Seven days in El Salvador...

This week....
Sunday, April 28...We spoke at the Santa Ana Molino Stake Conference.  It was only an hour drive this morning because the new road has been finished.

President López assigned Donaldo Palacios y Liliana Menjívar to be our guides.  Our shared 15-minutes was about temples and the importance of covenants made, plus the crowing ordinance of being sealed for eternity as a family.

As we were driving out of the church parking lot, I exclaimed: "Please stop! I haven't taken one photo. We need a photo."  So Walt kindly stopped, we got out and got several photos.  It only delayed us 4 minutes.

Here is a family also just leaving the stake center. We love the El Salvadorians!

And these precious children were by the corner of the Church, so I got their photo from the van window.

When we got back, we joined our temple missionaries for Sunday dinner.  We had left watermelon and fresh pineapple for our part of the pot luck.

Elder y Hna. Clark hosted today with a Mexican dish called: 
"Jalupos"....kinda like tacos, only better!  Nancy Thompson brought a delicious "Pear Salad" and shared the recipe at our request. I'll put it at the end of this post.

 Diane Wall furnished a yummy dessert--yellow cake with chocolate pudding in it, chocolate frosting, topped with whipped cream and a cherry.  We haven't gotten the recipe yet.  Glaziers also brought some fruit. They were at the Apopa Stake Conference and we were at the S.Ana Molino one.

      I was enjoying all the conversation so much that I forgot to get a group photo before everyone left.

Oh, and we met the new PEF missionary couple.  Elder y Hna. Utt, pronounced u with a short sound, but here they will use the long "U" sound.  They are from Salt Lake and have only been home from their first mission to the Tuxtla Gutiérrez Mission for 3 months.

   They just had about 20 minutes to stop by with the Halls--coming also from the Apopa Stake Conference--before they had to be at the church to set up for a training meeting.

Here is a photo of Walt with our 3 Elder Temple Missionaries. They are always so willing to help President Petersen out with anything he asks them to do, or even when he doesn't ask.  L-R: Frank Wall, Walt, Lon Thompson, Joe Clark.

Yesterday

Saturday, April 27

We were invited to the civil wedding and then the temple sealing of Hector Santos (our coordinator for the Saturday morning shift in the temple; son of a counselor in our stake presidency) and Celeste Diaz who is from Guatemala.

Here are Elder y Hna. Hall greeting them.

The beautiful wedding cake was decorated by one of our temple workers - Hna. Rosy Estrada.  

They served a luncheon to the 130 guests of a taco and a chicken empanada.

Then we joined them at the temple for the crowning ordinance --  the sealing of husband and wife for time and for all eternity.

Friday, April 26, Walt translated at the semi-monthly meeting with the Directora and my two Assistants, then we did the afternoon shift

Thursday, April 25 we watched a glorious sunset from our patio.

April 25 we also wished our son-in-law, Jerry Brewer, a happy birthday.  He lives in Rochester, Minnesota.

Wednesday, April 24 we wished a son, a son-in-law, and a grandson a Happy Birthday:

Gary Petersen - Saratoga Springs, Utah

John PetersOn - Saratoga Springs, Utah.

and Kimble Petersen, Saratoga Springs, Utah.

Kimble is second from the left.

He received his Eagle Scout a few days before he turned 14 on April 24.

These three men and our grandson are a great part of our family. We love each of them very, very much!

And on Wednesday, which was a day with no shift, we did a 4:00 temple session. On the way back to our apartment, Sergio Olivia stopped Walt to tell him about the bus full of temple patrons just leaving who were from the ward he had grown up in.  Sergio manages the cafeteria on the first floor of our temple apartment complex.

Tuesday, April 23, we had the afternoon/evening shift.

That morning we had the Gringa Brunch here at our apartment. It was a farewell to Joanne Hall (PEF missionary with her husband Richards, leaving April 29) and Diane Wall (leaving May 18).  

L-R: Front row: Delena Markland with Dallin, Eileen, Sheralie Broadbent with two of her four children, Lucy and James.

Back row: Nancy Thompson, Lisa Wegkamp, Diane Wall, Joanne Hall, and Marilee Clark.

Most of the time it is pot luck and each Hermana always brings something yummy. Sometimes we gather at a restaurante.

Last week we also had a Gringa Brunch farewell on Tuesday, April 16, for Melissa Ruble who left on April 17.

It was at the Sushitto Sushi place. (My first sushi...and I only had the vegetarian one - no raw fish for me.)

Left to right: Traci McKay, Kristin Freestone, Janis Nielsen, Lisa Wegkamp, Melissa Ruble. I was taking the photo.
Our Gringa Bunch is made up of friends from the states who gather to speak English with each other once a month.

 

And there's our week in San Salvador, El Salvador...
We know your week's are busy and exciting also, and we love hearing about them.  Love, Los Petersen - Walt & Eileen

Pear Salad   Nancy Thompson  April 28 2013

1 sm. pkg lime jello

1 sm cool whip 

(Here I use a small box of Crema Dulce*, whipped--*this is the whipping cream here.

1 8 oz cream cheese

1 lg can pears

1 sm can crushed pineapple

              (I put the pinapple in the blender here. No "crushed" canned pineapple here.)

 Mix jello with 1 cup of boiling water.  While hot, mash cream cheese into it with a fork.  Chill til set up soft.  Drain fruit and mash pears, add to jello and stir in the whip cream.  Chill till set.
   Note from Eileen: I usually don't have seconds at our dinners -- but I had a second of this!