A Dream Come True

Anyone who knows us knows that we love animals... all kinds. Dogs, cats, birds, reptiles, fish, bunnies, turtles... we love 'em all! I don't remember the first time that I thought it would be my dream come true to hold and pet a tiger or lion, but I thought this dream would have to wait until after this life, when they will lay down in peace with the lamb. Well, today we got our chance to hold a real live tiger! True, it was only 3 months old, but it was a tiger! He was so cute! One of our assistants, Elder Gonzalez, wanted to go to this zoo for his last p-day that he had heard about in Tehuecan before he left the mission next week. We were all so excited to go! We walked around the zoo for about an hour, looking at all the animals they had...

lions, tigers...

bears...
camels...


leopards (I was holding his tail!) and lots more.

Elder Tate especially enjoyed playing with the monkeys.

These two cute little guys were no bigger than a foot, head to toe. If you look closely, you can see a tail wrapped around the tummy of the one on the right. That was a little baby who was holding onto his mom's back. The tail was really all that we could see of him.

Then we asked the lady at the front desk if one of the baby tigers could come out.

She put the leash on the tiger and brought him out.


Ben and Brian got to hold him, but he got excited really easily and it wasn't as safe to hold him...

so I just mainly played with him and petted him.

Elder Wennerholm really loved it, but the tiger got a little too excited!

Holding the baby tiger was definitely the highlight, but the whole zoo was so great because we were so close to all the animals. We could pet the lions and leopards through the bars.

One leopard loved it when we were scratching his back.

We all loved it and thought it was definitely worth the two hour drive!