Trip to Guadalajara East Mission

THOUGHT: "WE MUST HAVE FAITH WITH WORKS TO RECEIVE ANSWERS."
                                                                             Elder James B. Martino 
Monday, Dec. 14th

So sometime in the night last night someone added about 10 hours to my day today.  This has been the longest day I have lived in a long time.  We had to get up at 4:30 to get to the airport before 6 am.  We got a bite to eat (way to early) and met the 10 missionaries we were traveling with to the Guad East mission.  Our flight was delayed as usual.  I was feeling very bad for myself until I heard the missionaries got up at 2:30 to get to the airport for their flight.  We all finally made it to the Guad mission.  President Egginton was there to meet the missionaries along with the AP's.  The missionaries are very lucky to have Pres. Egginton.  He seems like such a nice guy.  We piled in 2 vans and drove to the mission office where we dumped off our luggage.  We were back in the vans heading over to one of the chapels close by for the new missionary training.  Greg gave his schpeel to the new missionaries and their trainers and some of the other Elders that were there.  We had a little breakfast of breakfast burritos and yogurt and fruit. After Greg's schpeel we got a taxi to go check out a hospital that will be able to help take care of our missionaries in a medical situation.  The hospital was very nice and so were the people.  We got to meet all the big wigs of the hospital and they seem willing to help us with the missionaries.  A win - win for sure.  We got a taxi back to the church and literally spent the rest of the day sitting and waiting for all the training sessions to be completed.  About 6 pm one of the office Elders brought some pizza and the missionaries inhaled them.  They were so hungry and tired.  Next change day President is going to try doing the training the next day since everyone is so dang tired that first day.  We ate a few pieces of pizza and finally got to head to the mission home about 8 pm.  Sister Egginton was quite sick with asthma or bronchitis.  She had a dr's appointment at 8:30 tonight so Greg went with them to the dr's to see how to help her.  I finally went to bed about 11 pm and they came home shortly after that.  Looooooonnnng day!

The new missionaries coming to the Guadalajara mission

I like taking pics of Christmas trees.
This one is in the hospital we were
checking out!

The entrance to the hospital
Pretty fancy!

Tuesday, Dec. 15th
 We were up and out the door early on our long trip around the mission.  A funny experience - we were packing up the car to leave and 2 women stopped in a car in front of the house.  The passenger got out and started talking to us about how she is a member of the church.  She started crying and said the dr's had found a tumor on her ovary and she needed surgery.  She was asking the guys if one of them would give her a blessing.  So in the house they went to give her a blessing.  Her sister waited in the car for her.  She is not a member.  That's how our days go sometimes.  The Andersons went with us on our mission tour.  Sister Anderson is Sister Eggintons real sister and they arrived in the mission about 5 weeks ago to serve as the mission office couple.  Those 4 will have a great time together.   We drove and drove for about a million hours.  We stopped in a little town out of the way of our trip, but Greg found a guy he baptized so he wanted to talk to him.  He is about 65 now.  We found his sister and she took us to his house where we met his wife.  We then had to go hunting for him which was another 30 min drive up in the mountains.  We got out walked a little down the road, walked around a vacant house and down this walkway, we still walked behind another house where we actually saw some people.  I took a few pics while we waited for this guy to show up!  We finally had to go down these steep steps and down a path, across the street, down another path with steps through the barbed wire fence and along the river and he wasn't there!! UGH!  Poor President Egginton was getting stressed because we still had a long drive ahead of us.  We finally saw the guy and Greg got a pic and said hi!  His name was Carlos Valencia.  We finally got back in the car and got on our way for at least a 5 hour car ride.  We ended up in Lazaro Cardenas long after dark.

Something plopped on the grass outside the mission home!
It has a green plastic bottom with little pebbles
in a pile with plastic greenery sticking out the top!

Fields of raspberries

The biggest lake in Mexico

This is a funny pic.  I was trying to take a pic of the lake
but I got this tree clear as day as we were buzzing
down the street at 130 km/hr.

A little resort right off the highway!

This old man!

A typical home along the road!

On our hunt for Bro. Valencia.  His house was down this narrow
dirt road with these rocks piled up

The kitchen sink outside the front door!

I love their little Christmas tree with the pinatas
handing all around it!

The inside of the house with bright purple walls
and the metal couch!  Bro. Valencia's wife is in the
middle and sister in the pink!

Their guard dog

Across the street these people were making pinatas 

How would you like to live in this bright pink house??

The army guys are actually doing something.
Moving rocks!!!

A little white church in town

I can never get a good pic of these.  They stuff a huge
bull in the back of a little truck and drive him around.

We finally found the family home.  It is like the
garden of Eden with all kinds of
fruits, flowers and veggies growing all around.

A nice little garden of napal (cactus)
The people shave off the thorns and
cook this stuff up.  It kind of tastes
like green beans.

Some kind of fruit that is now flowering

Looking off the back deck of the house down the hill.
They do have their own little garden of Eden.

The oven and stove on the back deck!

Still walking and searching for Bro. Valencia

Yep still walking - now down by the river

Climbing through barbed wire 

Then we hear him driving by back up on the road!

YAY!  We caught him!

The sister was trying to get us some fruit off this tree.

A brother giving us another kind of fruit!
Really nice people!

Trying to find town!
There is the church from the center of town.

Church in town

Chapala lake - with a beautiful island
This is a pic in Morelia's restaurant in Salt Lake

 I love this little town up on the hill!

A bridge to nowhere!

Moving day with a couple of guys standing in the back
zooming down the highway!

I found another pic of some weird fruit from the family yard!

A cool volcano!

Wednesday, Dec 16th

Zone conference started at 10 am.  We got a bite to eat and got to the church at 9:30 am.  Greg did his schpeel and then Pres. had a couple of hours of training and a break in there somewhere.  We finally had Christmas dinner with Posole, ham & cheese sandwiches, tamales, chips, spicy guacamole, hot chocolate and other spicy meats.  It was a real Mexican dinner!  The missionaries had a white elephant gift exchange and a little Christmas program.  We left around 9 pm. We spent another night at the hotel in Lazaro Cardenas  Tis the season.

I met my new boyfriend at the church.  I think he was cleaning
up and taking garbage out.  I started talking to him!  I found out he is
93 years old, had a drug and 5 pack/day smoking problem for
40 years.  He found the church about 10 years ago and look at
him go now!  

Christmas dinner with the cute sister missionaries.

The people that made the dinner.
EEEk!

Little cheese and ham sandwiches

bolitos and puffed up chips - kind of like cheetos with no flavor

Here is my dinner - possible soup, tamale, chips, green rice.
Also I got some chocolate milk!
I spent half the night in the potty with horrible
stomach cramps after this dinner.
The worst it has been since I arrived in Mexico!

All the Elders and Sisters waiting for dinner.
The white elephant gifts in the middle of the floor

This Elder is very excited about the gifts

This cute little girl was helping to pass out the gifts

Can't even see the plastic coke bottle / snow globe
we got for our white elephant

Christmas program with some of the sisters singing
Some can sing, some need a big bucket to carry a tune around

President & Sister Egginton with Elder & Sister Anderson
They met in a singing group at BYU years ago and have
been singing together since.  Sister Egginton and Sister Anderson
are real sisters.

Elders singing a nice Christmas song

People started showing up at the church about 8 pm with suicases
We found out a bunch of them are taking this bus
to Mexico City temple.  It was take 9 hours to drive
there - do a few sessions and another 9 hours back.

Thursday, Dec 17th

We got up and ate breakfast in the hotel.  We headed into town to look for a hospital that could take care of the sick missionaries.  Afterwards we headed to the beach to look for alligators.  We heard it was not safe to go to the beaches in Lazaro Cardenas because they were terrorized with alligators. Of course we accepted the challenge and drove to the beach.  Beautiful sand and not an alligator in sight.  We then drove 90 minutes to Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo.  Ixtapa is a resort  north of Zihuatanejo on beautiful beaches.  In Zihuatanejo we got lost looking for a hospital and ended up finding a nice clinic where they could do surgery and would accept the missionaries.  We were hungry and had to settle for a sandwich at Costco.
Got back in the car and drove another 5 hours to Morelia.  We got to our really cool old hotel after dark.  We dropped our stuff off and went for a walk around the town square.  We saw another old Cathedral and the most horrific thing ever.  There were red and white Christmas lights on tress and around the area.  We got to the red lights and there was a whole set up of Satan with his horns, holding a head of someone (not real of course) and other evil people set around.  The red lights were shining on big cardboard cutouts of flames.  It was so awful!  We walked past that and walked into the Nativity scene with all the normal people in it.  It had weird animals, but at least everything was in white and looked nice.  What a crazy set up!  I did not like that whole devil thing.  Yuck!
We walked across the street and ate dinner at a Mexican place where we got to sit out on the patio and watch the people in the square.  Everything was nicely decorated except for that one thing.
Our hotel room was really neat.  The sink in the bathroom was made of shells and clear something or other.  They had put a light underneath it so it glowed in the dark.  The hotel was 305 years old.  The whole place was so old yet decorated really modern.

The beach in Lazaro Cardenes.
We heard their were alligators on the beach and
even getting into the salt water.

No alligators anywhere!

Big ships out there!

Beautiful beach and look!
No one here!

The lifeguard station - no one there either!

A Christmas tree in town

A vacation spot - Ixtapa!
Come day we will have to come visit here!

Infiernillo lake

Another Christmas tree next to a gas station

One big load of sugar cane!

Our hotel in Morelia
Decorated with all of these colored glass balls

Even up in the corner

The inner court where all the rooms are
This hotel is 300 years old

Checking in to the hotel in the courtyard

Our room!  Very cool with that old rock wall behind Greg

A very modern bathroom.  The sink has a light
underneath it and makes the sink glow!
I love this!

A little court outside our door
There is Greg standing over there

These trees are growing up the outside walls

The big awesome Cathedral in town square

Beautiful building

Looking down the side hall inside the church

One of the side worship rooms

The main chapel.  The priest is kneeling down
behind the white podium.  The nativity scene is
fancy up there!

The doors are so old and cool

Here is the horrible devil scene here in the town square
Everything is red!

Next to it is the Nativity scene.

More of the nativity

I don't get the pond idea but
extended Nativity

Greg one of the 3 kings!

Friday, Dec 18th

Zone conference started again at 9 am in Morelia.  It was the same schedule as Wednesday.  Except in this one the missionaries didn't have a gift exchange, they went out in the church yard and played soccer and basketball and volleyball.  We had a much, much much better Christmas dinner.  The program was nice.  Sister Anderson is a music freak so she tried to make it perfect.  It was really considering the Latin people don't know how to sing!  The President and sister Egginton,  Elder and Sister Anderson sang a quartet.  They all have very nice voices so the song was wonderful. Again, we were tired and got out of there about 9 pm.  We went back to the hotel and sat in the little restaurant there at the hotel and drank hot chocolate!

Sister Sutherland is from Nampa Idaho.
My cousin Steve was her stake president

Us with the Eggintons

Us sisters enjoying a hot chocolate at the hotel
after a long day.  Today - the 18th is the day
my mom died.  We were honoring her by eating
some chocolate.