John and Christine's Adventures: June 18th through June 24th

June 18^th through June 24^th: Monday I started cutting up veggies and getting a lot of the prep work done for a Chinese meal. I had promised all the secretaries at the temple that I would teach them how to cook some Chinese dishes. Mom took the missionaries shopping. Evelyn, Marta, Maggie and Brenda came and we prepared 3 dishes and 2 extra sauces for deep fried chicken. We also invited the Holmans and the Jensons over to help us eat everything we had cooked. I had a fun morning teaching about one of the things that I enjoy.

L to R Maggie, Marta, Evelyn, and Brenda.

Finishing up a batch of orange chicken.

We only had a little left over to send home with the secretaries.

In the afternoon, we did some more sewing on table runners and pillow covers. Sister George’s brother and sister and their spouses will be staying at Hotel Norman for the week.

New pillows. We had to buy some white fabric for the backs.

This is the last of the embroidered panels from Santiago Atitlan.

4 pillows from one huipil from our trip to Nebaj in 2016.

We took one of the table runners that we had not sewn together and made this pillow and the following 3 kind of blue ones.

Here is the back of the flower pillow.

The 3 pillows from the runner we never sewed together.

This runner is reversible and we did not put binding on it.

Here is the other side.

Tuesday we did the morning shift and mom then took Sister Holman and Sister Jenson to the good bye luncheon for Sister Ochoa. They leave this week. Elder Ochoa’s new assignment is in the missionary department and he needs to be there for the start of the new mission president’s seminar.

Luncheon for Sister Ochoa.

Sister Ochoa is second from the left, sitting down.

Wednesday we had presidency meeting and then I talked mom into finishing the sewing on the pillow covers I had cut out. The Holman’s friends, the Bergstroms, arrived and are also staying with us for a few days. Thursday we did the morning shift. Friday morning we got up early and drove to Santiago Sacatepecques and walked through their market. Mom wants to have an intervention for me. I bought 5 more huipiles. I love the fabrics and the hand woven designs. They are all so vibrant and different. It looks like this next week we will be making more pillows and table runners. On our way home we went by Antigua and bought some fabric to use on the backs of some of the pillows we will be making next week. If you see anything you like, let us know. We then hurried back for our afternoon shift.

The market in Santiago Sacatepéquez. The women can carry anything on their heads.

Mom with her plastic shopping bag.

I am negotiating with Luciana.

I bought 3 huipiles from her.

This one is from San Juan Sacatepéquez, which is just north of Guatemala City.

This one is from Tactic which is close to Coban.

This one is from Santiago Sacatepequez. The town where we were.

This huipil and the next one are from San Pedro Sacatepéquez, San Marcos.

We are going to visit this area by Xela during the closure that begins on the 1st of July.

Fabric we will use for the back of some of the pillows.

You can see El Agua today.

Saturday we went to the temple and did an endowment session. It was nice to be able to relax and not worry about anything. We did end up doing some training. Sunday we took the Jensons to the Mariscal stake conference. This is the stake where President and Sister Flohr live. They invited us to their house for dinner after the conference. Before the meeting started, I got with the stake presidency and gave them all a temple tie. They all immediately took off their ties and put on the temple tie. It was a great stake conference presided by Elder Pineda, a new area seventy. I really felt the Spirit and enjoyed bearing my testimony of our new prophet and the temple.

The choir practicing before the conference.

Click below to listen to the choir.
Choir practicing

They had 3 of these floral arrangements.

After the conference.

The Stake presidency. L to R 1st counselor Cortez, President Choy, me, 2nd counselor Ramirez. I gave them all a temple tie.

The Choir.

Dinner at the Flohrs was great and we enjoyed chatting and laughing with them and their family. We came home and had a nap and then talked with some of our kids. It was a great week and we feel so blessed to be here and to be having this opportunity to serve and experience this wonderful country.