Mexican Moments with Greg and Peg: Comin ' to Amereeeca! (almost)

Monday, July 6th

THOUGHT: "Learn to pray. Pray often. Pray in your mind, in your heart. Pray on your knees. Prayer is your personal key to heaven." Boyd K. Packer

Talk about the fun never ending! We had a flight scheduled to Tijuana at 3 pm today. We left home at 12:30 and drove to the temple. The Pococks took us from there to the airport. We arrived a good hour and fifteen minutes early. We tried to check in, but the machine wouldn't let us so we had to go to the counter. The guy there told us we had been bumped off that flight due to the problem of a flight not being able to land the night before because of some storm. We don't know where the storm was because nothing was happening in either place so NQR for sure! (not quite right)! Our new motto! He said the 7 pm flight looked full so he could get us on the 9 pm flight. 8 hours of sitting in the airport????? I don't think so. We got standby tickets and went to the gate where we got on the 7 0 clock flight and bumped someone else off! Poor people! We also got two food vouchers and two round trip tickets to fly anywhere in Mexico! LUCKY US!! Just think! - anywhere we want to go in Mexico! We just can't decide! We have a year to use them so we have to make a plan! I wish they were round trip tickets to Utah or somewhere awesome! Any who! We ate at Wings and even though it was 3 in the afternoon we had breakfast food - with dessert. I haven't ever had dessert after breakfast until today! We had a nice long 5 hour wait until our flight which was suppose to take off at 7:10. We got on the plane and then sat on the tarmac for one hour and finally took off at 8:15. It was a 3 1/2 hour flight to Tijuana. The poor mission president and his wife picked us upland took us to the Marriott to stay for the week. The good thing is that it is 2 hours earlier there so it wasn't so late for them. This has been one long day! As we were driving in to town we drove right along the border to America! So close, yet so far away! Greg called his brother Doug to come visit us in Tijuana since he lives only a couple of hours away and he just laughed! I guess he didn't want to see us! No other comments were made about that!!

Our brownie delight dessert after our breakfast meal
while waiting 5 hours for our flight!

Beautiful sunset on our way to Tijuana!

What a view!!

Tuesday, July 7th

The Garcias (mission president and wife) picked us up from our hotel at 9:15 and we were off to a zone conference there in the city. We had just over 100 missionaries there. There were about 40 sisters. Greg did his schpeel and then the sisters went into another room and we talked girl talk for a little while! I had a good interpreter since Sister Garcia doesn't speak English so all went well. All the sisters in this mission are very worried about spider veins. I don't get what the issue is, but they are all concerned. We spent the afternoon visiting with the missionaries while President Garcia did some interviews. They are all so cute! The Garcias took us to an early dinner/late lunch at their favorite Mexican place. The food was OK and we survived. We got back to the hotel around 6 pm and had the evening to sit in the hot tub and do some treadmill walking. Since it was 2 hours earlier than we were used to we got to bed fairly early for us!

Tijuana is full of hills with houses plastered all over them!
I don't see any roads into these houses on these hills
The people walk up and down them.

A lot of colorful apartment buildings sitting on the edge of that hill!

The Tijuana Stake Center
All the churches in Mexico are nice.

The new Tijuana Temple that opens in November

I love the old Spanish style of this temple

It is out of town with nothing around it!

A few blocks away - I guess this statue
can invite all to come to the temple!

A statue of Cuatemoc a great Aztec king.

Wednesday, July 8th

THOUGHT: "You are never far from the sight of your loving Heavenly Father." Boyd K. Packer

We got up really early this morning and grabbed some breakfast in the hotel. The Garcia's picked us up and we drove to Mexicali which is 2 1/2 hours away. Mexicali is in the middle of nowhere and below sea level so it was real close to hell!!! The heat made it feel like we were there!!! We had another nice zone conference and the sisters brought up spider veins again. What's up with that?? They are all very healthy down there. I think Heavenly Father is blessing them to be healthy since medical care is far away. The sisters also asked questions like - "by the time we get to our members house or an investigators house for a meeting we are sweaty and stinky. What can we do about that?" I had no answer for that one! One of the sisters told me they go home and shower before the noon meal or meeting so I don't know what else to tell them. It's dang hot and they are going to sweat! Live with it! The Garcias took us to Pompas (the Brazilian place like Rodezio Grill) for an early dinner/late lunch! We managed a lot better this time. We went to Pompas when we were in Veracruz. We got back to our hotel after another 2 1/2 hour drive back to Tijuana about 6 again and had the same evening schedule!

Driving out of Tijuana towards Mexicali
Miles and miles of little cardboard houses along the road.

More Tijuana hills!
I don't know how all of these people live like this!

There it is! The border fence and there is America!
So close and yet so far away!

More border fence

There is about a 20 mile segment called La Rumorosa on the road to Mexicali
that has millions of these rounded
overgrown pebbles! Really cool rocks!

It's weird how they are so rounded off and piled on each other
all over the place here!

Lovely landscape looking into California!

A big hospital in Mexicali!
One of the biggest buildings around!

Thursday, July 9th A VERY, VERY SAD DAY IN THE STEVENS FAMILY!
TODAY IS OUR LEAVE FOR LAKE POWELL DAY EVERY YEAR!
WE ARE ALL IN MOURNING, BUT THE MISSIONARY WORK MOVES
FORWARD!😎😩😜
Another day of up early and off with the Garcias to Ensenada this time. This is a nice little town. We have stopped here on a cruise years ago. The drive down to Ensenada is beautiful along the coast line. There are some pretty beaches. We passed Rosarito where we stayed for a week with the Coltons and Larkins a few years ago. It is a different experience being on the other side of life here being a part of Mexico and not the US right now. We had a zone conference and went to lunch/dinner at a hotel called Coral & Marina. We were waiting for our food and a bird flew by. Before we were through there were 3 birds that obviously are at home there in the restaurant. They would land on tables and eat the rice off the plates that were waiting to be taken back to the dishwasher. We got pics. That is a little crazy. We had a 1 1/2 hour drive back to the Marriott and had the same evening schedule. The weather in Ensenada and Tijuana is very pleasant right now.

View leaving Tijuana to Ensenada
Looks like the rich part of town!

A hotel by where we stayed 3 years ago

This is the entrance to where we did stay!

Nice views of hotels on the beach

A nice family camping beach

Pretty pic of the ocean

Millions of houses plastered on the hills in Ensenada

Greg is so funny!
He calls this guy the automatic sprinkler for the church!
Not sure if he thought it was funny!!!

The bird sitting in the window above our heads!

Here are the 3 birds eating rice of someone's plate!

Us with the Garcias - very awesome mission president

The Garcias

Pics of around the hotel where we ate lunch in Ensenada.
Way back in the back is where the cruise ships park

Pic of the marina at the hotel

Front entrance with a shiny sculpture of some sort
we think some kind of fish!

Friday, July 10th ANOTHER LANDMARK DAY! 8 MONTHS DOWN & 10 TO GO!!!
THAT MEANS NEXT MONTH IS THE HALF WAY MARK!!! GET READY KIDS....
WE WILL BE HOME ALL TOO SOON!!!

We were able to have a nice relaxing morning today. Sister Garcia came to pick us up at 1 pm to take us to the airport to fly home. We sat in the warm sunshine for an hour and had a nice breakfast. Good times. Our flight left at 2:30 and we landed around 8 pm with a 2 hour time change. Our nicest friends ever - the Smiths were there to pick us up and take us back to the temple to our car. There was still quite a lot of traffic for a Friday night, but we made it back home by 10 pm. I don't know why traveling all day and sitting and sitting and sitting makes you so tired, but it does!!!
Nos Vamos!!!!