Week 83 from Mexico

27 March 2011

Hola! Greetings from Mexico. Hope your week was great. We are now down to less than four months before we return home. Not that we're getting trucky but it's surprising how fast the time has gone by. We look forward to returning home and getting to know the new grandchildren that have been and soon will be born since we left. But it will be so sad to have to leave all the dear friends that we have made here.

Monday was a very enjoyable day. Our hour and a half drive to Saltillo was very nice, as we took the autopista (the toll road) most of the way. President Flores met us at the Toyata dealership at edge of the city and we followed him to their home. As I've mentioned before, they were serving in the temple presidency when we arrived in Monterrey to serve our mission. Even though I didn't speak Spanish and she didn't speak English we developed a nice friendship. As I looked around at their simple but nice furnishings I noticed the doily I made and gave her when they were released about a year ago, which was on the china closet in the dining room, under a picture of their daughter's three children, which are their only grandchildren. As we visited we learned a lot about them that I didn't know before. They have three children, one daughter and two sons. They are presently living in their son's home and renting their larger home, which is in another part of the city.

A lot has happened to them since their release. President Flores was released last year because he had been asked to serve with the church temple department under the area temple engineer to help all the temples in the area with maintenance problems. Evidently, they ended up not being able to go to Mexico City to serve as President Flores had some health problems that prevented him from serving. He had some kind of mini-stroke that had caused some paralysis on the side of his face. Soon after that they moved to their son's home after it had been repaired from some water damage from the roof. This proved to be a blessing because when the rains from Hurricane Alex came last year in June their home was the only one not damage in the neighborhood because he had just waterproofed the roof. About that same time they found out that the renters, who were renting their larger home, had skipped town. Evidently these people owned a recycling business and were being threatened with damage to their business if they didn't pay large amounts of money so they just quietly left town. The home had been left in quite a mess that the Flores had to clean up. Another blessing for them was that this last winter, when the temperatures had been down below freezing, because they had kept their home fairly warm with space heaters, they had no problems with pipes freezing but their neighbors, which have the water pipes in the walls of the home, had pipes break and then water coming through the walls, flooding the home.

We also found out that before their service in the Monterrey temple presidency they had served as welfare missionaries, for what ended up being three years, two missions one right after the other doing the same thing. They told of some of their experiences while serving. There are five bishops storehouses in Mexico and their main job was to train the bishops and stake presidents about the proper way to help those in need and the use of bishop storehouses. One of the bishop storehouses, I think the one in Guadalupe needed some renovation do to poor practices and upkeep. They had not been rotating the wheat and just pouring new on old and they had a weevil problem. So part of their job was to help show them how to keep things on shelves, off of the ground, rotate the food and keep things clean.

Their office in Mexico City was not far from their residence. It only took about ten minutes if you left about an hour to an hour and a half before the office opened. But, if you left about 30 minutes later it took about two hours to get there, due to the heavy traffic. So, they would leave home early and wait an hour or so for the office to open. Sounds a lot like the traffic here in Monterrey along Garza Sada, our main route to the temple. We're just luck that we go the opposite way of the heavy traffic on the way to the temple in the morning. They other side is like a slow moving parking lot.

They were very gracious hosts, the food was great and we enjoyed the visit very much. For desert Sister Flores served pineapple turnovers that she had made that were absolutely heavenly, very flakey with just the right amount of filling. As we left Sister Flores sent some home with us and some to give the Clarks.

FHE on Monday was as enjoyable as ever, with a good lesson and even more of the personal stories shared by the others. One thing we learned was that Brother Riggs is true Arizona cowboy. As a way to help with living expenses as a newly married couple Bro. Riggs was a bull rider in the rodeos in Utah while they were attending BYU. He said that as a teen he always wanted to compete in the rodeos but because the competitions were always on Sunday in Arizona he wasn't able to. But, in Utah the competitions were on Friday and Saturday nights so he got his opportunity and it helped with their expenses. Sister Riggs said she always just held her breath hoping he didn't end up killing himself.

Sister Clark told some funny stories about her father who was a professor and head of the Engineering department at BYU. She said that in his later years he would get a bit absent-minded and forgetful. He would sometimes go to the office dressed a bit odd and his wife would tell the secretary to just send him home if he was dressed oddly. He only lived about two miles away from BYU so he would usually walk to work. One time they had a really big snow storm and after trying unsuccessfully to call his wife he ended up walking home in the storm, arriving home all covered in snow. When he asked his wife where she had been because he had tried to call she said that he had driven the car to work. So, he had to walk the two miles back to work to retrieve the car.

Attendance at the temple has pretty much stabilized with our 5:30 sessions in the evenings most always very full. Saturday was another busy day at the temple. I spent most of the time taking pictures and making I. D. cards for those workers who needed them and entering and organizing the information in the computer.

President and Sister Granados will be returning this next week from Mexico where she had her surgery. She is doing very well. He will probably be back to the temple on Wednesday so Lynn and I will only have to substitute on Tuesday. It's such great news that she is doing so well. Hopefully, it solved her problem with the pain.