This week went very fast...as most all of them do.
Our dessert for dinner today was a white forest cake made from scratch (wonder if our grandkids know what "made from scratch" means) and decorated by Hna. Kitley for Hna. Thompson's birthday.  She is from Jerome, Idaho.  Happy Birthday, Nancy.
Arlene, it was delicious!

Last night we ate dinner with the López at Las Cellboaines after the evening shift finished at the temple.

We hadn't heard mariaches for a long time, and they played Walt's request: "Jalisco, Jalisco."

Yesterday was our day with no shift.  I'm on day 3 of a bad cold and cough, so didn't get as much done on our FHE "Promised Land" presentation as I wanted to.
Walt drove out of our way to get me some needed cough medicine. He is such a sweetheart!
♫♪"I love you for sentimental reasons....♪♫"

Some scenes from this past week...
Loved this little purple flower just blooming on the north side of the temple...

Purple must be a focus color for Christmas decorating this year.

The Broadbents planted a papaya tree one year ago that was as tall as Lucy...when she was just 4.

It has grown this much in one year! Amazing what this tropical climate and rain can do.

At our monthly Gringa Brunch we put together 52 Hygiene Kits to be given where there is a need. Last October we made 50 kits, also, and they were needed within 24 hours.
Celeste holding Sophia, Delena, Nancy, Melissa, Arlene, Marilyn, Joanne, Janis, Sheralie.  Sheralie hosted this October gathering.

Sheralie is my visiting teacher and has never missed a month. She is a very talented gal, in many areas, and especially in music: piano, violin, choral. She is our stake choir director. She also teacher her four children piano and violin. She grew up in San Diego....I'll share more about her later.

All these gals are wonderful.  I could blog about each one and their many talents!  There is a sweet sisterhood here, just like any where we live in the world among the Saints.

We are continually amazed at all the humble and special people who come each day to our temple--the workers, as well as the patrons.
"The Lord will wipe the tears from your eyes when you come to the temple." Revelations, Chapter 5

Have a great week everyone.
Con amor, Los Petersen - Walt & Eileen Oct. 28, 2012

We had a great Los Heroes Stake Conference this morning.  This is our local stake here in El Salvador.  President Jaime López, our stake president, is also the full-time recorder at the temple, so we are privileged to be with him a lot.

  I didn't get a photo of him and Hna. Gladis López today, but here's one from a year ago, the day we arrived in El Salvador.  They are the ones who drive us to and from the airport.

There was a meeting this morning for the young single adults who are mission age. Elder Frank Wall and Hna. Diane Wall spoke to them about the blessings of serving a mission.  The spirit was very strong.

 These are just two of the many who thanked them after they spoke--a mother and daughter.

Here they are just outside the door of our stake center.

The spirit carried on into the 10:00-12:00 noon session. Can you guess what President Petersen and I spoke about?  Right! The Temple!

  I talked about the crowning ordinance in the temple: the Sealing of Families for Eternity! I said that my wish would be that each of them could be sealed in the temple for time and all eternity.  And ended with: "I hope that President Petersen and I, and our 7 children and 33 grandchildren can be worthy to be a family "para todo la eternidad."

President Rafael Majano, the 1st Counselor in the Temple Presidency, gave such a great talk about the temple that Walt said it should be printed.  Hna. Majano was not assigned to speak today.

Walt's second counselor, President Eduardo Alas, and his wife, Consuelo Alas, spoke in the Saturday session and both did a great job, sharing their thoughts about the temple and its purpose.
I didn't get a photo of the Alas yesterday, but here they are with the Majanos on Sunday, September 24 coming back from the temple after a training of the Saturday morning and afternoon temple workers.

Walt just got back from an all-stake Family History meeting, and wants to go for a walk around the temple grounds. So I'll continue this blog when we get back.
    We have to walk before the heavy rains start in the evening.  It did rain this morning while we were in the session.  We only have one more month of the rainy season.

We got back within the hour, but I went on to other "have to's" like baking blueberry muffins for our Sisters Brunch tomorrow morning.

Also, I heated the tortilla soup that a sweet sister gave to us after the stake conference session this morning.  Then on our walk she brought the avacado, chips, and cheese that go in it.  It was very delicious.

I took a few photos on our walk.  I'll finish about stake conference and our walk tomorrow...........or sometime.  
When we got in front of the stake center, a family came out that we knew, so the dad took a photo for us.  That's our apartment complex behind us, so you can tell "how far" we have to walk to church.

Here's the sweet Hermana who brought the soup, then caught up with us on our walk by the front of the temple to bring those other ingredients mentioned above.

We were just in front of the temple when she came, which is only about a 30-second walk from the front of the stake center.

I said to Walt: "It's nice to come out and walk around the temple grounds. It makes it feel more like we really live here."
    More photos to come........
       Have a great week.

Sunday, October 14, 2012

I was looking for a photo from today, but this one popped up, so I'm posting it before I lose it again.  It's all our family in June 2011 for our 50th wedding anniversary open house.  We love each one so deeply and miss them very much. 

Stake Conference today was at Estaca de La Libertad...
I really do have other clothes here. This is my Conference outfit, and since we go to many different stake conferences and different people are there, I wear it often.  We've just started our second round of the stakes.

The members love to greet us...but I'm busy taking the photo while they greet the president first, then they also greet me.
"Mucho gusto!"  "El gusto es mio."  I've got that down pat.

Here's another...Bishop Ortiz was our new temple coordinator for the Saturday afternoon/evening shift, but he has just been called as a bishop.

Right after this hermano greeted Walt, a young woman came and proudly said: "This is my grandfather."

Here we are with Presidente Alfaro and his wife, Gladis. He has been a stake president for about 6 months. This was his first stake conference to preside at.  Their daughter, Gabriella, is at BYU-Idaho right now, and has met Daniel, our grandson. 

Families like this ride in the back of pickups to get to Church and other places.

I took a photo of the Alfaros by the temple when they drove us back to our apartment.  It was only about an 8-10 minute drive from their stake center to the temple grounds.

One quote for understanding about the temple I shared in my talk today is by Brigham Young:  “Your endowment is, to receive all

those ordinances in the house of the Lord, which are 

necessary for you, after you have departed this life, to 

enable you to walk back to the presence of the Father, 

passing the angels who stand as sentinels, being enabled to 

give them the key words, the signs and tokens, pertaining to 

the holy Priesthood, and gain your eternal exaltation...” (Discourses of Brigham Young, sel. John A. Widtsoe [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1941], p. 416).

Sunday, October 7, 2012

We always feel renewed and refocused after General Conference...
Here we are coming out of our stake center this afternoon.

We love to greet our new friends here...
Here's a couple who handed us their wedding invitation, then asked the Temple President if he would do their sealing in the temple.

Elder Wall was waiting to take our photo (the first photo above) so he snapped one of my greeting a friend.

Walt is shaking hands with Josue Peña.  He is a great professional photographer, and belongs to a great family in our ward.

Between sessions today for our combined Sunday dinner, we had the main dish and chose Roast Beef.  It is Sister Gibbons birthday and Elder Gibbons had chosen to furnish the dessert so he could make Marilyn a birthday cake.  He passed out b-day hats for everyone to wear.  Don't know where his went in photo below.

Here's a photo of the Gringa Sisters who gathered last night at Janis Nielsen's home for some board games while the men were at the General Priesthood Meeting.

A couple of photos from the Saturday sessions...

This is our Relief Society president and her grandmother. R.S. is Sociedad de Socorro in Spanish.

Between sessions we served a potato bar for the young full-time missionaries...8 Elders and 5 Sisters...

After we gathered on the terrace patio, we had dinner...

Elder y Hermana Gibbons have a tradition for General Conferences by serving a breakfast. 

They have homemade buttermilk biscuits--made by Dave, served with strawberries and whipped cream.

 

In addition to the 8 temple missionaries and us, they invite the two counselors in the Temple Presidency, the Majanos and the Alas, and the Temple Recorder Jaime López and his wife. President López is also our stake president of our Los Heroes Stake. They also invite Elder y Hna. Hall, who are missionaries for the Perpetual Education Fund for El Salvador and Honduras.

Here is Hna. Majano with two of her darling grandchildren, José and Rebecca.  José walked from the Conference sessions with us and loved opening and holding the doors for us.

In the next post we'll share some of the highlights from General Conference.  We would hope the whole world could have this guidance and direction from the living day Prophets, Apostles, and Seventies, plus the General Presidencies of the Relief Society and Young Women and Primary.

We believe...

Here's the full message about General Conference for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

One friend said to us this week:
  We are missing the point about what we're sharing with the media about the Mormon Church.  It is a teaching the Prophet Joseph Smith gave three months before his martyrdom.
   The Prophet Lorenzo Snow put this teaching into a couplet:
"As man is God once was.  As God is man may become."
     Here is a source of the direct quote.

"The King Follett discourse, or King Follett sermon, was an address delivered in Nauvoo, Illinois by Joseph Smith, president and founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, on April 7, 1844, less than three months before his assassination. The discourse was presented to a congregation of probably more than twenty thousand Latter-day Saints at a general conference held shortly after the funeral service of Elder King Follett, who had died on March 9, 1844 of accidental injuries.[1] The sermon is notable for its claim that God was once a mortal man, and that mortal men and women can become gods through salvation and exaltation. These topics were, and are, controversial, and have received varying opinions and interpretations of what Smith meant. Literary critic Harold Bloom called the sermon "one of the truly remarkable sermons ever preached in America."[2]"

mormon.org

General Conference is Oct. 6 and 7, 2012

I can't figure out how to get this into the widget column and have it move so we can see the entire message. Can anyone, please, send me instructions? I do not like the new Blogger format...wish they'd give us the choice to use the original one.