Monday, July 22, 2013

Late post-

Photos from the day after rain        Skateboard park                           Guess Who?!
July 17,2013        8:35pm
  I'm sitting here in the dark with my flashlight and iPad in our apartment.  Oh - I just realized I don't need a flashlight with my iPad!  Thank goodness it was charged!
  We are having an incredible thunder, lightening, and rain storm.  The streets are rivers and the power has been out for about an hour - so far.
  It had started to storm and the Lights were going on and off in the temple - thank goodness for generators.  I left the temple early to pick up our car so as to give rides home to the others.
   I passed by the mission office on the way home. The four Mission office Elders were standing outside watching the storm and wondering how they were going to get home six blocks away safely.  I took cover with them.  I wasn't too crazy about being struck by lightening.
  Two of the Elders offered to go get our car for me. Then I could give them a ride.  We are only one block away. I didn't think about the fact that the carport door opener doesn't  work if there is no electricity! Glad the gate isn't electric! At least the car isn't left locked outside the carport!
  I ended up walking- running- home after the storm had settled down a bit.
  So here I sit in the dark waiting for Fred to get a ride home from someone. Dinner will be cold and late tonight .  Our house certainly is not cold at 85 degrees! Loren - you would love it!
  Oh, the adventures!
 9:13pm- The storm stopped. Fred and the others were able to walk home wetly. Just as they got to our place the electricity came back on.  It was on for 10 minutes-long enough for me to make a shake for our dinner- before it went off again!
12:10am
The power finally came back on!  Hooray! After trying to sleep for two hours, we finally can. Our house was so hot because our carpets were cleaned yesterday and the house was open.Not only was it hot, but humid! Love that air conditioning!  This IS the rainy season. More rain for the future.  We'll be better prepared next time.


Los Anderson de Hermosillo

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Families can be together forever!

Families are why we are serving in the Hermosillo Temple.  Oh, how we love all of God's children.

                                                       Together Forever-Only a Beginning

Anderson Family Reunion May 24-27 2013


                                                   











Anderson Family Gathering May 25 2013




At Jory's home with Family and Friends
Brian, Marjean and family
Kathleen N Fred
Uncle George and Aunt Evelyn
Oh, those Girls!
Jill used to be Johnson
Ian loves food           Robert and BJ
Kirstie n Yessica        Payton smiling
 Luci N Alex
Fred N Ryan K
Good Food and Family                                
    Uncle Ralph and lots of grandkids                                      UncleDavid

Sisters Forever      Firechief and son
Lucy                                     Jorello

Grandpa N Slizzy

Avery N Ian             Nicole N Reed

Oh, thoseBoys
Aunt Shanna

Gavin - always the center of attention!

Joe Chumley - soon to be daddy

Liz and Lia





Harry and Ralph, Lynn and Lynette

Sisters forever
Los Martins
Nate the Great
Jory N David  Bishop B
Rodriguez of a variety
Robert D and Judy
Martins
Byron Peterson
McKenzie N Aline
Lia N Payton
Ben
Marvelous Dani and Anders
Avery Mae     Uncle Ernie
Loren N Matt Schwartz
Kathleen and Petersons
Kathy N Erin
Michael N Kai
Some crazy kids!
What's His Name N Liz
McKay and friends
Ian
 Lucy N Kathy  Dr Doug
Yessica N Kirstie again
Super Dani!    US



Practicing to sing with Bishop Bos and Aunt Lynette
More of US

Aren't Grandchildren wonderful?!

Monday, July 15, 2013

Another week has come and gone.  Loving our time here!
  Our hearts go out to the Ricks family.  It's hard being so far away.  Hugs across the miles!
  Sunday was a first. We went to 3 different wards in different parts of the city. We went and came without getting lost and withour GPS!!  It is so great meeting so many new people. Besitos and abrazos all the time. Fred is sad because he doesn't get them.  He really misses the little ones.  It will take time to really get to know families.
   Today I made up for not getting lost yesterday.  After going to Costco, we took a tour of the north part of the city that we hadn't seen yet.  Our 7-minute trip home took 30! It's always fun to see new things.
   Tonight I found the Apple store in Hermosillo. It is in a beautiful mall called the Gallerias on the Southeast part of town.  It is another new area of exploration!  I was able to get the connections for our iPad to tv. We don't have to sit with our iPad on our laps any more!  In the process I discovered that the GPS on the iPad works! Just had to change the Settings!  No more excuses for getting Lost!
  We are still waiting to receive any packages from the US.  They are supposed to reach us through a family in Rio Rico, Arizona who come down fairly regularly, though we haven't seen them yet. We are looking forward to seeing how that all works out.

Monday, July 8, 2013


This is our home. Very secure!


Time passes sooo quickly.  Life here is great and full of miracles.
   Last week we returned to La Frontera to get our visas stamped so that we can be here more than 6 months.  In his desire to get us here quickly, Pres. Pinon forgot that we should have stopped at immigration for that purpose. We went back to Nogales, Arizona and put another 350 miles on the car. So Much for  saving time! The best part of the day was getting to go to Safeway! You don't know what you have until you don't have it!  It was nice putting gas in the car and knowing exactly how much it was!
   Well, the road is not the best - a lot of construction -and it took four hours each way to travel to and from.  We didn't leave until midday, so it was dark on our return to Hermosillo.  It gets dark much earlier than in the north. I just pretended I was driving through southern Idaho. There are no shoulders and very few places to stop at all.  We made it home about 10pm that night, safely. Grateful we were!

    The next morning, Friday, we decided to make a trip to Costco on our own.  On the way there I turned too soon and was unsure of where I should go.  I tried pulling into the OXXO to get directions and the employee shooed me away. Strange, but OK.  Drove down the street to a stoplight and a car pulled up along side of us and pointed to the right rear tire - Flat! Directly across the intersection was a Michelin store and we crossed the street and they took care of it for free.  There was a Screw in the tire!  Were we blessed or what!?  If we would have found Costco who knows?! We were sooooooooooo blessed to have made it back safely the night before!  
I understand Washington got to experience some of the kind of weather we have here - the 100+ kind.  We have kind of gotten used to it. Our apartment cools off great with the room air conditioning. We did have an incredible lightening and wind storm pre-July 4th. Wish I could have taken photos! 



  
   We didn't have to work until 4pm on Friday, so we took a drive to Bahia Kino on the Sea of Cortez.  It's 100 KM or 60 Miles from Hermosillo, a 1-1/2 hour drive.  It started out as a drive to see where the airport was in Hermosillo.  Before you knew it we were at the beach! I was happy -There were some beautiful farms along the way. Fred was so happy to see the ocean. It was about 15* cooler, 90 instead or 105.  The ocean breeze was wonderful. We had a shrimp tostada and fish taco that were tan sabroso! Got back in time to go to the temple.  Another great day! 
  We and the Thomases are the new baptismal coordinators. We are excited about it. Another new adventure! We were trained Friday and Saturday. We love serving the people here. 
   We attended that Misiones Ward yesterday for the block.  It was a real family ward with lots of kids.  We knew a lot of the ward from the Temple.  We have now located five of the seven building here.  Today we hope to find the other two.  
   This is a big place!  Brigham did NOT design these streets!  I'm beginning to get the feel for where we are going.  Still have one section of the city to explore. There are multiple Walmarts, one Costco and 2 Sam's Club, Home Depots, Lowe's, and YES - Ace. Sorry - no BiMart!
  Well - Off to explore! Love to all!

Monday, July 1, 2013

Hermosillo at last!

   Well, three weeks have passed since we left home to begin our mission as temple missionaries in the Hermosillo Sonora Mexico Temple. We had a great 3-day visit with Michelle and Stephen's family prior to beginning our 3-day training at the Salt Lake City Temple. We started a "little" project in their family room, taking out a wall, rewiring, and sheetrocking!  Fun!
   Our training in SLC began on June 10th. That was an awesome experience! We were able to spend one evening with Jay and Kathleen (now both retired) Bagley before leaving SLC. The SLC Temple is now the MTC for temple missionaries.
   We then spent a night with M&S again before heading to south of the border. Stephen was selected as the new Fire Chief for Santaquin.  It is part-time while he continues to work full-time in Murray.  He also teaches at UVU.  Busy man!  Michelle is still doing massage in her home.
   June 14th we headed south.  We spent the night in Henderson, Nevada. Thought about Aunt Ronella. The next night was spent in Green Valley, south of Tucson.  June 16th we crossed the border at Nogales, AZ.  So long USA.  Pres Pinon had told us to just stay left as we came to the checkpoints, so we did.  They have a light system to let you go through or to be stopped. At the first checkpoint was green for us, but red for the car behind us.  Next checkpoint was green light for us and red for the second car behind us.  We breezed right through. The roads were not bad, but not great, but we made it safely.
   Sonora is a "free zone", meaning there is pretty free travel back and forth across the border as long as you have your papers.  We are very thankful we didn't have to have our car gone through! It was packed!!
   The trip to Hermosillo after the border was a little longer than Pres Pinon expected, because I kept the speed limit.  He says NO ONE keeps the speed limit.  I think it was just inbred into me.  Translating into kilometers is interesting, but not as much as Pesos! The exchange is almost 13 pesos to $1.  Seeing things cost $128 instead of $1 takes some getting used to.
  The biggest challenge after not having any food for the first Sunday (rice and couscous), was not having cell phone or internet service for over a week!  Nearly drove Fred berserk! They don't have calling cards like we have in the states. We were sooooooooo delighted to get our internet hooked up so we can Skype. We signed up for unlimited calls to the US land and cell phones for only $60/year.  That is an incredible deal and blessing. We are able to share the internet cost with another missionary couple which is very nice. There are now 3 temple missionary couples.  The temple presidency won't have to work themselves quite so hard now.
  I love being here.  Our apartment is great. Huge living room and bedroom with a walk-in closet, laundry room, and kitchen.  It's connected to the President's home. The carport is wrought iron gated secure.  we can see the Angel Moroni our our kitchen window.  It's a 5-minute walk to the Temple. The ward building is 3 minutes away!  The mission office is in the same block.  We are surrounded by million dollar homes. Daily highs are about 110 so far, but we have wonderful air conditioning units in our apt.
   Costco is about 10 minutes away; Walmart, 5 minutes.  Didn't really like WM in Sunnyside, even less here. There are several different chain stores similar to Target and Fred Meyer that are much nicer. It's amazing what you don't know you'll miss until you can't get it!
   Hermosillo is a nice city.  The Ford plant here is going full force turning out the Fusion. Biggest problem is not have their own source of water.  It is aquaducted 150 miles from the south from Obbregon. They don't want to share.  Native American thing.  We shall see.
   We have put a few miles on the car just trying to learn the lay of the land.  No one knows how to draw a straight line.  The same road can change its name 2 or 3 times. Reminds me of Toppenish. We are beginning to get it figured out. Our goal is to know where all 7 chapels are here (14 wards, 2 stakes) and visit each of them. The speaker in the ward we visited on Sunday was baptized with his wife in Torreon when Pres Pinon was mission president!  Very interesting story - from cotton picker to college professor!
  More stories on another day. Love to all. Don't forget us!