Temple Presidency on P-Day for President Majano's Birthday...

For President Majano's birthday Monday, October 24, Hermana Gibbons had baked a birthday cake for the FHE refreshments, so we had the Majano's and Alas's come over to sing "Happy Birthday" to him.

Left to right: President Alas, Hermana Alas, Hermana Petersen, President Petersen, President Majano, and Hermana Majano.

We are thankful for these two great counselors and their wives, who are the assistants to the matron.

Normally we are always in "Sunday/temple clothes" so this is rare to have us all in preparation day clothing.

Elder Gibbons took this photo and they e-mailed it to us.

We are thankful for all whom we work with in the temple.

It was Hermana Thompson's birthday on October 28, so the birthday cake was also in her honor.

The Temple is...

...a place of learning.

We do not talk about the sacred ordinances of the temple.

However, it is okay to quote what the Prophets, Apostles, and General Authorities have had printed in books about the temple and temple work.  I will share some of these quotes in our blog from time to time.

Here we are on October 12, 2011, the evening of our first day at the Seminar for New Temple Presidents in Salt Lake City.

The Temple is the Lord's University...
"The temple endowment relates the story of man's eternal journey;
sets the conditions upon which progress in the eternal worlds depends; requires covenants or agreements of those participating to accept and use the laws of progress; gives tests by which our willingness and fitness for righteousness may be known, and finally points out the ultimate destiny of those who love truth and live by it." -- Elder John A. Widstoe

Gringa Brunch

In our Barrio (Ward) there are 6 or 7 families who are with the

U.S. A. Embassy, some with husbands in other professions.
 Their tradition is to have a "Gringa Brunch" every month or so...where they can speak English with each other for a couple of hours. One gal told me they try to do some service project each time they gather.  
On Monday, Oct. 24, we gathered to make humanitarian hygiene kits.

Front: Teresa, Sherilee, Lucy, George.

Back: Delena, Marilyn, Traci, Arlene, Nancy, Lisa, Melissa, Diane. I am taking the photo. Diane took a "timed photo" of all eleven of us, which is below.

We made 25 humanitarian hygiene kits. Thank you to the gals for the generous donation of combs, soap, bandaids, wash cloths, and other items that were put into each kit.

 We gathered at Sherilee Broadbent's home, where she had it festively decorated with Autumn decor. She said: "Last year when we were in the states for a while, we gathered some Fall things.  So we can have Fall inside, even if we won't ever have it outside here in San Salvador."

The gals brought banana-cranberry-pecan bundt cake, zuchinni bars, blueberry bars, cinammon rolls, several different muffins, quiche with locoro(?sp), egg bake with corn, chips 'n bean-cheese dip, tomato-cucumber salad,  fresh pineapple with mandarin and apple slices, juices, plus lemon water,

Below is the first gathering that our Sr. temple missionaries and I were here for on August 29. We did not gather in September.

We had ham, funeral potatoes, muffins, fruit, pupusas, and juice.

We had ham, funeral potatoes, muffins, fruit, pupusas, and juice.
On August 29 we gathered in our temple president's apartment to have a "Getting to Know You" Brunch. Front: Lisa W., Diane W., Walter and George. Back: Eileen P., Diane K., Marilyn G., Nancy T., Teresa W., Melissa R., Traci M.

A lot to blog about, no time to do it....

Above: This afternoon, at Bishop Orellana's invitation, we spoke at the Bruss-i-a Ward, Soyopongo Stake. He asked the temple president to encourage endowed members to return to the temple.
There were over 75 attending, and the spirit was very strong. President Petersen is doing much good in San Salvador.
Their ward building was built on a high hill 5 years ago within the city.

 Below:This morning we spoke at the LaLibertad Stake Conference. I talked about my first time going to the temple when I received my endowment and was married, when my Mom and Dad went for the first time also, and were sealed.  Walt talked about families being sealed together for time and eternity. The focus of the stake conference was on families. Elder Falabella, our area president, was here from Guatemala City and gave a great discourse on families.  He told the husbands they should bring flowers to their wives--out of the blue, not because it's her birthday or their anniversary.  He also told the wives to look at themselves in the mirror, before their husband gets home from work, to see what he will see when he arrives.

I'll just upload some photos from the last 7 days since our great week in Utah....which included precious time with our family, then 2 1/2 days in the Seminar for New Temple Presidents.  We were treated like royalty at all of the above.

"...these few precious days we'll spend with you..."

Five of our seven families gathered

Sunday, October 9,

for our one full day together. 

We had Janie & Shawn--and most of their family: Aimee & Michael, Katie, Heidi, Sam, Ashley, Michael.

Gary & Kathy, McKell, Abbey, Jacob, Isaac.

Steve & Natalie, Kelsey, Cortney, Kimble, Carter.

David & Julie, Joshua, Anna, Sam, William.

Julie & John, Jacee, Jackson, Maddie.

We missed Daniel, Mikayla, Brian & Michelle, Emma, Taylor, Avery, Elizabeth, Jen & Jerry, Seth, Sarah, Ben, Josh, and Elizabeth.

Leaving for the airport Saturday morning for Utah for the New Temple Presidents' Seminar in Salt Lake City, Oct. 12-14.

We thank President López for driving us.   

P-Day in the puebla San Diego at the Pacific Ocean Shore of El Salvador...

We're just a little sun burned today. The black volcanic sand doesn't show up so black in the photos.  And you thought we were working our fingers to the bone...

We do all work hard--these missionary couples have an 8-9 hour shift Tue-Sat every day at the temple.

So we were happy they could have a break on P-day.

We've all decided that we will plan a big outing for once a month. Last month we went to the volcano--El Boquerón.

We'll have to find those photos to post.  Monday, when the temple is closed, is also when all the national museums, zoo, parks, etc., are closed, so we are sad about that.

Sorry for so many photos of us...when I tried to rearrange them, they just kept copying the same one, and I can't get them deleted. 

Very relaxing day.

As you can see from the photos...we had a great day at the beach. Los Gibbons - Marilyn & Dave from Burley, Idaho

Above: Los Thompson - Nancy & Lon from Jerome, Idaho
Below: Guess who...I was tickled that he did doze for a while.

A young man came with a looong rope, put it around the coconut tree and shimmied up, pulled his machete up that he had tied to the other end of the rope, and cut off a bunch of coconuts.  Those in the know said the coconut was not ripe enough to have a good flavored drink from it yet.  And the coconut was not hard inside.
Hna. Kitley is in the navy blue shirt. I didn't get a good couple photo of her and Elder Kitley. He was like a fish out in the ocean

The Thompsons are the youngest couple of the group. They were our coordinators on the Wednesday evening Spanish-speaking shift at our Twin Falls Temple.  They have worked with the Spanish Branch for several years in Jerome. Walt's cousin, Andy Prescott, is the current president of that Spanish Branch.

While we had lunch, it rained like crazy. This gal came up from carrying her necklaces and braclets along the beach to sell. We were the only ones along the stretch of beach where we were. Each of us gals got a necklace or two--they were $1 and $2 each.

Below, Bishop Méndez, who is the assistant recorder at the temple, helped Walt call SLC to get an appointment with his cardiologist for when we're there next week for the New Temple Presidents' Seminar.  Bishop Méndez was our guide for the day.

I've named everyone except Los Kitley - Trent and Arlene from Twin Falls, Idaho. They are the 4th couple from the left.

Well...L-R: Los Wall, Thompson, Petersen, Kitley, Gibbons, y Obispo Méndez.

On the drive back, we stopped at Ciudad Libertad and walked out onto the wharf...we gals thought we were going to see souvenirs...but it was just smelly fish.

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Yesterday, Monday, Oct. 3, we (the 5 Sr. couples) had a short 30-min mini-bus ride to the closest beach...at the pueblo called "San Diego." I will post more of our relaxing day there after I get breakfast for Walt who needs to be at the temple in 30 minutes for his Tuesday morning 9am Temple Presidency meeting.

Yes, we got wet.

 Los Wall - Frank and Diane

 Los Petersen - Walt and Eileen - water was warm

♂♀♪♫♪By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea, you and me, you and me, oh how happy we'll be."♪♫♪ (Alt 13=♪ Alt 14 - ♫)

Great General Conference Weekend...

Several weeks ago Elder y Hna. Gibbons had invited all of us to their apartment to start the General Conference Weekend with a biscuit, strawberries, and whipped cream breakfast.

 The first instruction was that when we went by their family photo on the fridge, we were to "oooh and aaah," which came naturally. It is a wonderful family photo of their 5 children and 19 of their 22 grandchildren.

The "us" included everyone in the 7 apartments in our temple complex: Los Majano, Alas, Kitley, Thompson, Wall, Gibbons, and us--so they had two tables set up in the middle of their dining room-living room that fit everyone nicely.

Here's Elder Kitley who is the one who took the group photo above. Next to him are the Majano's, 1C and wife in the temple presidency. Hna. Majano brought some delicious fried platinoes (the big bananas).

Presiden y Hermana Alas showed us a replicalof them by the Guatemala Temple, as a remembrance of when they served in the Temple Presidency and as Assistant to the Matron there, before being called to this Temple Presidency.

Elder Kitley is e-mailing us a photo of the whole group to be put in this spot.

General Conference weekend had started by a morning walk around the temple by Walt before he finished the 24-hour Haltar Monitor check his cardiologist put him on the day before.

P.S. For this Monday, Oct. 3 "P-Day" the four Sr. Temple Missionary Couples, Walt and I, are going to see the El Salvador shore of the Pacific Ocean. Bishop Mendez, our assistant temple recorder, said a couple of weeks ago that he wanted to take us to the beach. He has arranged the transportation, route, places to visit....so we're in his hands today.  We can't find our sunblock, so hope we can get some on the way.   Hope to get some good photos to post.  We're leaving at 8:00 a.m.  He said it's just an hour's drive.  But we usually double the time they tell us.