Happy Thanksgiving!

Nov 27th  Today has been a hard day cause I be missin my kids!  I have never been totally away from my family before on a holiday!  I can hardly wait until Christmas!  Anyway, we were invited to the Area Presidencies huge beautiful condo complex for a wonderful Thanksgiving!  We had everything including turkey, stuffing, potatoes & gravy, jello salad, green beans, corn, rolls, other salads, yams, and pies galore - pumpkin, key lime, chocolate mousse, lemon cream and a native chiffon cake thing that I didn't have the nerve to try!  It was a mustard color!  We had an enjoyable afternoon visiting with all the mission people from the area and the West mission.  The people in Mexico are blessed to have these leaders among them!
After lunch and when we could finally move we went to Costco!  For just a brief moment I felt at home!  Everything is about the same, except in Spanish!  We didn't have much time so we all just ran around and grabbed a few things to last a few days.  I will have to go again soon after I get organized and get a menu planned!  I feel like a newlywed all over again!
Later that evening we talked the Olsons into going with us to Walmart, and the dollar store!  Walmart was packed with people and Christmas stuff.  It was piled high everywhere!!!  I was so overwhelmed that I forgot to take pics.  I will get some soon.  We were able to get a few things there as well, but each store we go into has their own things.  The Olsons say you have to go to 2-3 stores to get your shopping done!  It was pretty late when we got home, and went to bed.
Hasta luego!

We are at the Visitors Center with some friends
the Zapatas
we met at the MTC,  that are on a mission
at the Visitors Center!

Driving along and we see this wall!
Looks nice!

Happy Birthday Greg!

November 26th   Happy Birthday Greg!  I told him I didn't have a present, but my present was to come to Mexico with him!   I think that is good enough!   I made him his favorite breakfast of over easy egg on toast!  He is so excited to be here that he doesn't seem to care about his birthday much!

We met Dr Ruiz again and he drove us around the city again.  We stopped at the rich doctors clinic!  This place is for General Authorities and Area Presidencies, not necessarily for the Elders and Sisters.    I like this doctor.  He is not LDS but very nice and personable.   I have a pic I will show you of the clinic.  We then went down to the Temple grounds.  There is a clinic next to the Temple that service missionary doctors use to see the Elders and Sisters when they are sick.  We were shown around the clinic and even saw a few missionaries.  One Sister had a bursitis in her shoulder.  She had already been to another doctor who wrapped up her whole body with gauze.  The medical care is lacking to say the least!  Greg has only sent home 6 missionaries this week so far with for sure one more to go!  That Elder has been in the mission all the way since Monday!  I have him beat by 2 days and he already wants to go home!  He will be gone by next Monday for sure!  He already has been seen by doctors twice and it's only Wednesday.  

After the clinic, Dr Ruiz took us to lunch down by the Temple.  That was our first authentic mexican meal.  It was a little weird, but still tasted OK.  It took us over an hour to get back to the office.  We are still working on getting the computers set up with our own login and password stuff.  The Internet doesn't work most of the time, so life is always a surprise!  We got back home just in time to go to dinner with 2 of the other couples here in the mission.  We walked about a mile or so down the road and ate at our second authentic mexican restaurant.  We had tacos al pastor and horchata!   I know you are all jealous about that!!!  We sang Happy Birthday to Greg and caught a bus back up the hill!

I took some pics on the Temple grounds.  The gardeners are planting red and white poinsettias around everything on the grounds.  They are also putting tube lighting around all the grass areas.  The nativity is set up and the lights are being put on the palm trees!    Feliz Navidad!

This clinic is a 100 year old house.
It is beautiful inside!

Temple grounds
See the poinsettias!

It's hard to see the nativity off to the left
I will get better pics!

See how they plant the poinsettias around the trees!

RED LETTER DAY!

Look at the pics I put on my last blog after I had posted it!    
Today has been exciting due to the fact that we got our car today - a fairly new white Toyota Corolla. Oh wow!  The fun is about to begin.  I decided right from the start that I would drive and Greg could navigate.  SCARY!  We drove from the area office to our office without any problems because there was a one way street so no pressure!  When we were done at the office we had to drive home the long way due to all of the one way streets!  IT IS CRAZY HERE!  So we drive out of the office parking lot, turn right, go up a block and turn left, then go down a block at which time there is a stop sign.  So being the good driver that I am,  I STOP!  Well, that was definitely the wrong thing to do!  A SUV came screaming around me honking of course, and sped on through the intersection, barely missing cars that were going the other way!  I quickly learned that the traffic signs and signals are merely a suggestion!!!  Nobody stops for nobody!  You have to be aggressive and a little crazy yourself to drive here!  We made it home by the hair on our chinny chin chins!  We had a meeting with the Area Presidency at 2 pm.  I was still rattled when we got to that!  The presidency is very nice and kind, but the president really only speaks Spanish so I didn't get much out of the meeting.  It is a big job being in charge of the church in this big country!  There is a lot of work to be done!  

The meeting ended and we came home and  started making dinner.  We were done with dinner by 5:45 and then had nothing to do!  I started getting a panic attack, because sometimes in our little place I feel closed in!  I don't have any windows that I can look outside.  That makes me crazy!  We went next door and talked to the Olsons for 2 hours or so.  They are so nice to put up with us!  The Olsons are finishing their third mission here in Mexico City.  They have been down here for most of 5 years now.  They go home on Jan. 20th.  Then we are all on our own.  The Olsons have been fabulous at giving us all kinds of info, directions, clues and help!  They are the best!  I don't know what we will do without them!  

Mexican Moment #4 Stoplights and stop signs are overrated! Get in - hold on - have fun! Our new motto!

Here is our new car!
Hey Scot, want to trade??? 

Why does EVERYBODY have to speak Spanish??

Honestly - why does everyone have to speak spanish all the time???  I know there are a lot of people that Habla english!   I think they are doing it just to bug me!!!  Well, it's working!  I haven't really written about this week, mostly because I don't have Internet use for most of the day!  So here goes!
Monday - Nov 24th - our first real day in the mission.  We got up early - (of course we got up early, living with Greg and all)  and headed over to the mission offices and the area church offices.  We walked into the mission office of which we live - Mexico City West.  There were Elders and Sisters everywhere!  Actually, they were trying to call us because 2 Sisters were there looking for the doctor. We hadn't even met with Dr. Ruiz yet.  Oh well, we took them in a room and talked to them.  One Sister had her foot all wrapped up.  She stated it had been hurting for days.  She was walking on her toes everywhere she went.  We unwrapped it and Greg pulled and pushed to try and find out where it hurt!  She didn't really know!  So Greg asked her to stand up and walk on it - which she did and voila!  no more pain!  So the first patient we saw we cured instantly!  How's that for medical service!
We walked up the hill to our office which is a good 1/2 mile away and met with Dr. Ruiz.  He couldn't have been happier to see us coming.  He already had our names on the door of the office and our pics up on his big medical board!  He gave Greg tons of info about tons of stuff - in SPANISH of course!  Him and his wife then took us on a drive to a hospital and clinic!  We could never find it again if we had too.  The Dr. was very nice - not a member - but took care of the missionaries.  We saw an Elder that had pneumonia and an Elder that probably had a bulging disk from playing soccer in the MTC.  We ended up sending that Elder home to get his back fixed!  Dr. Ruiz then drove us around the city a little.  This really is one big city!  I don't even want to talk about the traffic!  We were really tired by the time we got back to the office.  We walked home and ate our first meal of chopped up steak, green peppers and onions on a tortilla.  The salsa we bought was way to spicy so I had ketchup on my tacos!  The group that lives here in the hotel - couples in the office, area Executive, history people - all had FHE.  The lesson was on the Wizard of Oz.  I think because that was what the pics were of - of course the lesson was given in SPANISH!  and this day is done!
I do need to take more pics which I will do today!
Mexican moment #3  There is a street that we use to come home from the office  and you drive on the wrong side of the street for a block!  Only street in Mexico like that!
Hasta Luego!
Some pics!

Here is what is on the door to our office!

Dad trying to figure out which way is up!
Those are all of our missions behind him!
Wahoo!

Big front door to our office!
The key to the door is 3 1/2 inches long!
It only took dad 1 minute and 33 seconds
to get the door unlocked the first time.
He is down to 28 secs now!

This is a big board with all the Dr's that are suppose
to be helping with the different missions!
Some scary and some crazy Dr's we are finding out!

More tender mercies

I really feel a strong connection to my previous mission here in Mexico City 43 years ago.  First, my online training to improve my Spanish was taught by the granddaughter of a man I baptized in my first area.  Neither of us were able to put the connection together until our first Skype.  The medical advisor I am replacing, Dr. Ruiz, was baptized the year I arrived in the mission.  It turns out that in my second area, in Mexico City, I taught a family that was baptized and it turns out it was the sister of Dr. Ruiz's wife and her children.  I really felt a strong connection to this family.  The oldest son had some psychological problems and ended up dying of the injuries he sustained in an accident.  I did have the opportunity to give him a blessing in the hospital before he died.  Dr. Ruiz was also able to update me on a young family I got close to in my 4th area.  He was the nephew of President Echeveria - the president of Mexico at the time I was serving.  He was in the process of bringing the Playboy club to Mexico City when he met the missionaries and was baptized.  He changed his occupation and instead brought a motor cycle dealership to Mexico City.  I met him just after he was ordained an Elder.  He had a daughter who had a congenital heart condition and I was asked by him to help him give her a blessing before she was to receive extensive cardiac surgery.  He told us that when he took his daughter for pre-op evaluation and after 4 doctors listened to her heart they decided that the murmurs they had heard were all gone and they sent the 2 year old home without any surgery and they could offer him no explanation as to why the heart seemed to be normal.    The father attended the English speaking ward in Mexico City for some time and has since moved to the United States.  There is no doubt in my mind that the Lord really loves the Mexican people and he is pouring out his blessings.  Elder Stevens

Mexican Moments!

I have decided 2 things--
1.   I want you all to memorize a scripture each week with me! (especially the grandkids)  The scripture for this week is 1 Nephi 2:15!  Work hard on it and we will discuss on Sunday!

2.  I think so many things are funny down here - I am going to start a Mexican Moment for each time I blog.  The moment for today is when you drive down the driveway at our hotel in a car you have to pull in your mirrors to make it through. You have about 2 inches on either side.  Then when you get to the bottom parking lot, it is a 3 point turn to get your car going the right direction to park. Oh and also there is a door on the driveway, so you pull up and honk,  the security guy comes out and looks at you, then opens the door! We will see if these work.  Maybe it's one of those things that you have to be there for!   Let me know if you like them after a few days.

One more moment - we were out walking yesterday and this is the sidewalk we were walking on - it's a little hard to see but there are mountains in the sidewalk where the trees have pushed it way up!  Oh my heck!  Someone will die on these!

One whole day in Mexico!

Sunday - Nov 23, 2014.  Our first day is Sunday here is Mexico!  I woke up very sad that I was still in Mexico!  HAHA!  I have a lot to learn!  I finally found something to wear and makeup to put on!  We ate cold cereal and boxed milk with a pear for breakfast.  The Olsons walked us to church.  It is an awesome chapel.  Next door to the church is our office where we will be hanging out for 18 months!  I took pics as we walked so they are coming in a minute!  The 9 am church is English.  YAY!  The Olsons spoke and gave great talks on gratitude.   We walked back home after Sacrament meeting to do more organizational stuff then turned around and walked back to church ( about the distance from our house to Olympus High) at 1 pm to go to the Spanish speaking ward!   Let me just say - that was a very long 3 hours!  DUH!  I caught a word here and there, but that was it!   After church we were treated to dinner at the Olsons!  I guess I need to buy a crockpot!  We had pot roast, potatoes, carrots, other veggies and ice cream!  Awesome!  Not rice and beans for every meal!  We got to talk to all of our kids so I feel a little bit better!  So much for one day!  I took pics while walking to church!

This bridge over a big ravine with a river at the bottom is right 

next to our place!  Big buildings are everywhere!

This doesn't look like a big hill, but it is and we
get to climb up this every day!

Behind Greg is his gated office!  Good luck getting in there if you're sick!
The church is right next to our office!

Here is the gate to our church!
Everything has a gate!

I did it!  It was next to impossible, but I finally got the pics in the order I wanted!

Adios Amigos!

More travel pics! I CAN'T GET ORGANIZED!

This is the beginning!

Just a snapshot of the outskirts of this huge city!

Here are the brave ones to see us off!
Truthfully - they all would have been
there if they could, I am sure!

More beautiful mountains

Big beautiful mountains on the way into town!

Here are some more pics!

The kids decided to go to Asian Star for dinner on Friday night.
We were seated right next to a couple from Maryland who we had spent
the past 2 weeks with - 1 at MTC and 2 at the medical training.
What a coincidence!!!!!

Traveling to Mexico!

Wow!  I am learning a lot already.  The first thing I have learned is that the Internet doesn't work very well down here, especially in our hotel room!  We had to be up at 5 am and on the road by 5:45.  It was hard to say goodbye to the stalwarts that took us to the airport! ( actually it was really hard to say goodbye to everyone)  We were 40 min. late leaving on the plane.  I hope the other couple that was traveling with us to Houston and then on to Trinidad made their flight!  Stressful!!    Any who, we made it to Mexico at 4:40 Saturday afternoon.  We even made it through customs without any trouble.  Bro. & Sis. Olsen were right there to pick us up.  They are the nicest people!  They brought us to our home here at the hotel. We just threw all of our stuff inside the door and went to get something to eat.  We ate spaghetti and ravioli (Mexican style) at Vips just up the street!!!  They then took us to a grocery store to buy some food for the first few days!!!  I felt right at home (except for the smells) with the english Christmas songs playing overhead!--Walking in a winter wonderland!  We don't have an oven yet in our  place so we couldn't get anything to bake!  There is no way to BBQ so microwave and stove top is the way!!  We made it back home - barely and tried to get organized and put stuff away.  I finally gave up and dropped into bed!  I only woke up twice with panic attacks that I wouldn't see my kids for a long time!!!   I hope they go away soon!  So here are some pics from our travels.  By the way - this particular blog has taken me two days to accomplish due to a dumb Internet!  Adios Amigos!

So dumb me can't figure out how to put the pics in the order I want them in!  If anyone - like Angie, Rachel, Laurel, Rhonda or anyone else can tell me how to do this I would really appreciate that!

Greg with all our luggage!

Scot and cute family!

Rachel and cute family!

Sara and cute Hadley

finally got Hadley to smile

Richie and cute family except for the claw!
inside joke - Beka!

Nice Richie and family pic except for Max! He
had had enough of this fun and went to bed!

Mitch and Beka - cute couple!

I don't know if Kaylee is delirious or excited to see us go!

Here we are weighing our suitcases!

How much does Greg weigh?

This is suppose to be the last pic cause I took it out the
airplane window with the caption to be -
a long road ahead!!!!!

We made it with 50 lbs in all four bags, plus stuff jammed
in our backpacks!  You would think we are going to be
gone for years!

Anyway, you get the idea that this has been a long time coming and I am glad that we can finally start putting countdown dots on the calendar!

I found some other pics from days gone by!

Mitch and Beka

Scot, Katie, Jack, Madi

Mitch, Beka, Spencer

Madi and Kaylee

Jack and Taylor
Love that smile Tay!

Scot and Katie

Richie and Angie

Rachel, Jeff and the photo bomber!
We always have to have a bomber in the crowd!

Sara, me and Greg

Rachel, Jeff, Kaylee, Taylor, Chandler

Sara and Spencer with us!

We have had this tradition of going to the Roof for Christmas every year.  This year we had to do it early due to this mission thing!  Sure love these kids!  We are missing Abi because she is practicing for the tabernacle Christmas program.  Those of you who go - watch for her!  She is the really pretty one that can dance!  We are also missing Evie, Hadley, Ollie and Max.  They were too young!!!

Brothers Spencer and Scot!

WHEW! The training is finally over!

So after 2 weeks of very hard training, our brains are officially squishy!   We really did have a hard week!  PROMISE!  Monday we were in training from 8-4:30 pm.  We then met Sara and Hadley at Costco to get some stuff!  We had a nice dinner and Christmas shopping fun at Shopko.  Tuesday we had class from 8-4:30 and then grandkids Kaylee and Channy met us at our hotel.  We walked down and caught trax to City Creek!  Pizza and Red Iguana were the food of choice.  We caught trax again and rode it to the Jazz game.  We were there early, so we got pics with Thurl Bailey.  He is tall and he has big hands!  The game was fabulous cause we won!  
Wednesday was groundhog day with the training. (actually the training was very good and very necessary, but it is very hard to sit and pay attention for that long!)  Beka and Mitch came to our hotel and we drove up to Logan to visit with Spencer.  He can't come down this weekend to say goodbye so we went up there.  We had a great dinner and a sad goodbye!  (This goodbye thing is going to go really well on Saturday morning, I can just tell!)  Thursday we had training only until noon!   Yay!   We stopped at a few places to pick up some things like cream of tartar and poultry seasoning to take to Mexico.  They tell us to bring it because we can't get it down there!  We spent Thursday afternoon working in the yard tearing out geraniums and trimming trees!  Why do the weeds even grow in the   
cold???  We took Elaine out to dinner at Red Robin.  She ordered a huge salad, a chocolate shake and sweet potato fries. Oh my!  We enjoyed visiting with her!  The sad thing is I only have pics from Tuesday.  I missed Sara, Hadley, and Spencer. I feel bad about that cause I usually am taking tons of pics.   FRIDAY - our last day in America, drinking water out of the tap - as our kids keep reminding us!  We spent the morning packing - AGAIN!  We are maxed out on our 50 lb. weight limit, for sure.  Of course, Greg used 1 and 1/3 of the suitcases and I am using 1 and 2/3 of them!  Here it is 4:30 pm and we are packed!  We are now waiting for 5:45  tomorrow morning.  Ho hum!  What to do now for the rest of the night!   I am quite exhausted from holding back all these tears that want to come tumbling out!   We went to dinner with 4 of the 6 kids and spouses! We saw a couple that we have spent 2 weeks of training with!  It really is a small world after all!   Love my kids!!!!   Adios!   

Here are the shorties hangin with Thurl Bailey at the Jazz game!

Two cute ornaments in the candy windows of Macys

The Jazz won after tons of cheering and yelling!!!!
Channy really is happy to be there!!!