THOUGHT: "A LOVING HEART IS THE TRUEST WISDOM."
Charles Dickens
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| Here is our flower garden. The purple flowers on the right haven't bloomed since the beginning of summer. There is one flower with 3 more coming. It must be the start of fall! Who would know - the weather is beautiful every day! |
Tuesday, Aug 25th
Greg had to take the car in to get new tires again. The second time in about 6 months. We keep hitting these hole in the road that a car can disappear into and it makes our tires have bubbles on the sides of them. We hit a bad hole a couple of weeks ago and just noticed the bubbles yesterday. I don't know why they can't fix the holes in the roads in this town! Actually it would take them to eternity to get them fixed! They at least fixed the ones by our house so we won't be hitting them any more! We packed and headed to the airport at 3 pm today. We flew to the AguasCaliente mission but we are starting the zone conferences in San Louis Potosi so that is where we are flew in to today. It took us an hour to get to the Temple. Who knows why there is so much traffic today. It probably is another holiday. The Mexicans have a holiday about every other week here! The Pococks were nice enough to drive us to the airport. We arrived in plenty of time so Greg wasn't his usual stressed out self! We had to wait at a gate, walk down this long ramp, get on a bus and be driven out to the middle of the landing strips (I have pics) to get on our plane. I think this airport is too small! They can't handle all the flights anymore! Our flight was uneventful and the Villarreals (mission president) were there to meet us. They are such sweet people. We went directly to a church where some "doctors" were waiting for Greg to talk to them. Come to find out one was an acupuncturist, another was plain crazy and the third guy was a chiropractor. The church doesn't allow missionaries to go to any of these doctors so they were a waste of time. There were 2 nurses there holding down the medical part of the mission. Good for them! We stopped at Vips for a bowl of soup and on to the hotel. Hasta Luego!!
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| Here we are sitting on the plane waiting for the rest of the people to board. See how close planes are landing to us?? |
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| This plane went in front of us with another one landing right behind it! |
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| Here is one little section of Mexico City! Those are ALL houses - millions of them! |
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| Another pic of this lovely city! |
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| And a third pic! It was a clear day! |
Wednesday, Aug, 26th
Today we were up and on our way to the zone conference early. It was a little bit of a drive to the church. There were 4 zones at this conference so many missionaries were there. The zone conference went well and the sisters meeting went OK too. Pres. & Sister Villarreal took us to lunch at an Argentinian restaurant. The stake president went with us and he never stopped talking the whole time we were there. He needs more friends. The restaurant was very fancy and the food was OK - not great. Most restaurants here in Mexico have that Mexican touch even if they are American places.
After lunch we got on the road to Zacatecas which was a 2 1/2 hour drive through the green desert! We really like this town. It is clean and has modern store fronts (not behind though) and even underground tunnels to drive in. The town square kind of reminded me of Park City. Zacatecas is a mining town as well. The huge old church here is from the 1500's. Very cool! We stayed in the Hampton Inn Hotel which is new and still smells new. Very nice for Mexico! We shared a salad and club sandwich at the restaurant at the hotel and went to bed! Long day!
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| As we were driving around town I look for funny things to take pics of! Right in the middle of the side of this house is a thick wire looped out and back in the house! Maybe it's electrical?? Someone painted it the same color as the house but it still looks funny! |
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| Driving by the funeral home - they have already made the flower arrangements for the day and they are all sitting outside along the wall! They go clear down the block! |
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| This is a crazy painted place! Not sure if it's a house or restaurant! |
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| We went to eat lunch at this Argentinian place This makes McDonalds play place look real stupid! It's in the corner of this fancy restaurant! We wanted to climb up in there! |
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| Here we are at the fancy restaurant! |
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| This is looking the other direction. There is a pond below the staircase right there |
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| The Villarreals. |
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| This is what Greg and I shared for lunch! A steak, potatoes, 2 globs of cheese some green things - probably hot and spicy and one large green onion. It tasted a little bit better than it looks!!! |
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| A big Catholic church across the street from the restaurant. Really funky architecture |
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| A medical clinic named Elder Medica! Nope, not sending Elders there!!! |
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| The first sighting of Zacatecas! This is a pretty city |
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| Modern looking buildings everywhere |
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| Another fancy building! |
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| Even the cement neighborhoods look nice! |
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| The Catholic church by the Mormon church |
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| President and Sister Villarreal with the VERY young Stake President. |
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| Us with the city behind us! |
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| Downtown main street of Zacatecas (reminds me of Park City) This is a mining town as well. |
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| Cool Catholic church |
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| Showing the area! |
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| Anyone want to go to the TUCKY TUCKY??? |
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| I like how all the lights are in the sidewalk and shine up! |
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| A big old church that has a big mariachi band playing in the front with a big group of people! See below! |
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| It wasn't this dark when I took the pics but just some evening pics of this old park that is from the 1600's |
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| A gate to the park! |
Thursday, Aug 27th
Today we got up, ate breakfast at the hotel and we were off to the church for the zone conference. All went well with the zone conference. This one didn't have as many missionaries as yesterday. When the sisters got together afterwards they only had a few questions! Great conference. I didn't even get any crazy questions like usual. I think I have figured out how to do the sister question period. I limit it to about 15 minutes so they can't come up with the bad questions. The questions deteriorate as the time goes on! Greg saw quite a few missionaries and helped them with medications and such!
We left the church and drove around a little more and went to a little restaurant in a big mall called La Bonita. I had burritos and guacamole. They were edible and not spicy so it was a win, win for me. Greg had fish tacos but they were small so he ate one of my burritos. We hopped in the car and drove for 1 1/2 hours to AguasCaliente where the mission home is. It was a beautiful drive since everything is green here even though it was kind of a green desert with cactus. All of Mexico is pretty this time of year after the rains. Come March, April and May everything is brown. They don't water or irrigate down here much. They have learned to plant crops during the rainy season and so it is!!!
We pulled up to the drive way of the mission home and an accident had just happened in front of the driveway. A van was sitting on it's top! We couldn't see any people still in the van so we went around it to home! This home is as nice as all the other mission homes. The Villarreal's are such nice people just like all the other mission presidents and wives. This couple has 5 daughters and 1 son who is on a mission in Canada. The daughters are all very beautiful - like models. They are all married so I can't line any of them up with Spencer! We had a rest time and then off to the church to meet with some doctors. Of course only one doctor showed up so Greg had a nice visit with her. She will help the missionaries. The Villareals took us on a drive through the center of town here in AguasCaliente. There are plenty of churches and old, old buildings. I took a few pics. They also wanted to take us to a little restaurant that makes homemade hot chocolate. We went to this place and ordered tamales for dinner and chocolate tamales for dessert and a big cup of hot chocolate with cinnamon in it. That is the most popular! A very nice time was had by all! The weather here is perfect - a little breezy with warm wind, a clear sky and almost a full moon tonight!
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| All the hermanas at the Zacatecas zone conference! |
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| The church built on a hill. On the bottom floor are all the classrooms, kitchen, etc Upstairs is the chapel and cultural hall. |
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| Another pic of Zacatecas |
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| Weird - don't know! |
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| Driving in the desert from Zacatecas to Aguascalientes |
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| Another huge Catholic church in Aguascalientes Built in the 1500's |
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| Pics around Aguascalientes |
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| Different pics of the main church in the main square |
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| We were driving down the street passing another church and their door was open. We took a pic as we drove by!. Look at all the gold! |
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| Another gate to another old park by the church |
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| We drove past this tree and it has at least one million birds in it! Hard to see! |
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| Here we are at the chocolate restaurant. We are eating tamales and in the middle are chocolate tamales The small bowls have our hot chocolate in it! |
Friday, Aug 28th
THOUGHT: "WE MUST CHOOSE WHOM TO FOLLOW. OUR PROTECTION IS AS
SIMPLE AS DECIDING INDIVIDUALLY TO FOLLOW THE SAVIOR
MAKING CERTAIN THAT WE FAITHFULLY WILL REMAIN
ON HIS SIDE." Pres. Boyd K. Packer
We were up and going early and Rosie the maid had fixed us a great eggs and hash browns breakfast. We got all packed up because we weren't coming back to the house after the conference. Off we went to the third conference with the Villarreals. The Elders and Sisters were very sweet as usual. The conference went well and the question period with the sisters was alright too. More than half of the sisters complained of knee pain. I am noticing that when I have this time with the sisters as soon as the first question is asked, all the other sisters have similar problems whether it be stomach issues, period issues, knee issues or back pain issues. The most popular is varicose veins problems. This makes me laugh because in 99% of the sisters you can't even see the veins even with my glasses on! Still my favorite question is - how can I get whiter??? I have no answers! Actually I did have a sister yesterday ask me about her heart and that she feels tired and not well sometimes when it beats slowly. I sent her to be seen by Greg and he heard a murmur. She is off to a cardiologist for a major checkup!
President and Sister took us to lunch at Toks. We walked right by a Chilis, but no- we walked on by straight to the Toks. It is Mexican food and I get real tired of Mexican food real fast! Lunch was good. We were then taken to the airport to wait for our flight. They had some things to do this afternoon so we needed to get out of their hair. We had a nice long wait for our flight because the airport is so dang busy in Mexico City that planes in all of the small towns can't take off until they have a space to land! Hence the landing in the middle of the landing strip like the past few trips!!
We must stop traveling on Fridays. This is a crazy day. The Pococks were kind enough to pick us up and take us back to our car. We had a fun reunion with the Griffins, Montoyas, Smiths and Pococks in the parking lot! We have all become friends and enjoy being together. Sadly, we started planning our farewell party for the Pococks. They leave Oct. 19th, but you have to plan way ahead to get everyone together at the same time! Traffic wasn't too bad for 8 pm on Friday night! It is always nice to be back in our own little place! - at least for me!
No pics today!🎈
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