John and Christine's Adventures: October 17th through October 23rd

October 17^th through October 23^rd: Thursday, October 20^th, is a public holiday in Guatemala, celebrating Revolution Day, when the harsh dictator, Jorge Ubico, was overthrown by peaceful demonstrations 1n 1944. The temple was only open in the morning, but we were very busy and had a session every 30 minutes and many baptisms and sealings. When we finished, we took all the missionaries to the zoo. It was our first time to visit the zoo, because it is closed on Mondays, our P-Day. We were pleasantly surprised with the size and how nice everything was. We walked around for about 3 hours.

Zoo trip, L to R, Elder and Sister May, Brother and Sister Reyna, Elder and Sister Price, Elder and Sister Winkfield, Sister and Elder Frampton, Area Medical Advisor, Sister and Elder Hurst, and President and Sister Funes.

Don't try and find the animal--this is just a picture of some interesting flowers.

I still need a selfie stick.

Friday morning we took the missionaries to the Area Office for a Zone Conference with Elder and Sister Duncan. We also heard from the missionaries that will be leaving before the next zone conference in January. We traded with President Funes and worked their evening shift so that we could leave Saturday morning for another conference in Coban. Saturday morning we loaded up the car and with Elder and Sister May we headed to Coban. We stopped just outside of Tactic at a cute little restaurant called La Granja, the farm. We enjoyed the interesting décor and a nice meal. Arriving in Coban about an hour and a half before we needed to be at our first meeting, we checked into La Posada, our hotel. I wanted to be early so I started to change my clothes only to find out I had no suit pants. When we were loading up, Chris came out of the bedroom holding all our clothes that needed to be hung up in the car. She had packed up my things and covered them in a plastic bag. I could see my suit coat and two white shirts. I did not check to see if my pants were on the hanger under my suit coat. You might remember that in June we went to Coban to meet up with President Curtis to go with them into the Polochic and Chris had forgotten to pack her Sunday clothes. There must be something about Coban that affects her memory or she just wanted to go to Megapaca again. When Chris forgot her clothes, she went to Megapaca in Coban and bought 2 skirts and 2 tops for about ten dollars. Megapaca is like a enormous Deseret Industries/Good Will store. A paca is a huge bale of used clothing. So we hurried and went to Megapaca to try and find a blue pair of slacks that would kind of match my suit coat. Amazingly, I quickly found a pair that would work and they cost four dollars and fifty cents. We hurried back to the hotel to get ready. We arrived at the conference on time and since I would be behind the podium while speaking, no one would notice the mismatched suit coat and pants. I spoke in the first meeting and then we had the adult session and mom and I both had the opportunity to speak. They were both very good meetings and we enjoyed the spirit of the conference. Since we had been to the stake conference last March, we knew many of the leaders and felt very comfortable and welcome. Elder Camay, an area seventy, presided and he was very generous with the time he assigned to us to speak. Before the first meeting started, he asked me to speak about the two sides of temple work, work for the living and work for the dead. So I only had to figure out 2 other talks, one for the other meeting on Saturday and one for Sunday. After the meeting ended we went to the grocery store to buy some snacks so we would not have to stop on the way home. We got back to the hotel about 9:30pm.

Sister May and Mom at the restaurant, La Granja.

Lunch was great. We all had cream of carrot soup as a starter.

Sunday morning we went to the stake conference and felt the Spirit so strong and we were uplifted and energized. Both of our talks went well and we felt blessed to have been able to teach and testify to the saints in Coban. After the conference, the stake president invited us to his office and they served us a potato salad with apples and a hoggie sandwich. It was not on my diet, but I did not want to offend them and we had a four hour drive ahead of us. We arrived home about 4:30pm and went over to the temple where a training session for Saturday workers was still underway. We then called all our children and enjoyed seeing and speaking with them. Everyone is doing well. Kate moved into a new home over the weekend, James is getting accustomed to his new job as General Manager of Ken Garff Nissan in Orem and announced that they are going to build a new home in American Fork. We are so blessed and thankful for our many blessings. This calling is blessing and enriches our lives in ways beyond what we could have imagined. We invite all who read this blog to make the temple a more important part of your life.