Mexican Moments with Greg and Peg: Twas the week before Christmas

THOUGHT: "MAYBE CHRISTMAS," HE THOUGHT, "DOESN'T COME FROM A STORE. MAYBE CHRISTMAS..... PERHAPS...... MEANS A LITTLE BIT MORE." Dr. Seuss

Saturday Dec 19, 2015

We woke up in our beautiful 310 year old hotel and had a great breakfast. We then had to hit the road to get to a zone conference in Zamora. We decided to take the scenic route around Lake Patzcuaro. There is an island with houses and a big church. It is depicted in a picture in the Restaurant Morelia across from the Fashion Place Mall. We couldn't see it due to smoke - they are starting to burn their fields and sugar cane fields and the air was very smokey. We got to Zamora about 1 and had our meeting. In my day in the mission Zamora was so catholic that they ran the missionaries out the year before I arrived in the mission. It probably was a good candidate for missionaries to shake the dust off of their feet but thank goodness they didn't - they now have a stake and very strong wards. Funny how the Lord can prepare a place for the right time. After the Zone conference we had to hurry back to Guadalajara to catch our flight and made it with about 10 minutes to spare we thought, but then found out our plane had been delayed for an hour - at least we got to eat at a Chilli's and have their Chocolate cake - Peg eats this every year around the time her mother passed away in memory of her mom. We were one day late but I think that was close enough.

Our 305 year old hotel

Great breakfast - huevos rancheros

Courtyard in our hotel

In the front of the Hotel de la Soledad.
The doors are 300 years old.

A few of the cities we have driven through today are completely
filled with these carved statues that are probably made in China!!!

These donkeys are on an island.
Don't know how they got out there.

A nice lake

The donkeys and birds having a good time out on the island.

I love this little fishing boat made out of reeds.

The light grey field in the background are Taquila plants!
These field are everywhere around these parts!

The lava cake at Chili's in memory of my mom!

Driving home we go up this street in front of Mexico's pentagon
The street is Industrial Militar
They put up some fun decorations and lights

WE laugh at these trees because it looks like someone
has just thrown the lights up on them.
The whole street is lit up!

Feliz Navidad!

THOUGHT: "WHERE THERE IS FAITH, THERE IS LOVE;
WHERE THERE IS LOVE, THERE IS PEACE:
WHERE THERE IS PEACE, THERE IS GOD;
AND WHERE THERE IS GOD; THERE IS NO NEED."
Leo Tolstoy
Sunday Dec 20, 2015

Church was the primary program - there are only about 20 children. One young child about 7 years old had to sing a solo - he was very nervous but did a beautiful job. Of course there was the one child whose voice rang out above all of the others - at least he was nearly on key. I was asked to teach Priesthood meeting next week about the area plan. We had dinner with the Hackings and the Andersons - the Andersons have such a big nice area to entertain that we often end up in their place for group meals. Peg made her delicious rolls. We had planned to do family home evening Sunday night and go caroling. The ward planned a similar activity at the last minute and wanted to correlate with us (translation it took an extra hour to do that) but we did have some of the ward members go with us. We had prepared 17 plates of cookies and placed a card on each one about "A Savior is born." We headed up into the Pueblito (a name given to the poorer area behind the church office buildings. In the poorer areas from the street all you see is a door but there may be as many as 30 small apartments behind that door. We got into about 5. The communities share bathrooms and laundry areas and sometimes cooking areas. They all general have all of their laundry hanging on lines in front of their houses. We sang to about 5 members and about 7 nonmembers - each time leaving cookies and a missionary card. We had some children with us and they really enjoyed it. It took us about 90 minutes and we got home tired from the long walking. At least this year the man without pants was not out and around like last year. He lived in one of the communities behind the door on the street and wandered around last year as we were singing. Literally he had a shirt on and nothing else.