Happy Happy Birthday Sara and Beka! What a wild week!!

THOUGHT:     "OUT OF DIFFICULTIES GROW MIRACLES.!"                      

Monday, Mar 21st  HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARA!!

Well, this day started out a lot better than it is ending!!  I got up, did the treadmill, packed, showered, called Sara and ate breakfast before we were off on our next adventure to Villahermosa for the week to do a mission tour!!  It is hot down here so I had to pack clothes I haven't worn for awhile.  It never does get very hot in Mexico City or any of the places I have been lately.  Because this week is Holy Week - the week before Easter there was no traffic.  HEAVENLY!  We called Uber and had a guy drive us to the airport!  We got there in record time.  Our flight was late leaving as usual but we finally got to Villahermosa.  President & Sister Morales and their daughter Becky picked us up and we had a 3 hour drive to the city of Coatzalcoalco.  It is on the coast so we had to get pics by the ocean.  We are staying in the brand new Holiday Inn right on the beach and now for the bad part of this day!  We went to the restaurant called Pampas for dinner.  It is like Rodizio Grill where they bring you meat on a skewer and you can get your own salads and stuff.  Dinner was going well, I took some of the different kinds of meats and it all tasted OK.  After we were done President started talking about all the monkeys and turtles in the area.  I guess they don't eat the monkeys, but I then thought back on some of the meat I had just eaten - yep!  You guessed it - turtle!!  I have had stomach cramps and you know what comes after that for 1 1/2 hours now!!  Yikes!!!  I guess it didn't really taste too bad - like chicken - but it is not in my nature to eat weird stuff so I was really out on a limb tonight!  I must get myself under control!!!  
I hope Sara had a great birthday!  Thanks to the family for putting on such a fun party at the house yesterday!!  You're the best!

The coast at Coatzacoalco

Fun sign at the beach - we are right by the port where big tanker ships come in to fill up with oil.  This is where most of the oil refineries and off shore drills are in Mexico.

Local entrepeuner

Cool pyramid lit up

Tuesday, Mar 22nd  HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEKA!!

 We were able to get in touch with Beka fairly early this morning especially since she is 2 hours ahead of us back there in North Carolina.  I hope she is able to some kind of a fun day in-between taking her cadaver's heart out and stuff like that today!!!  
We had a family long day - including doing a zone conference, then having lunch at a Mexican seafood buffet!  UGH!  Not really sure what kinds of things they were serving, so I ate chicken nuggets and pieces of beef with rice and spaghetti!  It was a wonderful lunch! RIGHT!!  We got back in the van and had a nice ride back to Villahermosa which only took 2 1/2 hours.  We got dropped off a hotel - The Hampton Inn and I was happy about that.  It's hard to spend 24/7 with the President and wife so I was happy for the break.  We ate dinner at the hotel which wasn't great either so our weight loss plan should  be working for this week!!  Ha!

View out our hotel window at the ocean - not a very pretty beach

Cactus on the beach

Hospital we toured in Coatzacoalco

Where the big tankers dock

Oil well - they burn off the natural gas

Loaded with sugar cane - the other product of Coatzacoalco

Wednesday, Mar 23rd

Up and going and ready to leave the hotel by 9:30.  I got to sleep in for a minute and that felt nice.  I don't know why traveling and sitting around all day makes me tired, but I am always tired after a day of only sitting.  We did a zone conference here in Villahermosa and then the President wanted us to get out and see the city so he called us a taxi  (maybe just to get rid of us!)  The taxi driver was a member so he was nice to drive us around.  He took us back to our hotel to drop off our bags and then he took us to the park call La Venta.  We walked all around there and looked at the artifacts from this pyramid series.  We walked about 2 kilometers and chased little animals that walked around wild.  We saw some interesting stones carved with designs.  It's funny how they describe what the old stones are.  You can't tell a thing on them especially what they saw they are.  La Venta is about 700 bc. so pretty old stuff - Olmec culture which is generally thought to be Jaredite.   It's cool to see stuff this old.  There was a little zoo there so we got to see some animals.  I especially liked the monkeys.  One of them was a mom and she had her baby with her.  We were hot and tired and we had to wait for our taxi to come get us.  He dropped us off at TOKS for some food.  We got cooled off and filled up and walked back to our hotel.  We didn't have long to wait, because the taxi driver was back waiting for us.  He took us to the Villahermosa temple so we could do a session.  This was a beautiful temple.  We have now been to and taken pics of all 13 temples in Mexico.  We haven't been inside all of them but we have been to them.  The endowment room was little and packed with people.  There was a cute older couple working there from Colorado.  She was my buddy and helped me with the whole thing.  We had a nice relaxing time.  We got a ride back to our hotel and went to bed tired!

Elder Avila - I baptized his grandfather and his sister tutored me from the MTC.

Zone conference - this president has them practice giving their discussions

The park/museum

Beautiful old tree

Pretty tall

These are the carved figures - they do have an oriental look to them.  One guide at the anthropology museum (member of the church) said that most theories of the Jaredite migration was that it went through asia and sailed from eastern Russia  - the winds there blow strong right down to the Mexican coast.

Not sure - almost like a jail.

Olmecs are famous for these "colossal" heads

More big heads

Funny little animals that wandered all over the park

Coming out of a cave - lots of carvings of people coming out of cave-like structures - not sure the significance.

Looks like he is meditating.

Stuffed crocodile -used to live in the park.

more of the funny animals - this one hiding in the tree

They just wandered around - very friendly.

Another man coming out of a cave.

Big spider and web

Ancient legos or dominoes - not sure

another colossal head

Senior missionaries wandering aimlessly through the park

One of those wobbly bridges

They had lots of Jaguars - we were told that it is the only big cat that cannot be domesticated.

Turtles - Peg ate their cousin.

Mean looking statue

This park was surrounded by lagoons

Monkeys on display

Mother and baby monkey

Baby looking over the edge

Nibbling on the leaves

Beautiful Villahermosa temple

Thursday, Mar 24th

We were up and ready to go early this morning.  President picked us up with his wife and daughter and off we went to Polenque.  It was a 2 hour drive, but the scenery was pretty so the time went fast.  We met the missionaries at zone conference and then Greg did his schpeel.  I talked to the sisters and everything went smoothly.  After we were done with our part we took off and walked about 1/2 mile down the street and caught a combie - which is a large van with a bunch of seats - little bus.  We rode up to the ruins of Polenque.  I think these are our favorite ruins.  They are very old - 300-700 AD - I guess newer than La Venta, but still very old.  We walked around there for about an hour.  It was very hot and humid.  We are not used to that kind of heat.  It's never this hot in the city.  We were soaking wet by the time we headed back to the church to meet up with the President.  We kind of were directed into another minibus that was full of people - almost chose another but for some reason we got in.  When we almost were at our destination the lady in front of us told us she was a member of the church and had just moved there from San Cristobal de las Casas.  When I told her I was the area medical advisor she told us she was a physician who had just moved to Palenque to work in the hospital there and that she would love to help with the missionaries.  President Morales had asked us to try to help him find a doctor in Palenque - the District president did not know of any doctors in the area.  This lovely doctor was with her fiancee that she met in Palenque (guided to live there by the spirit)  We feel this was a real tender mercy - the Lord helped us find a doctor in this city far from the mission center.  We got back in time to eat Burger King hamburger.  That's what was served for zone conference.  It took me the rest of the day to cool off.  UGH!  We got back in the car after saying goodbye to all the missionaries and headed for Ciudad de Carmen.  It was a 4 hour drive.  President Morales is a young President and an extremely wild and crazy driver.  He is much, much worse than me!  He is from Mexico City so he comes by his crazy driving naturally.  I can't believe he hasn't had any big accidents!  So this has been another long, hot and tiring day.  We arrived at Carmen in time to put our stuff in the hotel and go to a place called Bostons for some Italian food.  Greg and I got BBQ pizza and a salad to share.  It was pretty tasty!  We were both done with sitting for the day and so we couldn't wait to get back to our hotel to lie down.  Good night!!

country side in Tobasco, Mexico

Lots of green

Palenque - constructed between 300 and 700 AD.

There were tombs under this one.

Built right into a mountain

There was a tomb in there

Built right against a mountain

Inside by the tomb.

A tomb

The main temple

unique architecture

View of the valley

Lots of towers

Lots of tourists - it was Semana Santa

Unusual windows

Another pyramid

Very much in the jungle

Beautiful trees with red flowers

Closer view

Our ride home - we were guided to this minivan I believe

Lots of vendors

Vendors in the shade

The van was crowded - the lady between the two men was our doctor, her fiancee seated to her right

Local dress - very Mayan

We fit about 12 in the minivan

The missionaries waiting for the bus after zone conference in Polenque

This is a bridge for wild monkeys to cross the road!
There are many bridges along here!

We found 2 cute missionaries walking along the streets of Sabancuy on our way to Ciudad del Carmen
when we drove in to town.  Look at the building behind them!

Walkway by the ocean

Oceanside

Taxis by motorcycle

Inlet built for boats under the bridge

The other side of the inlet

Party on the beach!

Scenes of Ciudad de Carmen

Bunch of birds sitting on the wires over the bay!

Sunset over Ciudad de Carmen

Friday, Mar 25th

Today was a little unusual.  President really wanted to take us swimming in the ocean.  So we were up eating breakfast early and off to the ocean for a dip!  The water was cool, but once you got in it felt good.  There weren't any waves so it was like standing in a lake!  Greg and President did swim around for a minute, but we just stood there and enjoyed the water for a little while.  Then we got out and back in the car and drove back to our hotel.  We had a zone conference at 11:00, but I wanted to stay in the hotel until check out time at noon.  Greg and the others went to the zone conference which was on the other side of the hotel.  I took a leisurely shower and took my time getting ready.  Then I had to pull my suitcase and carry by backpack around the parking lot, down the street and into the church parking lot.  I was hot by the time I got there, but everything turned out OK.  I made it with plenty of time to spare.  I got to meet with the sisters who are very cute here in this zone.  We had a nice visit and all went well.  President ordered the same BBQ chicken pizza for lunch for the missionaries so I got a second piece of that.  We said goodbye to the missionaries and off we went to look for a hospital or clinic we could use here in Carmen.  Greg met a doctor and she took us to her clinic and a hospital.  He felt lucky to find somewhere to take care of the missionaries when they are sick.  I think Presdient was tired of babysitting us, so we drove to the airport here in Carmen.  We got to the airport 3 1/2 hours before our plane leaves.  I really love sitting in airports and waiting!!  WE found a little restaurant to eat in and the food was marginally OK.  We both survived and got home around 10 pm.  There wasn't a lot of traffic because everyone is still out and about for Easter which is Sunday.  This has been an extra long week - which I knew it would be!  I survived!!!

Swimming in the ocean (Gulf of Mexico.)

Found a shell with a little animal inside

Even Peg got in the water

Looking out of our window at our hotel

Ciudad del Carmen

Church with the Hyatt Place hotel in the background

Driving through Carmen looking for the hospital

This is a lagoon from the ocean - there are crocodiles in there

Interesting building.

Sad, sad news!  When we got home from our trip to Villahermosa
we found out our very nice guards were let go from the hotel.
The owner of this place is crazy.
We have really appreciated these guys and all of their help to us.
Goodbye Enrique and Pablo

Guards with Sister Sandberg

Enrique with David & Marilee Hacking

Enrique & Sister Sandberg.
Thank you guys!