May 4th through May 10th

 May 4^th through May 10^th: Monday, after mom went to

 physical therapy, we drove up into the mountains north of 

Oaxaca with the Penas, Rays and the Roesberrys.  

We drove to a restaurant that serves trout.   We knew 

of the restaurant from a previous visit about a year 

ago with the Allreds.  We had a great meal and sat 

around the table and talked for over 2 hours.  

Arriving at the restaurant, Buena Vista (Good View).

The fish tanks are right outside the back of the restaurant.

One of the fish tanks.

I used the timer on the camera to get this shot.

Ross did the honors this time and took the picture.

It is hard to see but in the valley between those two hills is Oaxaca.

Looking up the canyon from the restaurant.  It looks like rain.

We about had the place to ourselves, but it was a lot of fun and the trout was delicious. 

There was nothing left of mom's trout.

We of course celebrated mom's birthday again.  Brownie Bites from Sam's Club.

We decided we would all meet at 5:00pm and go to the movies.  We saw the new Avenger’s movie.  

After the movie we met some friends.

Tuesday and Wednesday nothing special happened.  Thursday one bus came from Cuautla, President Ziga’s stake.  They always bring a ton of family names.  Of the 1400 ordinances we did on Thursday, over 800 of them were their family names.  They stayed over for Friday and Saturday.  Friday, Elder De Hoyos and his wife, a son and daughter-in-law and a granddaughter came to do some family names.  They wanted to do all of the ordinances in one day.  Elder De Hoyos is the Area President.  I got their names printed and his granddaughter and a young man from his stake did the baptism.  Elder De Hoyos and his son were the witnesses and did the confirmations.  Then they took all the names to initiatory and the two men did the men names and the two women did the women names.  We then got the help of his stake and all of his family cards got on the session. At the end of the session, President Atkinson asked me to do the sealings.  What an honor to spend an hour with just President De Hoyos, his wife, his son, his daughter-in-law and two young men serving as the witnesses.  I have to say it was one of the most spiritual sealing sessions I have ever been in.   Mom also joined us for the sealings.  It was the highlight of the week for me.  I can get somewhat emotional doing sealings no matter who it is, but Friday it was especially tender and I needed many, many tissues.  I don’t think I will ever have that kind of an experience again, where I get to officiate for the sealings of family names of a general authority of the church.  It was indeed a great honor for me. During lunch one of the sisters, who is a worker in the temple, knocked on the door of our apartment.  She had some roses for Sister Atkinson, but they were not home.  She had been downtown getting the roses and someone reached up and pulled her earrings off.  They tore one of her earlobes and mom decided she needed stitches. I ran over to the temple and sent the secretary, Laure Perez, to our house in her car so she could drive Chris and this sister to the hospital.  It is so sad that this kind of thing happens.  She needed 16 stitches and will need some plastic surgery on Monday.  Friday evening we played some cards with the Rays and the Roesberrys.  Saturday we said goodbye to the group from Cuautla and with no groups for the afternoon the temple closed about 2:00pm.  We got together at our apartment and set up the projector for a movie night.  We rented “Captain Phillps”.  We made popcorn and moved all the furniture so we all had soft seats.  Sunday we had a lazy morning and went to church at the Fortin Ward and then had leftovers (great mother’s day meal), but mom did not need to cook.  We got to talk to all of our kids and wish our daughters and daughter-in-laws happy mother’s day.  It was a great week.  They seem to be going by really fast.  We count ourselves lucky and blessed to be able to serve and although it is a sacrifice to be away from family, we receive many blessings and have spiritual experiences that we would not have if we were not serving.  

They are starting to plaster the outside walls.  I checked very carefully and the scaffolding is OSHA approved.