Our Trip Through Another Part of El Salvador

Dear Family and Friends, We have seen another part of this beautiful country. This time we went through the dairy country. We saw holstein and brauma cattle. The herds were usually 20 to 30 cattle. We were in the sugar cane area also. There are huge plantations of sugar cane and even John Deer tractors and plows. The plantations were guarded by guards in guard houses. The plantation owners homes were huge and very beautiful with the workers living in small homes with outside fires to cook on. There is a big difference between rich and poor. On our way to the beach, we went through a section that had real damage from the flooding earlier this year. The first picture is the railroad tracks. You can see the two lines of the tracks with nothing at all under them. It is amazing that the tracks stayed there as the rest of the earth was swept away. The coconut are being harvested now, picture two, and the sugar cane. It is a sugar cane field behind the truck. The workers use their machetes to cut the stocks, put them in bundles and load them on big trucks to go to the factory. The coconut harvesters climb up the trees barefoot, tie a rope around the bundle, cut the bundle from the tree and lower them to the ground. The house we went to was very nice, 5 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms. Picture 3 A member of our ward owns the house. We were celebrating the 25th wedding anniversary of Pres and sis Lopez, our stake president and the temple recorder. Picture 4 shows the ocean with Sister Lopez, Trent Kitley, Pres Lopez, Bishop Mendez (not our bishop but another recorder at the Temple) and me. We should be feeling guilty enjoying all this warm weather while so many of you are freezing at home, but that is one thing that we sure are not missing!! especially the cold wind!!! The temple was full to overflowing on Friday and Saturday. The saints from Honduras came in buses. They have about an 8 hour ride, depending on how long they are stuck at the boarder, this group had a 3 hour wait. Their Temple will be finished next year so they won't have to come so far anymore. We will be glad for them but will miss their sweet spirit here. We had 40 come to the temple for the first time Which really kept our little temple hopping. We hope you are all enjoying the Christmas season with all its sounds, smells, and excitement. We can't believe it is almost here, time sure goes fast for us. We send our love to all Lon and Nancy

Christmas Decorations and Performances

We Have Three Days in our Week, Sunday, Monday and Temple

     Especially on the AM shift, that is how we feel. And we play so hard on Sunday and Monday that we start the week out tired. I guess My Heavenly Father knew how hard this Christmas was going to be without our kids and grandkids. We have never not had at least one of the kids with us for the holidays and Jaikka has never had Christmas with out us. Anyway, our stake choir is putting on a Devotional on the 18th and Lon and I were asked to sing. Well, he was ok with it until they passed out the Hallelujah Chorus from the Messiah. Lon decided to be our photographer instead. We have had two practices a week for 2 to 3 hours each time. On Sat night, we sang for 30 minutes in front of the Temple and on Sunday we left the Temple grounds in the big yellow school bus for the Salvador del Mundo park to sing

      It was the government's Christmas party to start the Christmas season. We were the only group to sing or say anything about our Savior. We sang only Christmas carols from the hymn book so Lon sang with us. It was fun. I have been asked to sing "O holy Night" with a violin and piano and two aires from the Messiah, O Thou That Tellest Good Tidings, and He Shall Feed His Flock. Boy. am I in over my head. Luckily, Hallelujah is the same in Spanish and English so I have very few words to learn in Spanish for that one. O Holy Night, I am singing one verse in Spanish and the next in English and the two aires from the Messiah are only in English. Lon is such a big support. He tags along for all the practices cause he is my companion. It makes for long Sat and Sundays for us.

 

     Lon and I are singing a duet on Sunday, the 11th, then the choir is singing for the Temple Worker's Devotional at 4:00 then practicing again. The weeks just fly by for us. We do look forward to sleeping in tomorrow morning. If I don't have to set an alarm I feel much more rested to get up naturally. It is school break here, no school til the middle of January, like our summer break at home, and the people are on vacation with their kids so the Temple has been very slow. We read that the temperature in Jerome was 4, burrrr, and we still are in shirt sleeves, in fact today we spent the day at the beach. I'll fill you in on that trip next week. We hope you are enjoying the music, the lights, the smells of the Christmas season without all the hustle and bustle. We send our love to all Lon and Nancy