HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARA ON SATURDAY, MARCH 21ST!
THOUGHT: "CHARACTER IS THE REAL FOUNDATION OF ALL
WORTHWHILE SUCCESS" John Hays Hammond
Guess what? Yep another trip! Greg needs to learn how to schedule these trips so we are not coming and going so much in one week! We have been gone since last Thursday when we went to Guad. We got up early and headed back to the temple to park our car. The poor Smiths took us back to the airport and we caught a flight to Chihuahua. President and Sister Chavez picked us up. The difference this time was that they dropped us off at the Hampton Inn to stay instead of the mission home! That was nice for a change. Then there is no pressure to entertain us during down times. We were able to get settled and get a rest before they picked us up again for the afternoon/evening activities. We went to lunch across the street from the hotel to Applebees. It looked and tasted just like good old America! We then got in the car and drove for over an hour up to a city called Cuautemoc! President drove us around the city and took us to a Mennonite museum. That was interesting and we learned a little about this group. There are 90,000 of them in Northern Mexico.
We then drove to a chapel and had a nice visit with a few zones in the mission. This was about 6:30 pm. The missionaries are the same here as everywhere else we have gone - AWESOME!! We met Elder Goldsberry from the 9th ward. I grew up with his grandparents - Rick and Annette Curtis so that was very fun to see him! We took a pic and he will send it to his grandparents.
We stopped at a seafood place for dinner and drove home! We got home around 11:30 our time and fell into bed. We had to be up early to meet President Chavez again. We went to a church in the city (Chihuahua). We walked in and the missionaries were all lined up and ready for a big pic. There were probably 100 missionaries there! I love these people! Greg did his schpeel and we listened as President taught them a couple of principles. He then turned the remainder of the meeting over to the AP's and we left to go tour the city! We drove to Poncho Villas house. Greg has always had a huge fascination with Poncho Villa! I will let him tell about this experience. His house was really cool to see all the old stuff from the early 1900's I only got in trouble once for taking a pic I wasn't suppose to take. The guy was kind of yelling at me, but I didn't even hear him since I didn't understand what he was saying so I wasn't listening!!! Oh well! I think it's dumb you can't take pics of old furniture and dishes and stuff! Dumb!!
Poncho Villa - I always thought the Pancho Villa was the one that drove the saints from the colonies in 1913. In that year he actually was serving as Governor of Chihuahua. There were some communist leaning revolutionaries that called themselves the Red Flags that were threatening to kill all of the saints in the colonies and the US sent a train to rescue them. Francisco "Pancho" Villa started as a Robin Hood like bandit who robbed from the rich and provided for the poor. He was captured in about 1910 at the beginning of the revolution and placed in the army (what they used to do to thieves back then). He eventually deserted the army and joined up with men who were fighting against the Mexican President Porfirio Diaz (self proclaimed dictator of Mexico). He was skilled at organizing men, getting money (usually extortion from rich land holders) and working with the US to get guns for his "Northern Army." He was made a general and actually for awhile was made governor of the state of Chihuahua and in 1914 after a great victory in Zacatecas marched into Mexico City with another General from the South, Emilio Zapata. The US army actually studied his war tactics - he was felt to be a very shrewd general. He fell out of favor of the replacement Mexican President Carranza and had his army taken away from him. He recruited a small army and because the US was not continuing to supply him with guns raided an army storehouse in Columbus, New Mexico to get guns - later chased for many months by General Pershing of the US - who finally gave up when WWI started and he was called back to the US. He was very wealthy during the beginning of the war (mostly war spoils) and had a large mansion in Chihuahua which was cared for by his widow after his assassination in 1923. He had worked out an arrangement in 1920 where he was given some land south of the city of Parral Mexico in exchange for him staying out of politics and war. (Greg will write in Blue from now on)
So we got out of there and went to a restaurant called La Mansion. It is a steak house like Ruth's Chris, but not as expensive. President took us back to the hotel for a rest and picked us back up at 7 pm to go meet service missionary doctors in the city. They had a good meeting and conversation! I tried to follow, but they talked way too fast for me! We got to see a clinic the missionaries can use, which is the nicest I have seen in quite a while! Then they were all hungry ( I was feeling sick!😫) so we went to a soup and salad place about 10:30 at night! What's with eating so late every night! UGH! I had a little bowl of broccoli soup and didn't even finish it!
President finally took us back to our hotel and we were off the bed! We had to get up at 5:50 to be ready for our flight on Saturday morning!
We left the hotel at 7:15 in the morning. Greg thought our flight left at 8:40 but couldn't quite bother to look at our tickets, so when he finally did on the way to the airport, he discovered the flight left at 8:20. We got to the little airport, which was much busier than the Obregon airport and had to stand in line, which ended up being the wrong line! Anywho - we finally made it on the flight and made it back to Mexico City in one piece! The poor Smiths who had dropped us off on Sunday and picked us up on Wednesday, then dropped us off on Thursday and picked us up today! They will be bored next week because we aren't traveling! YAY! We took the Smiths to lunch for all of their efforts. Greg had to see a few missionaries in the temple clinic and we finally got home around 5 pm. We ate a little dinner and headed to the Andersons for movie night! That is after we put our laundry in the washers. Surprise - no one was using the machines so we took advantage. Whoopee we won't be up until 11:30 doing laundry tonight!
Happy Travels!
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| The view out of the car window as we were heading to Cuautemoc! |
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| A pic of the city of Chihuahua! It is a nice city with a whole new section! It is growing and the church is growing here too! |
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| There is a large number of Mennonites in Chihuahua! This is a museum with farms all around it! |
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| Here we are as Mennonites! This could be our next mission!!! |
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| A pic of us with Pres. & Sister Chavez |
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| One thing the Mennonites grow are apples. This is an apple orchard. The V shaped things are nets bundled up that they can spread out if and when it hails so the trees and fruit won't be damaged There are orchards everywhere with these nets. The hail can be bad here! |
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| Driving through a Mennonite neighborhood Looks like a good old Salt Lake home! |
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| and another Salt Lake home on a dirt road! |
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| and yet another! |
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| Then we drove downtown Cuautemoc and back to the typical Mexican bright blue home! |
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| I love the tent trailer parked out in front of your house! |
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| A pic of the zones we met with in Cuautemoc! |
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| The big zone conference in Chihuahua! These missionaries are so dang cute! |
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| Look who we met! Elder Goldsberry! He is from the 9th ward and I am dear friends with his grandparents - Rick and Annette Curtis! Fun! |
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| Finally Greg to hang out at Poncho Villa's home! |
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| This mansion has been turned into a big museum for Poncho Villa! |
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| Pics of Poncho Villa everywhere along with guns, guns, and more guns! |
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| Good buddies! |
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| The inside courtyard! |
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| One outside wall of this place has a huge mural about the war Poncho Villa was involved in! |
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| The car Poncho Villa was riding in at 8:30 in the morning when 8 assassins shot him about 50 times. They just kept shooting and shooting him! |
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| This is the car after the shooting! Everything was blown to bits! |
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| Rule #1 in this museum - don't take any pics of the rooms - which there were a bunch of rooms. This is not my fault! Greg told me to take this pic standing outside the room looking in! It is of the dining room table with an awesome stove way back there in the next room! I got yelled at for taking the pic from the hallway! I didn't even know I was in trouble - because of course I don't understand yelling spanish!!!! I think it's a dumb rule anyway! Way shouldn't you be able to take pics of the cool stuff??? My family knows I am always getting tangled up in photo-ops! |
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| A bus that looks like a trolley! It even says San Francisco trolley on the side there! |
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| Front of trolley! |
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