the fam

the fam

Monday, September 30, 2013

September 2013


new missionaries and trainers for September



Our Salientes for September.  We are really going to miss these young men!
Elder Mendez, Elder Lopez, Elder Heredia, Elder Pantoja and Elder Echevarria



I'm sure Elder Lopez is a little bit sad to leave the mission...


Elder Turley and Elder Gay... best friends and companions


Sister Solano, Sister Lopez and Sister Cassiani 


Elder Contreras, Elder Turley and Elder Gay... our Assistants


Sister Solano goes home.  We will miss her greatly!





The Elders and Sisters are always so good to clean up after our meetings


A shoe shining activity and practice??



Sunday, September 29, 2013

Tom and Marilyn Visit

Robert's sister, Marilyn and her husband, Tom, came to visit us in September, and of course we had to take them to visit all the sites.  Tom actually served his mission here in Mexico and he and Marilyn have visited many times with their family, but it was fun to show them around the mission and the fun things here.  We also visited with some of the members in Ignacio Mejia Branch.  We attended their District Conference on Sunday and visited with some of the members Saturday night.


One of our favorite places is Cacaxtla, which is actually in the North Mission.  It's a huge pyramid that you can walk around on the top of and their are many paintings and really interesting things to see.


This is one of those interesting things... We had never seen this here before and one of the guards told us that it had been found at another site and brought here.  They think it might have been a hoop that was used in their games that they played hundreds of years ago.


This one interested me... we heard this cat meowing and it came over and was so happy to have someone pet him!  He stayed snuggled up in my arms for several minutes before getting down to wander.



This is one of the paintings inside the Pyramid.  


While we were in Cholula, we decided to try and find a picture that we had heard about. We found it in the Center inside one of the buildings. It's a painting that depicts a white man among the people of this land many years ago.





Another of our favorite places is Huaquechula.  There is an old monastery there, but it was closed by the time we got there.  But it was fun to at least see it and visit the park across from it.  This is a Catholic Church across from the monastery.


This is a large piece of rock that has a carving of a snake on it.  It sits in the park.


We stopped by the Nursery in Atlixco to just look around.  It's one of our favorites.



Of course, all of our friends and family who come to visit are treated to snacks and ping pong at the Lopez home.  They are quite accomplished ping pong players.


What they didn't know is that Tom got to be very good at ping pong while he and Marilyn were serving as Missionaries in the Young Single Adults ward during their mission in El Paso.  He was a pretty good match for the Lopez ping pong skills...


Church in Ignacio Mejia


One night we went up to our roof to get pictures of this beautiful sunset surrounding Popo.
It never ceases to amaze us...

We had such a fun time with Tom and Marilyn.  They told us that they are hoping to apply to serve another mission for the Church and hope to request to come to Puebla.  We are so excited for the possibility of serving with them here.  It is, after all, the best Mission in the world!