Mack & the MoTabs - Now on YOUTUBE!

When I was just a wee lad I would sometimes sneak out of bed late on a Sunday night to go out to the kitchen and listen to Music & the Spoken Word with Richard L. Evans on the radio.  They would rebroadcast that day's program on KSL, on the AM band late in the evening when it would reach a greater distance, and my mom and dad would tune it in and listen from our small town in northern California.  The reception was usually poor, and the signal would often fade in and out, but it was the Choir, and it was Elder Evans, and it was wonderful.

Now, as of this last week, I can watch the Music and the Spoken Word, anytime I want, in El Salvador!  

Is this not a great time to be alive?

Hope you enjoy these links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_HdrywerGE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8EYtirfF4I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_yOMdHqjQY

Clouds

One of the things I love about El Salvador is the beautiful sky.  Almost every day there are some kind of clouds - even in the dry season there are clouds in the sky.  We walk early in the morning and see the sun rise through the clouds and it is just so beautiful.  So here is a collection of some of the pictures we have taken at various times over the months. I hope you enjoy them and are reminded as I am of the beauty of our Heavenly Father's creations.

Santa Ana

Every Wednesday we travel to Santa Ana and work at the service center in the Modelo Stake Center.  Santa Ana was where the gospel was first introduced in El Salvador by missionaries who came here from Guatemala. This stake center is built on the first property owned by the Church in El Salvador.

 I love the palm trees here.

 On our way there we usually encounter plenty of traffic.  We are pretty high in San Salvador, so we have to go way down, then back up again to get to Santa Ana.  It is so true that here in Central America that if you are going, you are always either going down or going up.

 And of course if you think you need to get somewhere faster than anyone else you can make the two lane highway into a three lane highway.  Although we didn't get a photo of it, on this particular day folks made a 4 lane out of this 2 lane highway.

 Lots of trucks, especially sand trucks, not sure why that is.

 Always some kind of road work along the way

 We bring our lunch in our little cooler and have a picnic in our car.  We open the doors and there is usually a bit of a breeze and it is just a nice break from the busy day.

 The flowers are so colorful and there is even a beehive

We have always driven down on the Los Chorros highway but they are doing work on that road so now we go around the volcano another way which we have decided we like much better.  The road is in much better repair and it just seems a better way to go.  It takes us about an hour to get to Santa Ana from our home and we love to work with the people in this area. 

This is my favorite part of the drive.  It is hard to get a really good picture of it but it is like you are driving through a tunnel of trees. 

Corn, corn, corn, nothin' but corn

It is so amazing where and how much corn is planted here.  Last year we were here but were not travelling very much yet so we didn't see all the corn planted everywhere, where ever there was a space

 Down the mountainside

 Along side the road

 The corn popped up really fast and now they have harvested the corn and this is what is left.
Now coming up beside the corn stalks is another plant we think is maybe a bean plant.

Parking Lot Garden

This garden is down in the parking area of our apartment building,  We have a gardener here keeps things well taken care of.

 This bush looked like it had two different color flowers on one plant but upon closer inspection there are two different plants growing very close together and intertwined.

 This impatience plant shows great tenacity as it grows out of the cement  

 One of the banana trees

The view from the rear of our parking space.

The other banana tree.

I Have Two Little Hands . . . . . .

This new look for grandpa's desk should surprize nobody.  But the explanation is simple: my HP died some months ago and was shipped back to the US for R&R - the DELL laptop I have been using for my work here died suddenly last Friday and the estimate for getting it repaired was longer than I could stand - we have been considering a purchase of a laptop for me here so that I have a back up if the other one goes down, or is needed by someone else.  So I am now the proud owner of a brand new DELL Inspiron M501R, complete with a 10 key built into the keypad, but with only a 15" screen.  That 17" HP was just a monster, but I love my 10 key.  Oh yes, and the DELL repairman came today so I got that one back too.

Stake Conference

We attended stake conference in the San Salvador Stake in Zacatecoluca July 1st.  It was a great conference.  Afterwards we took pictures in front of the bushes cut in the shape of letters, which stand for "Haz Lo Justo" or "Choose The Right".

Joya de Ceren

Joya de Ceren was a Mayan village that was buried beneath 13-25 feet of ash from a sudden volcanic eruption and because of the eruption the structures and pottery and even crops were preserved.  The ruins are surrounded by beautiful grounds.

 There were beautiful flowers and colorful plants

 This tree was huge, and the leaves were so delicate.

 There were three areas that had been excavated and these two pictures are Area 1

 This is Area 2

 And these last four pictures from Area 3

 The pottery was amazing

 These pots were really big

 It was a beautiful day and we were the only ones there and we just enjoyed the day. 

Just a Little Setback

Last March in an effort to make sure we get some exercise, we decided that I would walk around the temple grounds while Rich went in and played a little basketball with the temple missionaries one day a week.  Just a friendly little game to get his heart rate up.  So in the beginning of April he comes out and his finger got jammed pretty bad.  Next week he comes out hobbling like a really old man.  So we go home and he tries to keep it up and only walk on it when he has too.  Not working, so we go and get a cane - nope didn't do the trick.  We attended the RCC meeting and one of the counselors in a stake presidency was a doctor and he told Rich that he would have to completely stay off of it and also gave us the name of a orthopedic doctor.  So we went to the doctor and found that Rich had a ruptured muscle and has to stay off of it for 6 weeks and keep it elevated.  Got some crutches and it did the trick.  If you look really close you can see that styling sandal he is wearing, one we got when we went to Niagra Falls.  At work he would set up on the couch in the room they use for lunch and games and people would go and consult with him there.  I felt like the 20 mule team borax woman carrying all of our stuff.  One Saturday as we were waiting for a key to get into the offices for a meeting, the stake specialist from Usulutan was there with her family to attend the temple.  Her little son is on crutches and he was so excited to see Elder Hall on crutches so they had to compare crutches and then of course they had to race.  Jimmy was well practiced and so he passed Elder Hall on the turn and then kept in the middle of the sidewalk so Rich couldn't pass and won the race. It was a long six weeks.  It is so wonderful that is it doing so much better but the doctor did say no more basketball, ever. 

 This a a picture of one of the missionaries that helped us so much when we first arrived here, Elder Marinero.  

Puerta de Diablo

We took a trip to Devil's Gate which is about 30 minutes from where we live.  They say you can see the ocean as well as the city of San Salvador.  We arrived there and the skies were blue and clear but by the time we started to climb up the fog came up and we couldn't see anything but we did get some beautiful shots of the fog and the foliage

We followed the trail over to this little cave hoping that the fog would clear but it was cool to see the fog roll in.