John and Christine's Adventures: January 3rd through January 10th

January 3^rd through January 10^th: After I posted last Sunday we went to the “Break the Fast” dinner at the area office. My tummy was still not doing well and we decided to postpone our trip to Tikal. Monday I spent the day real close to the white thrones we have in our house. Doctor Bill, aka Elder Province, got me some Cipro. Tuesday I decided I was well enough to venture out. The Hursts, the Wilsons, the Prices and the Normans went to Antigua. First thing everyone (except me) did was tour the chocolate factory and they learned how to make chocolate by first cooking the beans and then grinding them up and then mixing them with sugar and other ingredients.

Mom and her cocoa beans.

I did not want to be too far from my favorite camping chair. I did however walk around and take pictures of some of the beautiful doors in Antigua. I posted those a few days ago.

One of the buildings off the central plaza, Antigua.

The central plaza, Antigua.

A courtyard we walked by.

Three Amigos sitting on top of a VW bug.

The Merced church in Antigua.

Next, we had lunch at Pollo Campero and then walked to a textile museum. La Casa de Tejido is a cooperative of woman weavers. They had a demonstration of how the textiles are woven on a back-strap loom and displays of the different designs and colors from many of the surrounding villages.

The weaving demonstration.

I really didn’t understand that even today you can tell where a woman is from by what she is wearing. We did not get to see and do all the things that we wanted to do. We will defiantly be coming back to Antigua in the future. My stomach did pretty well, so we will try an overnighter tomorrow.

There are a number of buildings that partially fell down during an earthquake.

Trying to take a selfie in a mototaxi on cobblestone streets is hard.

Mom on the side walk in front of the municipal building off the main square.

John and Gina Wilson and Mom, main square, Antigua.

This little woman was trying to sell mom a necklace. Instead of buying something, we paid her to let us take her picture.

The cathedral of the main square.

I was only playing like I was taking mom's picture. Mom wanted a picture of the woman behind her.

The nativity set up in the church.

The volcano in the background is Fuego. (Fire)

Inside the church.

Another government building.

More sales women.

Wednesday we all loaded up again and drove to Lake Atitlan. We checked into Mario’s Rooms and then went and found Brother Garcia, a member of the church who has a boat. We rode across the lake and visited Santiago. We had lunch and walked around. Lots and lots of stalls selling the same thing.

Looking down onto Lake Atitlan. You can just see it on the far left side.

On a pull out before we got to Panajachel.

On the lake. Volcano San Pedro.

We had the launch to ourselves.

Volcano Tolimin.

Lunch in Santiago.

Lots of shops and stalls. Santiago.

It was market day in Santiago.

A beast of burden.

Walking back to the dock.

Many beautiful things to buy.

We then rode across the lake again to San Antonio. They make ceramics there. Mom found a few things she liked and so we are now the proud owners of some San Antonio de Palopo pottery.

San Antonio from the lake.

Painting one of the pots.

The kiln.

Getting things ready to ship.

San Antonio.

In front of the church in San Antonio.

Back to Panajachel.

This woman caught me taking her picture.

She is 75 and her friend is 13. I had to give them some money to take their picture. It was worth it.

Outside our hotel room.

Our hotel room.

Thursday we got up and headed for Chichicastenango. Chichi has a very famous market and had our GPS taken us to the right Chichicastenango, we would have gotten there in 1 1/2hours instead of the 2 ½ hours that it took us. I can’t trust Lola anymore. It was a real adventure. Chichi is a very indigenous village and we could hear the native language, Quiche, wherever we walked. We stopped and had lunch on the way home and arrived back at the temple about 5:30pm.

This guy came by while we were having breakfast and Elder Price had him clean his tennis shoes.

Saying good-bye to Lake Atitlan.

The church in Chichicastenango. Part Maya and part Catholic.

On the church steps.

From the church steps to the other church.

The market in Chichi.

We visited a small museum in Chichi.

A mural on the wall on the municipal building. That's a drunk behind Mom.

A serpent's head in the courtyard of the hotel in Chichi. It would be interesting to know what ruin it came from originally. But notice that there is a candle lit next to it and an offering

More flower sellers on the steps of the church.

The market in Chichi.

A fruit stand on the road out of Chichi. Those are not watermelon, they are a type of squash.

Friday everyone said they were too tired from traveling to do much. Sister Done brought over a bunch of supplies to make baby kits and we put assembled about 100 baby kits. Saturday I remembered that we had a stake conference this weekend, so we took a little drive to make sure we could find the stake center. We both spoke in the Saturday evening session. Sunday we went back to the La Laguna stake center for the general session and had the opportunity to speak again. We were with Elder Ocampo, an area seventy, and it was a very nice conference.