March 20th through March 26th

 March 20^th through March 26^th: Monday after shopping we went to a birthday party for Sister Rosales.  It was a lot of fun to celebrate with all the other temple missionaries.  We are blessed to serve with such devoted and all-around great people.  We have truly made eternal friends. 

President Rosales took pictures of all the couples at Zenia's birthday party.

They served lunch at her party.

The wind actually blew the candles out.

Those smiles are not fake, we really are happy.

Tuesday we had presidency meeting and then did the afternoon shift.  The Elder and Sister Call who are serving in the Coban Mission and assigned to Rabinal came to the temple and are staying with us for 2 nights.  Wednesday we went to paint class and then went to lunch with the Call’s and afterwards went to Beauty and the Beast.  

Mom's new picture week 2.

This is Ellie, my oldest granddaughter.  Week 3

Wednesday afternoon's diversion.

We then played a game of Up and Down and Sets and Runs.  It was fun to spend some time with them.  Elder Call is the Branch President and also supervises a small group in another town.  They are on their own and I know how important it is to get your batteries recharged.  I hope we helped them.  Friday afternoon during our shift we had a group of women come from the Milagro stake and they had about 20 women who were not endowed and so I went over to the Nursery and spoke to them and then we had about 70 women from the Monserrat stake come at 6:30pm.  Mom spoke to them and we ended up filling two sessions for them and finished up about 10:30pm.  It was a great day, long but great.  Saturday I did some painting and talked to the kids.  I started a painting a few weeks ago of my granddaughter Ellie and my wife explained that if I do one of them I had better be prepared to do them all.  So I have asked some of my children to send me pictures of their kids about the time they were baptized.  That way they all will be painted at about the same age.  I only have 6 that have been baptized, so I will have to get them done and then do the others as they turn eight. It is the first time I have tried to paint a living person that everyone knows.  I hope I have not made a serious mistake by taking this on.  We went to a ward activity where everyone brought a food from a foreign country where they had lived.  We took pot stickers to represent China.  

Ward activity Saturday afternoon.

Lots of interesting food from different countries.

The food was great and all our pot stickers got eaten.

The ward had requested photos from the different places we had served or visited.  They then showed a slide-show and it was fun to see the many different countries people had visited.  We came home and mom watched the women’s conference and I got to watch some March Madness.  Sunday we went and spoke at the Lo de Coy ward.  About 4 weeks ago, we missed a fireside that I had agreed to speak at and this was a second chance to redeem.  At the time, we were training in the temple and when I accepted the speaking engagement weeks before for the fireside; neither the recorder nor I got it on the calendar.  I felt really bad and hope that we did a good job in the sacrament meeting.  Sunday afternoon we trained a group of stake leaders from the Bosques de San Nicolas stake.  The weeks are flying by and in two weeks Ginny and her family will be here to visit for Easter and we are so looking forward to seeing some grandkids.  Chris has been buying toys for the girls and plastic eggs for Easter and getting everything ready for their visit.  Life is so good and we are so happy to be able to serve the good people of Guatemala.  Our lives are much richer for this experience.  We are so blessed.