Sunday July 16, 2023

We went to Tegucigalpa this past week to attend the temple. It is a 5 hour drive in our car each way.  We left here on Tuesday morning and attended a session that evening.  We stayed at the patron housing which is right next to the temple, then attended another session on Wednesday morning then drove back here.  From here we drive to Progreso which is a drive we do quite often, then from there we went basicly south on a road we had never been on before so we got to see a lot of new country.  There are a lot of very steep mountains in this country.  There are two steep windy mountain passes that you go up and down then across then up and down to get to Tegucigalpa,  which is the capital city of Honduras.  From the temple which is up quite high on the mountainside you can look out over the city which fills the valley and is up the mountainside all around. 

The temple grounds are so pretty and peaceful, like it is at all temples.  The patron housing was interesting.  I have never stayed in patron housing before and maybe they are all different but this was a big building with offices and a big lunchroom on the main floor then upstairs were the bedrooms.  Each one has three bunk beds in it, and a bathroom.  For families I suppose this would be great.  We were nervous that they would be adding people to our room with us.  I am so glad that they didn't, maybe they only put families in each one which makes more sense, but there were a quite a few people there staying the night.  When we went to the temple each time, there were people there that asked if I could do a name for them so I of course said yes,  they were both from Nicaragua.  There was an American man there that I met, he was there with his 15 year old daughter, his wife and the other three sons stayed home.  He is US military and works currently at the US Embassy in Managua Nicaragua.  He said that his wife is from Layton but he didn't say where he was from.  They have been in Africa for the past three years, and since January of this year they have been in Nicaragua, and they will be there for 4 years.  Then he said that he was going to try and go to Washington for his next assignment.  I asked him how long it took them to get to Tegucigalpa, he said that it was supposed to be a 7 hour bus ride, but it took them 4 hours just to get through the border so the total trip took 11 hours one way.  Their ward was doing a temple excursion and were staying there for 3 days then back on the bus.  It was nice to speak English for a bit.  We had put in the reservation that we needed to have both of us listening to the English version rather than spanish.  I thought everything was great because they gave us each headsets to listen to then at the end they made Colleen do everything in Español and they had me do the ending in English.  I don't know how that happened but Colleen wasn't too happy.  They said later that they are so short on workers in the temple that they are very limited on what they can do.  So we asked if for the session on Wednesday morning if they would have anyone there that could help Hermana Chappell do hers in English, and they said that they would have someone there who could, so we went back Wednesday morning and she was able to do everything in English while I did it all in Español.  Which worked out ok.  

This is the new fruit for the week, "Mangustín" A green one,  and a ripe one.  They have a sour citrus flavor, rather slimy texture. Not too bad though.  There are so many different fruits and plants here that I have never heard of before.  It is fun to try them, usually.  Some of them we continue to eat and others we are fine not eating them any more.  

We went with the Hermana's to visit a family where the grandma is a member but none of her kids or grandkids or husband are members.  What a trip, a short drive then a long hike up, up, up, the mountain. They told us it was a long steep hike plus you cross two rivers so Hermana Chappell stayed home while I went with the Hermana's and a member of the Branch and her daughter.  Here are some pictures of the trip.  

The dad puts this saddle on the horse to go down the mountain to get supplies, he said he would be back tomorrow.  He has family he stays with while down below.  

The bird was nervous but it was on my arm for a bit.  It started out on my finger but kept working its way up my arm till it got to my shoulder then the girl got it off,  I am not sure why, maybe it would have bit my ear if it had gotten closer?  Who knows.  

At the top was Hermana Pinto with one daughter that still lives with her and five granddaughters, her other two daughters live close by, and the kids go to grandma's.  They went out and picked off the trees, avocado, mango, mangustín, and one other fruit, which I do not remember what it was called and gave to us for us all to share.  I felt bad that we didn't bring anything for them living way up there and here they were giving us all this fruit.  They had a horse, several pigs, chickens, two parrot's, dogs galore and the whole wide world to run in.  What a different world they live in.  It is like deep in the jungle where the outside world doesn't matter.  The little girls could climb the trees and reach out and pick fruit from anywhere.  Craziness.    I expect we may go back some day, I think it would be cool for mom to see how they live but I am not sure she could make the hike.  It is not super long but quite steep all the way there. The two rivers are, at least on the day when we went, more like streams, and the widest one had rocks placed like a path to cross on without getting too wet unless you slip off the rock.   It is so beautiful everywhere.  I am glad that we had the chance to go there and meet them.