Week Four

Monday was a little hard for me as it was the day of my father's funeral. The temple is closed on Monday so it was our day off. During the time that I knew the funeral was taking place I decided to post some pictures I had scanned into my computer of my father on our family web site, here our family blog and to my Facebook profile for my family to see. It turned out to be a good thing to do as I had posted pictures that many family members had not seen before. It was my way of honoring him even though I couldn't attend the funeral.

That night we attended the FHE group of couples that are here from the US serving in some capacity for the church here in Monterrey. They take turns hosting and giving a lesson based on the Sunday School lessons (about a month behind the regularly scheduled lesson's). They are a close-knit group. One of the reason's they started meeting was so that at least once a week they are able to speak in English. I really enjoyed our evening with them. Now including us, the members of the group are as follows:

Ronald and Helen Hall: we've mentioned them before, are here serving in the temple presidency. They are from Orem, Utah. President Hall has served as a mission president in (El Salvador) and as president of the MTC in Guatemala.

The Spencer's: Brother Spencer is serving as the mission doctor. They are from Sandy, Utah.

The Shaklee's: they are serving with the Perpetual Education Fund and are from Oregon.

The Oliver's: they are serving in the mission office and are from Idaho.

Our typcial schedule at the temple is as such:

Tuesday thru Firday: we arrive at the temple and change to white in time to attend the prayer meeting at 8am, which lasts for about a half hour. It includes viewing segments of a training video. The first session of the day is 9am, which is usually the only morning session unless it fills up and then they add a 10:20 session. This will usually happen on Wednesday's which is the day that the missionaries attend. The temple closes at 1pm, at which time we go home, eat lunch and rest. We then go back in time for prayer meeting at 4:30. Most of the volunteer temple workers only work one shift a day, some only come in one, two or three days a week, or some don't show up for their scheduled time. The Presidency never knows for sure how many workers they will have at any given shift. That's one of the reasons they are so glad to have us here. The Presidency rotate shifts so that at least one of the Presidency and their wives are at the temple at all times the temple is open. There are two sessions in the evening: 5:30pm and 7:30pm. In a couple of weeks it will be changing to 5pm and 7pm so that they can add a priesthood session at 8:20. They have a large amount of male ordinances needing to be done so that's the reason for the added session until they can get caught up. At the end of the last session we spend some time doing some light cleaning: wipe mirrors, empty garbage, replace supplies, use the carpet sweep for touch-up cleaning. They have a cleaning crew that comes in on Monday's to do the heavy cleaning. We usually head home by about 9:30pm. With this schedule we don't have much time for meals. I usually try to have our main meal of the day during lunch time and we just have a sandwich or something quick when we get home at night.

Saturday is a whole different schedule:

Our prayer meeting is at 6am with the first session being at 7am. As I mentioned before stakes are assigned to attend at least one Saturday a month. They come by bus loads. This Saturday there were already four buses at the temple when we arrived at 5:45am. They use the stake center next door as they “home” for the day. Sometimes when the buses load up at their stake centers there isn't enough room for everyone that wants to attend and some are turned away when the buses are full. There are eight sessions, one every hour and twenty minutes, with the last session at 4:20. They sometimes add a ninth session at 5:40 when the 4:20 session is full. That's what happened this last Saturday, so we didn't get home until about 8pm.

We've decided to start taking Thursday morning's off to give us a break, as it's one of the non-busy days. The Presidency really doesn't expect us to work all the shifts, though they do need us, especially Lynn, as they need a lot more men than women to run the various ordinances. We just decided to work as much as we can because that's what we are here to do.

This Thursday morning we took time off so that Lynn could take the van in to get checked. Right after we arrived we've been hearing a squeaking sound, like a fan belt or something. It's not consistent, just comes and goes. A couple of times the engine has quit while we've been driving. Then, Wednesday the check engine light went on and has stayed on ever since. Lynn said that was good because now they can have the car's computer tell what is wrong. Lynn tried to take it in to the Ford place here in Monterrey but they were too busy so he made an appointment to take it in on Monday morning. Lynn thinks it might be the alternator. Hopefully it keeps going until then. If worst comes to worst we could just use the taxis service. It's only costs about 20 pesos, which is about $1.50 in US dollars.

I continue to struggle with the language but the people here are very patient with me and we communicate with smiles, hand motions, and pointing fingers.

Our love goes to you all. Hope all is well and you are happy.
Elder & Sis. Nelson