p-day to Cuernavaca Cortes

We drove to Cuernavaca to the Hacienda Vista Hermosa of Hernan Cortes.  In 1527 the hacienda was begun and today is a hotel resort and restaurant.  Many people have meetings and weddings there.  

This philodendron had huge leaves.  I remember when we had a green house in Tremonton and had a philodendron growing there.  Someone came and said that in Mexico these plants grown with leaves 2 feet long.  Well here it is.  

The black swans made it seem like a fairy tale castle.

This meal stone was huge.

We went inside what used to be an enormous storage building for sugar cane and possible corn and other produce.  It had beautiful arches which I am sure have been restored.  

This was one of many coachs on display that would have been used in days gone by.  

As we went deeper into the building we say that they had turned it into rooms for a hotel and a restaurant.  This was part of a kitchen.  They have a wonderful, famous brunch, but we arrived to late and so just had a dinner.  I love that chandelier.

Elder Packard enjoying a tasty fruit drink of mint, lemon and some other fruit.  I liked the way they served the guacamole and chips.  

The group.  The Calls, the Packards and us.

We toured the buildings.  This is reminiscence of an old Mexican kitchen.  Those are small tea cups that form design on the wall.  Frieda Kahlo also had this style of kitchen.  

Always lots of tile work 

These chair and benches are typical of the Spanish influence.  We have similar sofas and chairs in all the casas here are the CCM.

Children playing int he pool. It is probably a little different than when Cortes was there.

This pool has an aqueduct type structure separating the two pools

Beautiful grounds.

That is a big bird cadge with colorful Mexican parrots in it.  

On the grounds of the hacienda

January 6 2016 day of the kings and "Polys"

January 6th here in Mexico is the "Dia de los Santos Reyes" of day of the Holy Kings.  The night before the children leave their shoes out and supposedly the three wise men or three kings come and leave gifts int heir shoes.  We celebrate as does the rest of Mexico by having a very large ring or crown of bread called a "Rosca de Reyes".  Hermano Cachillo,Carlos Zapata and Dr. Montoya

Baked inside the bread are little white plastic figurines of Joseph, Mary, Jesus, and the three wise men.  Each person cuts their only slice of bread and who ever gets the baby Jesus has to provide tamales for a party in February.  (Supposedly)

I really like Maggie.  She works at the reception desk  in the Joseph Smith Building

Hermana Torres

Mary Carmen is also a favorite employee of mine.  I wish she could find the right man and marry him.  She is dating a man here who is a teacher on campus.  

We seem to have a fair amount of island missionaries.  The sister in the middle is from Hawaii.  The sister wearing red plaid is Tongan.  The one next to her is from a royal line. This group of "polys" as they call themselves auditioned for a musical number and sang "When There's Love at Home."  They ask and permission was granted that they sing could sing the second verse in Tongan.  All the musical numbers have to be sung in Spanish.  

missions are not always easy/progress vs. perfectionism

Last week was a little tricky. In one day I saw three hermanans who were having  difficulties. It began when two elders were asking for the doctor. I knew Dennis was headed out to teach his health class so I  told them to have the brother in reception call the doctor.  In the meantime  Sister Call and I headed up to see the hermana who had collapsed and was crying in front of her classroom. Her teacher said she was an excellent student and had no problems.  He didn't know why she would be breaking down at that point.  We took her in the golf cart to the clinic where she again collapsed before we could get her to to the bed.  As it turns out she is a perfectionist and feels like she has to do everything perfect.  If she falls short of that or things are not in her control it really wears on her physically and mentally.  That was the case this time. She was struggling to keep up on all the language learning and the conditions at home with her family.  She was also distressed that her sister who was pregnant  but not married had an abortion. She wanted to let the child be born.
Then there was the dear hermana who keeps fainting for no reason that we can figure out.  We were first called to her classroom by her teacher.  This sister was on the floor having bumped her head after fainting.  She did this the next night also and a couple of times there after.  It drains everything out of her and leaves her shaking.  Dennis said her vegas nerve triggers a reaction that causes the vessels to open, the blood to drain and she falls to the floor.  We have sent her to the hospital and have had lab work done but can find no medical problem to pin this on.  Dennis told me that this happened to him as a young boy where he fell off a cliff and bumped his head.  Thereafter every time he tripped  or started to fall he fainted.  He told the sister she would have to grow out of it.  Dennis continued  to faint in certain situations even as an adult.  Unless this sister is somehow able to control the fainting she will not be able to serve.  She is weak and has to be supported by her companion as they walk.  We never know when she is going to faint.  She is very subject to fainting when having injections or giving blood.  When we sent her to the lab for blood work we prepared her to lay down or do what ever she could so as to faint easy and not fall to the floor or bump her head.  Amazingly she did not faint.  When she came back from the lab I was going to take her home in the golf cart as she was so weak.  As we were just standing there with keys in hand and ready to go she fell to the floor after fainting.  Thus  dear sister wants to serve  a mission and I surely hope she can.

Later that day we had another call.  A teacher asked if two hermanas were in the clinic because they were not in the classroom.  Dennis and I went to their casa.  I went in and talked to herman "A" who was laying in bed crying while her companion read the scriptures to her.  She said she just couldn't keep up with the Spanish coming at her day after day.  She was crying and not able to focus.  She had decided to go back to her casa and take a little time to sleep and pull herself together.
After these three incidents in one day we had a lesson on mental health and particularly perfectionism in the senior couples FHE that night by our mental health professionals at the CCM.  Their main point was to strive for progression and no perfection and in everything we do communicate that to the missionaries.  Progress not perfectionism that is the goal.  Perfectionism make you feel awful and that is what Satan wants.  He wants you to feel awful, like you want to quit and go home.  Then he would have won the battle with that individual.

FHE with senior couples at temple square

We took the opportunity to go to the Mexico City Temple for a senior couples FHE.  I had seen the lights in the day but it was impressive at night.

I snapped this one with Dennis inside.  Later as we came out and and were standing there at the end of the ramp towards the entry to the building someone threw a firework/bomb from the street, which is close and it landed just over the railing right next to use.  The sound was very loud and the casing of the bomb was flying down from the roof so that I thought it was a bomb that hit the roof.  Later I could see that the bomb hit the window and explode up in the air.

This was a very interesting shadow picture on the wall in the visitor center.  It shows the Christus statue projecting a shadow of Christ reaching through the clouds of the heavens reaching down to the people on the earth...or a least that is what I imagined it to be,.  I am sure that the people who designed this rotunda at the visitors center planned it this way.  Very nice.  

FHE Group ... Stan and Janet Call, Doranellie Torrez (James wasn't feeling well), Me and Dennis and Jody and Bruce Packard

Christmas Day

Christmas Day turned out to be very busy for the missionaries.  They finished the blanket/hygiene kit service project on  Christmas morning.  It was so nice to see the North Americans working with the Latinos.  They they all went to the computers and called home.  It was our job to help them, but when we went to test out the computers the night before it was a little discouraging to see how many were not functioning.  As it turned out Dennis and the Packard's  have CCM issued phones so they gave their phone to missionaries who could not get connected with the computers.  I ended up giving my personal phone to a sister who was in tears because she could not hear her parents or they could not hear her using the computers.  She used 30 of my minutes for December. It was a fairly emotional time to watch these missionaries call home.  Both elders and hermanas cried.  The saddest one was an elder who called all the numbers he knew and no one answered.  I don't know, but I suspect that he had not communicated the time of the call to his parents.  Sister Packard gave him her phone later in the day and he was able to call home, but he was certainly distraught at in the morning when everyone else was calling and he couldn't reach his family.

The sister in the front with the white dress ended up using my phone because she couldn't get a good connection on her computer.  

The cafeteria staff went out of their way to put on two special dinners.  One was at lunch and the other was at the evening meal, cena.  These elders are eating either ham or turkey, with a flan/chocolate cake type dessert.  They also served a cream of almond soup at dinner which is a specialty soup but I am no sure our missionaries appreciated it.  They had a choice of a Mexican pop or a can of root beer.

I was so pleased with our missionaries who voluntarily went up to the front of the room and sang songs to the staff as a thank you for spending their Christmas day cooking for the missionaries instead of being home with their families.  Earlier it had been decided that the senior couples would cook for the missionaries.  Wow that would have been a disaster.  I really appreciated them coming also.  Below is a picture of the missionaries singing.  Above is a picture of the staff recording them.  

We watched several devotionals and videos on Christmas day.  First was the church produced video called, The Testaments.  It is the story of Christ's birth and life.  We also watched a live devotional from the MTC in Provo with Elder Bednar and his wife speaking.  They loved watching the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas program from 4 years ago with David Archuleta.  In the evening we watched a production called The Light of the Nations.  (La Luz de las Naciones) It is a production put on by the Latino community in at the Conference Center in Salt Lake.  It talks about all the different countries that have a tradition of a Great White God.  There was a lot of singing and dancing in the program.  At that DVD, the last of the night, the cafeteria staff had prepared popcorn in Christmas bags and had soda for the missionaries as they watched it.  

As the sun was setting we took this photo

This is the first full moon on Christmas in 40 years.  

I have enjoyed the Christmas decor here on the main plaza

The sun sets on the CCM on Christmas Day

blanket project continues

Sister Wilde (the shorter sister is a great pianist and was very helpful)  Sister Martineau is from Tremonton and also played the piano for devotionals on occasion.  They are both very dear Hermanas and will be great missionaries.  They wrote me a note of encouragement one time and left it under my door mat.  I appreciated it.

We seem to have a fair amount of Polynesian missionaries come to the CCM.  This sister is one of about ten here right now.  This Sunday they will sing "Love at Home" and one of our devotionals.  It sounds wonderful.  I was so glad they auditioned and I could get them in before one of them left.  They will sing the first and third verse in Spanish and the middle verse in Tongan.  

The blanket service project yielded about 1000 blankets that we are giving to a government agency for aged people.  We also put together 500 hygiene kits on Christmas day..

I like Elder Gummow sitting by himself on the left, as well as his companion across from him.  He is a wonderful pianist.  I heard him talking with his district of elders and he mentioned that he never played video games.  I entered the conversation to point out that he played the piano instead.  In fact he played up to at least 4 hours a day (because he loved it so much).  Video games vs piano?  Hum? He will do well in life because of that choice.

Wax museum on P-Day

We went downtown and to a wax museum for a p-day activity

Diego Rivera

Dennis wanted this of the bull fighter

Frieda Kahlo wife of Diego Rivera

a pretty realistic representation of the suffering Christ

This was the trip on the subway when Dennis' wallet was stolen from his front pocket,  a lesson learned.  We also went to a cafe for grandparents for lunch it was called La Casa de los Abuelos

A very old Mexico City Library..the outside plaza is now covered.

A chocolate museum which really turned out to just be a chocolate store

A monument between the artists markets where I bought two nativity sets and the library. 

Carlos Slim the 1st or 2nd most financially wealthy man in the world depending on the year the rating was taken.

Benito Juarez (the Abraham Lincoln of Mexico).  I think he is a Mulekite by descent.  The Benemerito School was named after him.