This week in El Salvador - Feb. 17-23, 2014

Today Walt and his two counselors left early for the hour drive to Santa Ana for a 7:00 a.m. Regional Correlation Council.
Here President Petersen is with President Alas, his second counselor, just before President Majano, his first counselor joined them.

The temple looks beautiful morning, noon, and night!

They're loading into the Honda Odyssey.

And they're on their way.

Our Campestre Ward primary children came to our Relief Society class to sing "Families Can Be Together Forever" to enhance the
lesson on "Turn the Heart of the Family to Increase Faith in Jesus Christ" taught by Gilma Hernández.

After this precious lesson, the sisters with February birthdays were invited to the front while we sang "♪♫Feliz Cumpleaños a Ti♫♪" to them before being served festive mini-cupcakes.

Several plates were full, and I'm not sure if all the Relief Society sisters got their chocolate and vanilla treat before the primary children came in and scooped them up.

I try to take photos of families in our ward.  Today I got Bret Curtis with his three sons, Cade 14, Kyler 12, and Conner 8. He is in the Young Men's Presidency. His wife, Shaulee, is in the Primary Presidency and was still in the church house. Their daughter Meilee, 5, didn't want to be in the picture.

I also got a photo of Savanna Nielsen and Elli Dawson.

Then it was time to dash to our apartment to finish my assignments for dinner today.  The Haroldsens hosted with Beef Stroganauf, pasta, and veggies, and we did the Lime Pear-Piña Jell-o salad*, homemade bread, fresh pineapple, and banana coconut cream pie.
Since there were only two couples today, it was nice the Beatons--Steve and Cristina could join us.

Walt made it back from Santa Ana just before we finished. Hna. Haroldsen warmed his plate of food up.

*This is a recipe from Hna. Nancy Thompson, in our original group of the four Sr. Couple Temple Missionaries.  It has become my favorite Jell-o salad.

*Lime Pear-Pineapple Jell-o Salad 

   From Hna. Nancy Thompson – Temple Missionary

   SanSalvadorElSalvadorTemple–July2011-June2013(GuatemalaTempleDec2013-20-Apr2015)

 Ingredients

Lime Jell-o – 1 small pkg  

    (In San Salvador this is “Porciones-Servings 5. 40g or 1.41 oz)

    (We don’t have “Jell-o brand here; have Royal Gelatina Limón.)

Cream cheese – 1 8oz pkg

Pears – 1 large can (this is 4 pears), drained (Walt loves left-over pear juice.)

Pineapple, 1 can crushed, drained

     (Or if in country with no crushed, “crush” in blender)

Cool Whip* - 1 small container

  *Or in countries (like here) that don’t have Cool Whip – substitute whipping cream.

             – Use ½ cup whipping cream (add 1/8 c sugar )

            Whipped stiffly into 1 cup I whip 1 cup, then have 1 cup of whipped left for something else.

                  (Today I also made a banana cream pie and will use whipped cream on that.)

Directions

Dissolve Jell-o in 1 cup boiling water.

While hot mash cream cheese into with a fork. 

Chill till set up soft – barely 20 minutes. 

While chilling, drain fruit and mash pears. 

Add mashed pears and pineapple to Jell-o.

Set till soft – barley 10 minutes.

Mix in whipped cream and chill.

It sets up quite quickly.

This has become my favorite Jell-o salad.

Hna. Marilee Clark made it often for our dinners.

Now I’m making it for our dinners.

     --Hna. Eileen Petersen – San Salvador

       July 2011 to November 1, 2014

           Made for dinner Sunday, February 23, 2014

          (President Petersen and his counselors are in Santa Ana—1 hr drive—

today for a   Regional Correlation Council: Area 70, MissionPres, Polaski

Cordón, 6 Stake Presidents.  Gone 6am-2pm.)

Sunday nap time.  Back soon to finish this post.
Back, after a rest, we walked around the temple grounds.
Walt checked out the flower beds and the ground covers.

I love the palm trees.

Now I'm back to finish this week's post.
Saturday, Feb. 22...Yesterday walking to our shift - 10:15 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.    Everyone loves to greet the temple president.

This may have been a young bridesmaid waiting for her sister "bride" to come out of the temple for photos.

With our four shifts this week, Walt had 39 hours in the temple and I had 36.  He had a Temple Presidency meeting on Thursday when we had no shift, so he has 3 hours more this week than I do.

Friday, Feb. 21, we had the morning/afternoon shift.  I baked 5 loaves of bread and a batch of cinnamon rolls that evening. Walt enjoys both. We really like homemade bread toast with homemade hot chocolate--well the old Hershey's cocoa recipe.
While the bread was raising, we watched the end of South Pacific that we had started the previous Saturday evening.  Can't believe it's been 56 years since it came out in 1958.  Great story, wonderful Rodgers & Hammerstein's music...

Thursday, Feb. 20, was our day with no shift.  I took this one photo of a van that had about 20 people or more climb into it. We always wonder how far they need to drive after coming to do sessions at the temple.  
  We drove Hna. Dora Winter, a temple missionary, grocery shopping since she has been excused from some of her temple shifts while caring for her husband, Jerry, who has just had back surgery.  He's been in a lot of pain, but hopefully this will be alleviated now.

Wednesday, Feb. 19. Since we had the afternoon/evening shift, I had time to bake some more biscuits to use up the rest of the sausage gravy I made for Walt for Valentine's Day last week.
We shared some hot ones with the Haroldsen's.

We can find most of the food we are accustomed to in Idaho.  And what we can't find, we can do without...except it's nice when we have visitors come from the states who bring us a surprise or two.

Tuesday, February 18, we had the morning/afternoon shift.  It's a special feeling to be the first ones in the temple on these early shifts.  And then on our afternoon/evening shifts, it's also a special feeling to be the last ones to leave and Walt locks the temple.

Monday, February 17, was our daughter Julie's birthday. We are so thankful for her, and each of our children. She posted on face book:
"You know you're getting old when what you want for your birthday is to have your whole family come to dinner and have a fun time."

Julie and her Dad in December a couple of days before we flew back to El Salvador.  Julie, we love you!

Family Home Evening was by John & Kari Kerr. Hna. Kerr gave a sweet lesson on "Thankfulness." It was based from a Sept. 2013 Ensign article, and she had some great sciptures. We've been putting in the "what we're thankful notes" in our "thankful glass" this week after her challenge at the end of the lesson.

Elder y Hna. Caballero had to leave before we got the group photo.

Here is the rest of the group.

Then Hno. Kerr took one so I could be in it. We are so thankful for John and Kari Kerr and their serving as workers in our temple from Oct. 1 to Feb. 19. They are loved by many here in El Salvador.  We miss them, but we know they are back in the arms of their children and grandchildren in Pleasant Grove, Utah.  They also worked in the Sweden Temple for 6 months.

And that's our week here.
We hope you have had a peaceful and restful Sabbath Day.
We are thankful for being a part of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We are thankful for the Prophet Joseph restoring these truths.
We are thankful for the Book of Mormon being Another Testament of Jesus Christ.
We are thankful for Jesus Christ, His Atonement for each one of us.
We are thankful for the great love He and Our Heavenly Father have for us.
    May we show that love through the lives we live.
         Con amor, Walt and Eileen Petersen
   ...........AND NOW WE HAVE JUST 5 DAYS UNTIL OUR YOUNGEST DAUGHTER, JEN, HER HUSBAND JERRY AND THEIR SIX PRECIOUS CHILDREN ARRIVE TO VISIT US FOR 8 DAYS.  We will post our adventures next week.