November 3, 2013

We hope all of you had a Happy Halloween. It was so fun to see pictures of our grandkids in their costumes. This was probable the first Halloween we've ever missed.  We were interested how it was celebrated down here. There were Halloween decorations in the stores and the most dressing up we saw on Halloween was at the CCM. However, on November 1 it is a holiday here. They call it "The Day of The Dead." We heard that they honor their dead on that day. For some of the people their way to honor the dead was to attend the Temple.
We are still enjoying the beautiful flowers here. On our walk we've recently seen a poinsettia plant in bloom in someone's yard. The top picture is of the flowers in our front yard. What flower does it remind you of that we grow in our yard in the summer? My spelling of that flower is incorrect, so send your thoughts to us. Someone will spell it correctly for me.
The next two pictures are of the busses that came to the Temple on Saturday. We think they had about a three hour bus ride to get here. There were over 200 young people that did baptisms on Saturday. They divided into groups of about 25. Some did indexing at the Family History Center in a building adjacent to the Temple. Others did Family Search at the CCM. They rotated through all three areas. They brought enough adult support to help at each place.
A couple from Canada, the Brinton's, completed their mission this past week and returned home. They will be missed so much, they have helped many couples get their feet on the ground here. We are some of the ones that will notice an empty spot.
A new group of missionaries arrived again this past week. There were 93. That is a little larger group than we have had for a while. It still amazes us how much Spanish they learn in just a few days. Of course, they seem to study all day. On Saturday we saw a group of the missionaries cleaning up the outside grounds of the CCM. We thought how good it might feel to them to have that little change of schedule. One could describe the CCM as a Spiritual Prison, not in a negative though. It is designed to keep the world out and the good in. For the North Americans, 6 weeks can get pretty long. They are anxious to get out into the field and serve.
Love to all,