August 1st through August 7th

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  August 1^st through August 7^th: Monday we did our shopping with all the missionaries and had Family Home Evening at our house in the evening.  

Family Home Evening

Family Home Evening

Tuesday we had the morning shift and then went to dinner with the Reed’s and the Hill’s to celebrate our anniversary.  Tomorrow, August 3^rd is our anniversary (Number 43), but we will be on shift in the evening so we decided to celebrate on the 2^nd.  Brother Reed is the DTA, Director of Temporal Affairs, for the church in Central America.  He is a church employee and he and his wife have been here about 6 years.  He also serves in the Bishopric of our ward.  They are a great source of information.  Elder Hill and his wife are senior missionaries.  He serves as the Executive Secretary to the Area Presidency and she works in the office that gets all the paperwork for the missionaries called from Central America ready and complete before they are sent to church headquarters in Salt Lake City.  We had a wonderful evening with great conversation and enjoyed spending the evening with these great people.  

Anniversary Dinner with the Reeds on the left and the Hills in the middle.  Our first picture taken with a selfie stick.  Now I want one of my own.  We used Sister Reed's.

Wednesday we had presidency meeting in the morning and then we had the evening shift.  Thursday we decided to take the North American missionaries to visit the Cerrito de Carmen, Carmen’s little hill.  There is an old church on top of a hill in the middle of the city.  On our way there we were stopped in traffic in the middle lane and a big truck went around us on the right and side-swiped us.  I was a little shook up and it took me a minute to figure out what to do.  I first called Brother Rodriguez who is the Area Security Specialist.  I told him what had happened and explained that I had gotten in front of the truck and could make him stop.  He told me to wait till I got to an intersection where there was a policeman.  I stopped at the intersection even though the policeman was waving me through.  I told him the truck behind me had hit us and didn’t stop.  He stopped all the traffic and moved us off the main road onto a side street.  First he took my driver’s license and the license of the truck driver.  I called back Brother Rodriguez and gave the phone to the policeman and he explained to Brother Rodriguez where we were and Brother Rodriguez then told me he would be right there.  The truck had hit the back right corner of the car with his tire as he went around us.  Even though it felt like he had hit us hard, the damage was minimal, but we had to wait for an insurance adjuster to arrive and take pictures.    So after about an hour, we were on the road again.  

Getting the car checked out.

I was kind of glad this had happened so that if I ever had another accident I now knew what to do.  We visited the church which was originally built in 1620.  It was destroyed by different earthquakes and rebuilt a number of times.  

Cerrito del Carmen, Carmen's little hill.

Cerrito del Carmen 

Our little band of merry men, North American temple missionaries, L to R, Elder and Sister Price, Elder and Sister May, Sister and Elder Hurst and mom.

Inside the church.

The alter.

I want this door except that it is only about 5 feet tall.

This is another cool carved door at the church.

Panorama view at the church.

Looking out over part of the city.

Same picture only a panorama view.

We could see a number of catholic churches. 

On the way home we stopped and had lunch at Applebee’s.  They have the best hamburger I have found.  

Lunch at Applebee's after our visit to Cerrito del Carmen.

We should have had the day off at the temple, but we switched with President Funes so we could have Friday off in order to attend the zone conference for North American senior missionaries.  So we had the evening shift again.  Friday we took all the North American missionaries to zone conference.  I was informed by Elder Hill that Elder Alonzo wanted me to talk for a few minutes about the temple.  Two couples that will be leaving soon shared some experiences and their testimonies.  I then spoke and then we listened to Elder Alonzo.  It was a very nice meeting and then they fed us.  

Senior missionary zone conference.

We got back just in time for Elder Hurst to go straight to the temple for his early shift at the recommend desk.  In the afternoon, I had a meeting with a church auditor for him to give me a review of his audit.  While I was doing that, mom went to a session.  Saturday Mom went over to the temple at 9:00am and met with a group of young women from the ward that Sister Guarcax, one of our temple workers, lives in. 

The group of young women, who came with Sister Guarcax, to visit the temple.

I went over early and did some initiatory and then we had the afternoon shift.  Sunday we went to our church and then in the afternoon I cooked a big pot of sweet and sour chicken for our monthly “Break the Fast” dinner with all the North American missionaries at the area office.  It was a nice get together.  It was a wonderful week.  Some days are long and we are tired at the end of the day, but the weeks fly by.  Every day we express our gratitude to our Father in Heaven for this opportunity to serve in the House of the Lord.  We are so blessed and feel the tender mercies of the Lord on a daily basis.