Christmas 2011

I love Christmas decorations. These first two pictures are from where we go grocery shopping.
These next pictures are from the mall close to our home. These were just amazing.

These are poinseitta trees.

This is one of the trees up at the tower just a block from us. The lights were so cool, they looked like melting icicles.

This is the giant tree up at the tower.

These are more decorations from the tower

Decorations at our house. We begin with our wreath on our front door.

These are a couple of the beautiful nativities that we bought here.

Our Christmas corner

Our Christmas tree

In El Salvador they celebrate Christmas with fireworks. We have enjoyed many beautiful displays since the start of December.

We Have a New Granddaughter

Chelsea Ann Hall was born November 15, 2011. She was 6 lbs 7 oz and 20 inches long.
Sabrina and Chelsea are doing great.
Lots of dark hair and bright eyes.
Already has Dad wrapped around her tiny finger.

We are so glad she is here.

A Visit to the Volcan San Salvador

This is our view of the Volcun San Salvador from our apartment.

We were invited to go on an outing with one of the missionary districts to the Volcun San Salvador on November 11th. It was a beautiful day and perfect for a little hike. The air was so fresh and clean. I couldn't decide which pictures to post so I made a slide show.

It's Your Birthday

We had a great celebration at the institute for Dad's birthday. We had a yummy carrot cake and then Brother Arbizu brought Dad a giant candy bar. Later in the week we stopped and had dinner at Chili's

This is the new office supervisor, Daniel Hernandez. We are so glad to have the opportunity to work with him.

Halloween in El Salvador

Halloween is not celebrated here though there was a little display of Halloween things at Walmart. They celebrate a holiday on November 2 called Day of the Dead which is very similar to our Memorial Day. They clean up the cemetary and remember those who have passed on. So we decided to have our own small celebration for Halloween and brought some decorations and some cookies to give to all who came to the service center. So I thought I would share our decorations.

Rapunzel and a Purrfect Cat

Woody and Jessie A little candy corn

Is It Still October?

In October two of my siblings celebrated their birthdays and I got to thinking about how grateful I am for the love and support of my brothers and sisters through the years. I have been blessed with a wonderful family, not only my brothers and sisters but their spouses as well. I just wanted to say thank you for all you do for me and the love you share with me and my family. When our children have been away from home going to school they have always known that there was a place they could go for help and support at the homes of my brothers and sisters. I love you and miss you. Thank you. This video is just a little taste of the fun times we have had throughout the years. I didn't have alot of pictures to choose from so I did my best with what I have.

Helping Hands

This is President Lopez trying to bring order to all that was going on

These are some of the people we have the opportunity to work with, Elder Rivas, the area seventy, Krissia, the purchasing agent for the church in this area and Daniella Lemus, who is the head of the Employment Center.
The stacks of rice waiting to be put into 5 pounds bags

Sealing the rice into the bags

Bags ready to go

Repacking the rice into bags ready to be distributed

Lots of help

Sorting clothes and blankets

Scooping toothpaste from a 55 gallon barrel

Tying up the toothpaste

Returning Missionaries

This is a group of elders and sisters that are returning home from their missions to El Salvador and they spend two days in San Salvador before going home in classes provided by the Employment Center. Here they go through the Career Workshop and learn about opportunities in employment and education. We got to spend an hour with them talking about the Perpetual Education Fund. What a great group of young people.

After our class we got to go with them to the temple.

It was a beautiful night when we came out and we had time to take some pictures.

A Little Variety of Things

Here are some pictures of a storm that came in last week. The clouds were so dark. But we ended up not getting any rain from this storm. But some good lightening and thunder. Rich's favorite cookies. We get them from the San Martin bread store which has just all kinds of wonderful breads, pastries and pumpkin pie.

This a banana tree that is growing in the area where we park our car. It was hard to get a really good picture of it because of everything else that was growing around it but notice the long tail like thing that is attached to the bananas.

My First

This week I learned how to make corn tortillas. The recipe is not that hard, water and corn flour, but getting the right consistancy and then making the tortillas perfectly round is the trick. Lina, one of the secretaries at the institute and Norma, who takes care of the institute and everyone in it gave me my first lesson. They make perfectly round tortillas every time and always the same size. Mine turned our pretty good but not perfectly round. But they tasted really good. My assignment this week is to practice making tortillas and next week we move on to pupusas.

Soyapango Stake Conference

This is the Gonzales family. She worked at the distribution center and speaks English quite well and so when we were over there she would always visit with me. Her husband is the temple engineer, taking care of all of the facility needs of the temple and the other two buildings on the temple grounds. They are a neat family.

After stake conference we were invited to stay and eat lunch.

This is the youngest child of the stake president, President Orellana, and his wife.
The gentlemen at the end of the table is President Peterson who is the temple president. He and his wife are great examples of service, and have shown us every kindness. The children are President and Sister Orellana's. Between sessions of general conference the Church broadcast their semi-annual "World Report". In that report they gave a lot of attention to PEF and also had an article about the temple in El Salvador. During that portion they showed the Orellana family briefly and showed the oldest boy (sitting here by Pr. Peterson) talking about what the temple means to him.

This is just a beautiful picture from our apartment.