Happy Thanksgiving

     First of all we want to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving. We celebrated ours on Monday with the Temple missionaries and the Temple Presidency and even had two of Pres Majano's grandchildren. We had a feast of a king. I opted to eat very little potatoes and turkey so I could concentrate on the desserts. Unfortunately, my stomach didn't feel too good at the end of the day. I was fed my turkey dinner Tuesday after the Temple with leftovers which was very good. Next time I will eat dinner then the dessert two hours later. Sister Petersen wanted to make this Thanksgiving very special for us, from the table setting to the name tags, even had Indian head dresses for the men with Pilgram hats for the women. It was a very special day that we will cherish always.

     Now for the more important (interesting) news happening, I went GOLFING. It was a very enjoyable day even though we were only able to play nine holes. It is a very beautiful golf course. I did not score well, but there was a reason why I didn't other than my ability. Down here you have to hire a caddie. And the caddie carries the score card and marks your ball, and knows all the rules. Therefore, there was no foot wedges and no mulligans because all caddies look out for their players. Therefore I had 4 double boogies, 4 boogies, and one par. But I did not go out of bounds. We had to rent clubs. I went with Trent Kitley and Eric Behner. Eric is the club member and without him you will not golf down here. Luckily we found him. He is married to a member in our ward, even though he is not a member. He is like Jim J. a super great guy, but doesn't golf as good as Jim. It is not a poor mans game down here. It costs $22.00 just to go through the gate, $12.00 for club rental, $15.00 for the caddie, $50.00 to golf one hole or 18, and then you are expected to buy the caddies a sandwich and a drink. If you were in Vegas or Sun Valley or Hawaii that would be cheap. Therefore we will probably only golf once a month. The grass down here is quack grass and so the ball doesn't go into thick grass and it is easy to hit off the fairways. The greens are very nice and the fairways are about like the Muni in Twin Falls. The view is gorgeous as you will see in the pictures I am sending. I wish now that I would have brought my clubs but Eric has the same driver that I have and I put some clubs together at the club house which worked well. They even have hybrids. One good thing is while you are in snow Dec, Jan and Feb and part of March, we will be golfing early to get away from the heat. The golf course is by Lake Ilopango, where we went last month on our trip to San Sebastian. It is about 45 minutes away. It is interesting to watch them mow the course with hand lawn mowers, not even self propelled ones and trim with machetes. And the course is very well kept. You will notice the big canal down the middle of the course, in some rainy seasons the course is flooded and so they put in the canal to keep the course from flooding and it runs into the lake. I promise next time I go golfing my score will be better as I am taking a pencil with an eraser. And it may cost an extra $20.00 to my caddie but my score will improve. I miss golfing with Gene, Kurt, Ken, Jim, Al, Deloy and especially Larry in Buhl. Again we want to wish each of you a Happy Thanksgiving. We are truely blessed to live in America and we all need to count our blessings and give thanks to our Heavenly Father for all we have, even our trials, for they will make us better people. We send our love to all. Lon and Nancy

PS Go Broncos

Textiles Barahona

Last Monday we headed for the Craft Route of El Salvador. The internet told us of Ilobasco, the Ceramic center of the country, the producer of the famous miniature ceramics. It was a quaint town with shops all up and down the street selling ceramics of all kinds. We went to the factory and saw the kelms and wheels and ect of the production of the ceramics.  This picture is of the drying room.

 This is the the pottery we came home with. The little Christmas tree top comes up and the nativity is inside.

They have all kinds of things inside just about anything you can imagine. We spent a few hours there then headed to the Textile Factory in San Sebastian . "The craftsmanship of San Sebastian is only in El Salvador, you cannot find anything like it elsewhere and that is why loom work has become a way of life for many who live in this beautiful town. It is believed that it was the Spanish who introduced the treadle loom in this area, but certainly the people of San Sebastian has his own touch to the clothing they make."The internet had us real excited to see this factory. We drove up and down narrow streets looking for the factory. The picture below is of the front door of the "factory". We went into the front room, which is the sales room lined with shelves filled with beautiful table clothes, shawls, towels, hammocks. We went through the kitchen and out into the factory.

 Under the loofing sheds, with chickens and dogs running around, were the treadle looms.

It was so amazing and such a shock. These men work for two years with no pay to learn the art then work from 6 am to 6 pm for $4.00 a day. The foot pedals were like watching someone play the organ pedals. Each pedal was hooked to a different color of yarn. I can't even imagine how exhausting it would be to sit on the boards for 12 hours a day.

We each came away with a few treasures, We probably helped with a few months of wages. They made bedspreads with birds, tigers, even winnie the pooh! It was a great day, we didn't get home till after 7:00 and we saw the city for the first time in the dark. The driving was even more scarry in the dark. I don't think there is a tree anywhere that doesn't have a house behind it, There were lights all over the mountains. We are celebrating Thanksgiving next Monday here. The temple will be open as usual on Thursday. With all the warm temperatures and sunshine it is hard to believe that it is November. We send our love to all. We wish you a great Thanksgiving with lots of family around and plenty to eat. Remember to give thanks for all you have, because you really are blessed with so much more than others have.The Temple continues to be busy and the weeks just fly by for us. We are on the PM shift for a week and are looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow. We are happy to be here and enjoy the friendship of so many wonderful people here. May God Bless you in all you do. Love Lon and Nancy 

Sorry to be Late, but I Have Been Fighting With my Computer Again!

Dear Family and Friends, We went on a Mission Sightseeing trip on Monday and didn't get home till after 7:00. By the time we had supper and got lunches ready for Tuesday the day was gone and it was time to get to bed cause we are on the AM shift this week. Tuesday after our shift, I had another fight with my computer. I was trying to download pictures of our trip so I could send you some, but all I succeeded in doing was changing my screen saver to a picture that I was trying to discard. Oh such fun!!!! Lon wants to share with you some photos he took of our grounds keepers here at the Temple. These men work 6 days a week, 7 hours a day, and make $25.00 a week. They are working on the flower beds. They go outside the Temple grounds and fill up their wheel borrows with dirt haul them up the driveway to the flower beds. After the men with the red buckets sprinkle the fertilizer on the beds they put more dirt around the flowers. If we had the technology that we have at home, this would be no trouble at all, but these men would have no way to feed their families.

We went from too much rain, to sprinkling the grounds. We left our apartments at 9:00 on Monday and drove through the downtown area of San Salvador. I can see why they don't want us to go there to shop. I'm just a country girl and this city just boggles my mind. There are soooo many people here. The downtown was filled with shops and people so thick you couldn't even walk. We didn't get out of the car, just drove through and saw the Presidential Palace. And I have to admit the streets were very dirty. Here in the Temple compound, it is easy to forget that we are living in a third world country, but go a few blocks from home and it is apparent real quick. We went north east of the city to Lago de Ilopango. It was a volcano that erupted and is filled with water then the volcano erupted several more times to create the islands in the lake. The picture just doesn't do it justice. It was beautiful.  

All along the road was forest, I thought. As we were looking at the lake, I heard children. After a closer look, We could see the metal roofs of houses all along the trees. When we read that there was 850 people per square mile here, they were wrong. There is no way to count these people. There are houses everywhere, outside of the city they are all dirt floors with walls of corrugated metal. The smell of open fires is all over also cause that is how they cook. Once you leave the city, these missionaries say that nothing has changed since they were here 50 years ago. We traveled about 45 minutes from the city to the town of Ilobasco. It is famous for its miniature ceramics. We went to the ceramic workshop where they make the ceramics and walked the streets shopping in the little shops that line the main street. Then we went to San Sebastian where the Spanish introduced the treadle loom. We went right to the factory to see how the famous textiles are made. You won't believe this. But you will have to wait for a week. I'll get this computer to cough up my pictures, they are in there someplace. We had 25 young stripling worriers in the Temple today. The mission president is sending 25 young missionaries to the temple each day this week. What an inspiring sight. Lon and I sang with the Stake Choir on Sunday for Stake Conference. It was such fun. They are very good with excellent pianist and director. The music was fast, "Behold the Royal Army" so I really had to work on the words all week. They are starting to work on Christmas music for a fireside and invited us to sing with them again. This time they are practicing in our stake building right here in the Temple compound so we will be able to practice. I don't know if Lon is as excited as I am about it, but he is my companion so he will go with me. Thank you for your continued prayers in our behalf. We are healthy and able to keep up with the demands of our schedules because of you. We are so thrilled to be here and get to know these special children of our Heavenly Father, to be able to help them learn of Him in His Temple. We hope each of you will truly count your many blessings this Thanksgiving. We are a blessed nation and people. We have so much more than these people, we should be the happiest people on the earth. A quick question for all the cooks out there. There are some things that just are not found in the stores here. I would like to make the Chicken Pockets for a Sunday Dinner but there are no refrigerator Crescent rolls here. Can I use any roll recipe, pizza crust recipe, or bread recipe for them? I do not have a crescent roll recipe. Let me know what you think, and if you have a good crescent roll recipe please it. Lon thinks that this is a lot of work and we should just have hot dogs. Yuk. We love you Lon and Nancy