September 14, 2011 - Elder Amado Visits

We had a special treat last week when Elder Amado of the Seventy came to Belize City with President Cordon.  It has been 22 years since he was here last. He was pleased to see that the Church had grown during that time. He told us that if we come back in 22 years we, too, will be surprised to see the many changes. He predicted there will be wards and at least one stake. 

Elder Pattee and I had the honor of  fixing dinner for our guests. Sister Sandberg helped with some of the last-minute things. We had the American standby of roast beef, mashed potatoes, and gravy. We also had a nice green salad. We seldom eat beef here, so everything tasted delicious to us. 


This was the Pattees first time to meet Elder Amado.  He is a very humble and a pleasure to visit with.  After dinner he regaled us with stories about the General Authorities. It helped us understand even more what top notch people they are. They are truly witnesses for Christ. 

Our visitors came especially to meet with the missionaries. Early the next morning we had a multi-zone conference. President Cordon gave most of the time to Elder Amado. 

A few of our fine missionaries

Elder Amado said that his heroes are the missionaries, and he is very grateful to be able to work with them.  He told us the most important thing in missionary work is to seek and acquire the Spirit. Obedience is a key factor. We can't expect to teach by the Spirit what we haven't learned by the Spirit. 

Jesus Christ volunteered his agency to God to save the world. He told us that our agency increases after joining the Church, because we choose to follow God.

When Elder Amado had finished speaking, he gave the missionaries an opportunity to ask him questions.  Elder Amado and President Cordon always seemed able to turn each question into a valuable teaching moment.  

Getting ready for the conference photo

We only have 30 missionaries here in Belize. This includes us and the Sandbergs.  The other 150 missionaries in our mission serve in San Salvador, where our headquarters are.  

A dear sister in our branch, Sister Gillett, passed away. 

It is a tradition here to gather and make wreaths for the funeral. Sunday evening we made 3 wreaths for her funeral held the next day. 

Wire was first formed into circles and then wrapped with green crepe paper. Then 4 different kinds of flowers were made out of colorful crepe paper and wired to the bases. 

It took Sister Pattee a long time to make her first funeral wreath flower. The other sisters made roses, carnations, and tulips, quickly and beautifully.   

Even Elder Pattee helped out by crimping some of the crepe paper strips to help form some of the flower edges. The next day he also was a speaker at Sister Gillett's service offering words of comfort. Most of those attending were not members of the Church.

Sisters provided food for the family to enjoy after returning from the cemetery. Sister Pattee made her very first batch of rice and beans, which is the national food of Belize.  Thank goodness it turned out.

A couple of other sisters also cooked rice and beans. More sisters fried chicken, and one sister made a huge potato salad.  The Belizean dish of rice and beans is almost always served with potato salad--occasionally with cold slaw.

Rice and beans--the national food of Belize

It is made by soaking, then cooking the beans. Then rice is added to the beans along with along with coconut milk and cooked together until done. Sometimes (but not often) people get tired of rice and beans.  Then they have beans and rice, instead.

September is the month Belize celebrates its Independence from Britain.  It has been 30 years.   Parades and rallies are in abundance. Also, lots of clean-up has been going on around Belize City. Beautiful flags are flying everywhere. 

September 1, 2011 - San Pedro, Plus, a Fence of Many Colors

Elders Avila and Perez brought Alfredo, an investigator, over to our home for the Restoration Lesson. They showed him the movie on our DVD player.  About half way through, our DVD player decided to quit. Even though our elders are very good with technology, they couldn't get it to work.

  As Elder Pattee said, "We were left hanging, and we are still waiting to see if the Church got restored."  Actually, we finished watching the movie on our laptop computer, which didn't have quite the same impact, but the Church did get restored.  Too bad we can't say the same thing for our DVD player. It hasn't worked since.

Elder Jackson finished his mission, and his parents, from Provo, came to get him. We picked them all up at the airport, so that they could do some visiting in Belize. Elder Jackson didn't attend Provo High. He went to that other high school.  In spite of that he was a very fine elder. 

There are pharmacies all over this city. This one is close by our church, so we usually go there. 

We needed to go out to San Pedro, once again.  San Pedro Branch really struggles to keep going.  Good thing there are tourists that drop in to prop up the attendance numbers each week. 

We met the Shirleys on the water taxi going over. She is from Norway, but she and her husband of 10 years now live in Logan, Utah.  Of course they were Mormons and attended the San Pedro Branch on Sunday.

Elders Baker and Campos were very happy to go to dinner with us Saturday evening.  We all enjoyed a delicious dinner of lobster and the Belizian favorite of rice and beans.

Elder Campos stopped on the beach to pet this strange animal caught by its owners in the bush of Belize.  They said it was a zquash.  I have no idea how it is really spelled. 

Later Saturday evening we visited with the primary president, Sister Celia. When we asked her how she was doing, she said her house had burned down and some of the primary materials were lost in the fire.  She and her 3 children barely escaped.  Everything was destroyed.  It was a rented house, and the Church has been trying to help out.  What a very sad tale. 

After spending the night at the Mayan Princess Hotel, we attended Church at the San Pedro Branch. Both Elder and Sister Pattee spoke in sacrament meeting. 

As Sunday School started, we realized the primary president, for some reason had not shown up.  President Orbena, the young branch president, was in the primary room trying to figure out what to do with the children. He seemed very relieved to have Sister Pattee rescue him. There were only 8 children, so one person really could manage.

Here are 3 of the cute primary girls.  The boys didn't stay in one place long enough to get a picture. 

Also, we found out that the branch's only CD player got stolen.  Someone broke a very small window in the building right where the CD player was setting. It was the only thing they could reach in and grab. With all these difficulties, little wonder the primary president might be feeling a a bit overwhelmed.  (There is no one that can play the keyboard.)

 Grandma Williams came in at the end of primary, and Sister Angela helped  for a little while. That afternoon we took the water taxi back to Belize City, and the zone leaders picked us up and took us to our home. 

 Our landlords have been doing some rennovating.  They are going to build a new home sometime in the next couple of years, so they started out with a fence around the building site.  (Most all building sites have fences around them here to keep supplies, etc. from walking away.)  They decided to redo the existing fence, too. 

 The new home with be built at the far end (right hand of photo). Our landlady, Sheila, calls it the rainbow wall, but we call it the fence of many colors.

   Here is the "before" photo with Elder Pattee standing on our front porch.

 And here is an "after" photo. 

 Elder Pattee taught the sisters about the priesthood this past Tuesday evening. Several sisters thanked him for his teaching.

Young Brother Gladdens was baptized (by Elder Holbrook) and confirmed this week. He is the youngest member of his family and was the only one not yet baptized.  We hope his family will keep coming to church. We have a major problem with people getting baptized and then soon becoming less active.  In some ways it seems like they see baptism as an event, not necessarily a life-long committment.

We helped a young apply man for the Perpetual Education Fund this week. We are also helping another young man, but are having difficulty with his application. There are always follow-up items to do in regards to this program. We presently are working with about 20 PEF participants. 

The Seminary and Insitute materials finally arrived a few days ago. They were ordered in January, but just barely got here in time to start new classes. Elder Pattee picked up the 28 boxes at the port authority. 

August 26, 2001 - El Salvador - San Salvador Temple is Dedicated

We had a wonderful 5 days in El Salvador this past week. We were invited to attend the San Salvador Temple dedication and the Saturday night cultural event. Our trip was an expereince of a lifetime.  Our flight from Belize on TACA took less than an hour, and it was right on time.

Elder Sandberg had previously rented a car, and we were picked up by a driver at the airport, then taken to our hotel. The first thing we encountered as we drove into the city of San Salvador were markets all along the street. 

These types of markets are very typical in Central America.

El Salvador is very beautiful with a tropical climate. The temperatures are more moderate and comfortable than in Belize. 

We left our things in our rooms and drove to a special missionary meeting that was held Friday evening at a chapel about 45 minutes away. Good thing we were following our mission president, President Cordon, or we would have become lost for sure.  El Salvador has about 19 stakes, if I remember correctly. The missionaries enjoy serving there. 

Before the meeting started, we had time to walk down a couple of blocks to get something to eat. There is a famous franchise called Pollo Campero (Country Chicken, based in Guatemala). It is supposed to be fast food, but it wasn't very fast. (We found a Wendy's on Monday evening, which we enjoyed.  There is no franchised fast food in Belize.)

 But we still made it back to the meeting before President Eyring and the others from Salt Lake City arrived.  The large chapel was packed with local missionaries. We heard inspiring missionary messages from President Eyring, Elders Christofferson, Walker, Falabella, Martino, and Amado.  Sister Sylvia Allred also spoke. 

Elder Eyring told us that not only is each missionary call inspired, but the Lord is mindful of the mission president.  Each missionary is given to the kind of mission president he/she will need.  “You were put together by revelation”, he said.  “The Lord runs His missions in detail.” 

We stayed at the Sheraton Presidente Hotel. President Obama stayed here earlier this year in March.  Of course we didn't get the presidential suit, but it was a very nice place. The hotel seemed to be crawling with Mormons, because many had come for the temple dedication.

 We liked the huge swimming pool, but only managed to swim one morning.

There were several nice walking paths, too.

The food was good.  Pupusas are one of the the favorite El Salvador foods.  They are kind of like a corn tortilla with cheese, or meat sealed inside.  It was interesting to see how this woman quickly formed and pinched the dough for each one.

Of course we never went hungry. Here we are finishing lunch and visiting with the Guatemala Temple President and his wife. They are from Idaho and their last name is Mask. Sandbergs served in the same capacity not long ago, so they had a lot in common. The new temple president and matron for the San Salvador Temple are from Idaho, too. President and Sister Peterson from Burley. 

The Cultural Night was Saturday evening.  It was fun to see the youth getting ready.

Waiting for the event to start

President Eyring, Elder Christofferson, Elder Walker, and Sister Sylvia Allred (and spouses) were our visiting dignitaries. The Central American area presidency, Presidents Falabella, Martino, and Amado were also in attendance with their wives. 

The event was held in the State Gymnasium.  Lots of folk dances were performed.

The lighting was a bit dark, so not all our photos were good.  These young men certainly look like future missionaries. 

President and Sister Lopezes' children danced in this one. (Our mission president that was recently released.) The dance was one of our favorites. It was good to see so many youth gathered together. The future of the church in El Salvador rests on their shoulders.

We had tickets for 2 dedicatory sessions. The second session we actually got to be seated in the temple.  We felt a special spirit, particularly as we walked through the baptistry.  President Eyring nodded at Elder Pattee as he walked by. 

The very next day, Monday afternoon, we were invited to attend an endowment session in the temple.  I was amazed that everything was in shipshape order, inspite of all the chairs and people inside the temple just the day before. 

Here are Elder and Sister Pattee standing next to 3 of our mission President's children. Oscar has received his call to Taiwan. He is only 18, but will enter the Provo MTC in December. He has studied Chinese for 4 years and is the first missionary called from this area to go to Taiwan. 

The completed and dedicated San Salvador Temple

Monday morning we entered the real world and actually went to a shopping mall--our first in a year. It was almost like going home. Shoppes and beautiful fountains everywhere.
 

We were invited on Tuesday to go to lunch at the mission home with President Cordon and his family. Sister Cordon is a very gracious lady and a good cook, as well.  Elder Pattee especially enjoyed the Mexican buffet prepared in his honor. Sister Cordon had prepared a full-course meal in addition to the buffet.  Everything was delicious.

This is the front of the new mission home.  It is not the permanent home, but will do until the permanent one is built, probably about in a year.

Our mission boundries underwent some changes recently. The El Salvador San Salvador East and El Salvador San Salvador West/Belize Missions were realigned. The East mission is the El Salvador San Salvador Mission, and the West mission is the El Salvador Santa Ana/Belize Mission. Thus the mission home and offices had to be moved out of San Salvador, north about an hour to Santa Ana. 

 The present home is somewhat small, but nice, and in a very good neighborhood that is gated and well guarded.

The mission offices are now located in this new chapel in Santa Ana. In some parts of the world this is a good arrangement. When we visited the temple in Kiev, Ukraine on our way home from our Ukrainian mission, the new chapel next to the temple also housed the Kiev Mission offices. 

O

 Our mission does not have a senior office couple, just office elders.

We were so busy, we didn't have time to get photos of the countryside, though it is very beautiful. The two photos below were taken from inside the car. You can tell we are racing by. 

There are lots of mountains and hills in El Salvador. Crops are grown on the steep hillsides and cared for by hand. Corn is the crop in this photo.

Other crops we saw were coffee, bananas, and sugar cane.

We thought the temple looked a bit etherial at this moment--a  little translucent.

“Each holy temple stands as a symbol of our membership in the Church, as a sign of our faith in life and death, and as a sacred step toward eternal glory for us and our families.  Every activity, every lesson, all we do in the Church, point to the Lord and His holy house.”  Elder Russell M. Nelson

We came back from our trip rejuvenated and inspired.  We know the San Salvador Temple will be a blessing for all of the country--not just the members. The temple was the highlight of our trip. We really appreciated our mission leaders making possible this time-out from Belize missionary work.