemalan dolls all around it?  Dolls just go with Christmas, I think.  These will eventually go to our granddaughters but for now we are enjoying them around our tree.

And of course, Dad had to find a way to put up some lights so we wound some through a cheap Chinese import garland.  Butt unfortunately, the Duck Tape here is not as strong as it is at home and the garland and lights came down.  We enjoyed it while it lasted though.

And here is our Christmas Tablecloth that I found on one venture out.  Really brightens up our apartment. 

 I have several more Christmas posts to add but I will save them for another day.  

Hope you are enjoying all your Christmas preparations and not losing track of what Christmas is really all about.  Celebrating a very special birthday, that of the baby Jesus Christ. 

Beautiful people in beautiful dresses!

It has been awhile since I posted anything, although I have taken tons of pictures so I better repent and get some on here to  share.  One of my favorite things about this culture is how beautiful the women are in their Tipica dress.  We are told that you can tell where a woman is from by her clothes as each area has their own style.  

I love this shot of three ladies in blue walking along holding hands.  It is sometimes difficult to get pics of the front of them when we are driving by in a car but this shows you how beautiful the fabric is.  They always wear a matching or coordinating apron as you see by the straps in the back.  It covers their skirts all the way down to the bottom.

 This was captured in an open air market on one of our Monday forays up in the mountains.  Don't you love this cute little shopper with her shopping bag?  Notice the head piece on the lady on the right.  They wear interesting things on their heads.

I thought this was a cute picture of a mom with her little one tied on her back like they always do but look who is carrying the shopping bag!














These are some of the colorful loomed fabrics that they make their dresses and skirts from.  I'm going to have to choose one and have something made from it before we leave here.

 I guess carrying their children on their backs saves having to try to keep track of them while shopping which is always a challenge in our country.  Looks like this one would be quite a heavy load.

Even their little girls are dressed like their mothers in their beautiful cloth and embroidered tops.  Aren't these two adorable?  We just snapped this along the road one day. ( I don't know why I can't get the underline to go away!!)

This family on the right seemed to be on their way to church one Sunday afternoon.  

In the Temple Annex where our apartment is there is an Huespedes which is an area with two kitchens and a large room with tables for eating.  It also includes a large sitting room with couches and chairs.  Upstairs on our floor are bedrooms with bunk beds and bathrooms.  These are for the people who come from far away to attend the temple.  Notice how short they are compared to our visitor from Salt Lake.

This is the Choqui Branch from Momostenango up in the mountains.  These people are quite poor and carry the scent of wood smoke from their cooking and heating fires in their homes.  But look how beautiful this embroidered blouse is on this mother with her two sons having breakfast. 

 I am always drawn to the adorable babies with their huge dark eyes.  Isn't he handsome?

Thanksgiving Day in Xela (that's the shortened version of Quetzaltenango, in case you didn't catch that before)

Since Monday is the only day of the week that all of us temple missionaries can get together, we had our Thanksgiving day feast yesterday.  And since we will all be working in the Temple on our real Thanksgiving Day, it just seemed real to us yesterday.  The temple president's wife, Hermana Galvaz, asked us north Americans to plan and bring our traditional dishes and they would fill in with some of theirs.   So I started a group e-mail and we got it all organized.  We really weren't missing anything.

This is dad whipping up the mashed potatoes which was part of our contribution.  I also made stuffing with cornbread which turned out a little strange because the only cornmeal we could find was corn masa for making tamales so it was a different texture than we are used to but tasted yummy!   It was so fun walk down the hall and smell all the traditional smells coming out of our different apartments.  There was lots of borrowing of spices and serving dishes as we all prepared for our feast.

These are the two Dutch Apple Pies with and oatmeal strusel topping that turned out really well.  Couldn't find any canned pumpkin or any squash that looked like pumpkin but we did find pumpkin pies in a nice bakery here so we bought two of them.  We ended up with 6 pies which was more than we needed but then, when do we ever really NEED pies?  

We used the dining room table in the president's house for our buffet table and then ate outside on the patio.  It was a gorgeous day to eat outside - probably about 70 degrees.  Just right! We really enjoyed our first Guatemalan Thanksgiving.

Here are all the 20 temple missionaries, including the temple presidency and President Galvez's  granddaughter, who is visiting for a week.  Before we were through, we had 26 people there for our Thanksgiving dinner.  For our activity, since we couldn't really all watch football, I shared the story of the pilgrims first year in the new world when they just about starved to death and some days they had only 5 kernels of corn for each person to eat and   I did it all in Spanish!  We passed around some bowls of blue corn and each couple took 5 kernels to drop on their plate as they shared their blessings.  It was a great activity and then on to the PIES!  

At 6:00 we all gathered in the common living room on our floor and decorated the Christmas tree.  Of course, the only one who could put the star on the top was Ken Meadows and he did it easily, (sort of like our tall son-in-law Ed and his tall boys).

There were several boxes of ornaments and decorations to use so we had to decide on a theme which turned out to be silver and blue.  While the men wrapped white lights on the tree, we fluffed up the bows to go on after the silver and blue ornaments.  I had Kenny G's Christmas album playing on my laptop which added a festive air also.

And here is our finished Christmas Tree!  There is another beautiful one downstairs in the entryway to the annex where we live which is green and is decorated with large ribbon wrapped around it.  All around the bottom of it are live poinsettias.  Beautiful!  These people really love Christmas!  We have been singing Christmas songs since October when we first got here.  The stores have had Christmas up since the middle of October.  I love it! 

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!  It is a good day to count our blessings and we have many! 

Interesting sights in the mercado

We buy all of our fresh produce in the open air market and there are always interesting sights to see so I thought I would share some of them with you since it is quite different from popping in to Safeway or Walmart.

Here is young man selling baby chicks at 1 quetal for each so you could buy 25 of them for about $3.00.  Could start a small egg or chicken farm real cheep!

This young businessman is letting his business partners take a little rest in the shade before he walks them through the market again.  Look below to see what he does.

He sells fresh warm milk squirted right into a cup for any customer who is thirsty.  Can't get much fresher than that.  

 

You can buy a fresh tortilla and egg sandwich hot off the grill for 10 quetz which is just a little over a dollar.  These are made with blue corn too.  We watched her pat out the masa and slap the tortillas on the grill.

At the corner butcher shop you can buy most any type of meat.  When I asked if I could take his picture, this butcher had me wait just a minute while he put on his white apron for the photo.  Cute!  But I don't think I'll buy any meat here!

Well, I had a few more pictures to post but the blog is being stubborn tonight and I am tired from traveling all day on another adventure with the Meadows.  We went down to the tropics to see some very ancient ruins but I will save them for another day and another post when I am not so exhausted.

Thanks for checking in to see what adventures we are having.  This week we are on the morning shift at the temple and the Meadows (with a car) are on the evening shift so probably no more adventures this week.

Friends

As I was working in the baptistery today, two young teenage boys came in.  One was kind of leading the other in and sat him down on the bench to wait.  He was baptized first and then waited for his friend.  When he came over to go down into the font, it was obvious that he was mentally slow.  But the baptizer lovingly encouraged him down into the font and guided him through the baptisms while his friend waited, towel around his shoulders shivering from the cold.

When the young man finished doing the baptisms and was being helped back to the stairs he figured out this was fun and started swimming back to the stairs where his friend was waiting.  His friend helped him with the towel and took him back into the locker room to get dried off and change his clothes.

What an example!  I want to be a friend like that.

Trip to Totonicapan

Our adventurous friends, the Meadows, took us on a trip up to a little town in the mountains named Totonicapan on October 31, which for the people here it is the day before 'Dia de los Muertos'.  We saw flower sellers everywhere as their custom for this holiday is to decorate the graves of their ancestors.

There was one whole alley devoted to all kinds of flowers.  We couldn't resist and bought huge bunches of chrysanthemums, pulled up by the roots for only $1.50.

This cute little lady was selling this whole bunch of leaves right outside her door and wouldn't cut the bunch to give us just one leaf so she went inside the house and got one more to give us.  She matches her colorful leaves, don't you think?

More colorful flowers.  We learned that this holiday is more of a family day where the extended family gets together and enjoys traditional foods, sharing memories and decorating the graves.  Our temple attendance was not so high on Saturday which was the first day of this celebration.

The women are so practical to find a way to carry huge loads on their heads making their hands free to hold more things.  Usually they have a child tied on their backs too.

This is the local laundry mat in Totonipacan where the women stand in the water and rub their clothes on the washboard type blocks on the sides of the pool.  Notice the clean laundry spread out on the grass to dry.  No wonder their hands are so calloused working in that cold water!

Every day is an adventure and we have just had a taste of the 'Quetzaltenango Quick-step' which sent us to our bed and kept us close to the bathroom.  We hope our systems are adjusted now and we won't have a repeat of this.  Not fun!!!  But we do love it here.  

Well, I can't seem to get this program to upload any more photos so I guess I have reached my limit.  Hasta Luego!

Humble temple experiences

Brannick

When I was in preparation meeting this morning a kind of wild looking brother came in dressed in his whites clothing, of course. walking with a limp.  After the meeting I introduced myself and shook his hand.  He gave me a big Guatemalan abrazo (hug).  Later when I was talking with Elder Brown, he told me this brother has a prosthetic leg but still rides his bike almost 15 miles to work in the temple every Wednesday and then rides back after 9:00 at night!

We thought we were sacrificing a little to come down here away from family and friends.  I am humbled by this man's dedication and sacrifice.  From his appearance I would guess that he comes from very poor surroundings.  But in the temple we're all alike.  Except he's way more dedicated than I.

We have people coming in rubber sandals and in their colorful native dress.  Their feet appear that they have not worn shoes very much.  Their hands are hard and calloused.  But here they are serving the Lord by doing ordinances for their ancestors.

Tonight we had two older brothers come into the baptistry to do baptisms for their grandfathers.  They were both new members of the church and neither one were very steady on their feet. One of them wore thick glasses and had a hard time seeing when we had him take them off to be baptized. They looked kind of lost because this was their first time in the temple but I'm sure it won't be their last.

For those of you who are wondering what this baptism ordinance is all about, check out 1 Corinthians 15:29.

What a day!  We have so much and they have so little.  That's not true of all, many of them own their own business and some are very successful.  But it's humbling to be close to these people and feel of their sweet spirit.

First Week in Xela

The name of our city, Quetzaltenango, has a lovely meaning.   The last part of the name, tenango, means 'good land' so this is Good land of the Quetzal bird. This is a beautiful bird with a long colorful tail that lives high up in the mountains but cannot survive in captivity so no one every sees them.  They use the symbol of this bird on their money and designs everywhere. The name Guatemala has a significant meaning also. Gua - alimientos (food),Te - tierra (land), ma - mama, ala - hombre (man) so putting it together means Food from Mother Earth for Man. This land is soooo beautiful with all it's lovely trees and green everywhere.  We are loving it here!

 These are cultivated farm plots going right up the steep mountains.  Looks like it makes it easy to work without having to bend over.  We saw a lot of these as we traveled from Quatemala City to Xela.

 This is President and Hermana Perez that were here to greet us when we finally arrived after 4 hours of traveling on very windy roads up through the beautiful green mountains. They will only be here this week as their three year term is finished and we will be getting a new presidency.

Ken and Chrys Meadows, our dear friends from so many years in Tucson in the same ward, were there to welcome us also.  We are standing in front of the Temple Annex where we have our very nice apartment right on the temple grounds.  The Meadows are just across the hall from us.

 President and Hermana Perez took the four of us to lunch right away to a lovely restaurant.  The food was delicious but I don't think any of it was typical Guatemalan food.  This was our fancy dessert, Mango Creme.  It was almost too pretty to eat but it was also very yummy!

Our beautiful temple at night.  It sits high up on a hill  so it can be seen from all around the city.  Which means also, that we have great views of the city.  Quetzaltenango is a city of about a quarter of a million people but they are compacted into a little valley with 10 mountains surrounding it.  Several of those mountains are volcanoes.  Out our living room window we see a tall cone that is not active, Santa Maria, but she has a little son by her side, Santiaguito, who has steam or vapor coming out most of the time.  They are often obscured by clouds or fog.

The Meadows go walking for exercise or exploring almost every day that the weather permits. They took us with them for our first walk-about and showed us the local laundry facilities.  This is just a big square concrete tub with washboards built in.  They said sometimes all of the little washboard areas and occupied with women doing their washing.  

It appears this is an economical way to take care of the grass.  There are two more goats on the other side of the tree doing the same mowing.

Some of the local temple workers planned a good-bye lunch for the Temple Presidency who will be leaving this week.  They invited all of us gringos to come too.  We were served some typical local food.  The soup was 'Sopa de Gallina' which mean 'Rooster Soup'.  The clay bowls held broth, vegetables, pasta, and thin noodles.  It was delicious!  There was about a quarter of a chicken on the side with nothing but a spoon to eat with so we just tore into it with our hands like they did.  There were platters of rice that we spooned into the soup too and little corn tortilla also.

The  next course was Camote which was a dish made with a type of sweet potato cooked in panela and water.  I think panela is sort of like piloncio that we get in Mexico which is a cone shaped sort of rough cane sugar that tastes like molasses.  It was quite good.  Then we had dessert after that!  Slices of a delicious cake that was pretty much like any cake here.  We were happy that we finally got to taste some local type food!

These two ladies are dressed in the typical dress we see everyday here with all babies and little children tied on their backs.  I will have more pictures of them with huge bundles on their heads.                                                       There are amazing things we see everyday and we are learning to love these simple people.  They have welcomed us with open arms and hearts.  When I shake the hands of those who enter the temple, I feel the hardened callouses from a life of hard work yet they always have smiles on their faces and love in their hearts.  We are so happy to have been called here to serve them.