New Friends, Old Friends and General Conference....Oh and a Day at The Beach ; )

Since our last blog we have welcomed another missionary couple to the temple. The Zapata's are our newest couple. They are both Mexicans who have lived a number of years in the US, most recently in Magna, UT. They are a wonderful couple with great life experiences which is going to be a huge asset here in Oaxaca.

Since the Temple was closed for General Conference we decided to take our new friends, the Zapata's, to meet our old friends and see the town which still has our heart, Huatulco. Since we no longer have a car we traveled by bus. We left Friday night at midnight and arrived in Huatulco at 8:30 am Saturday morning. Considering we were on a bus for 8 1/2 hours on winding mountain roads it was surprisingly comfortable and we rested relatively well. Our friends the Pineda's picked us up from the bus terminal and took us to their house to freshen up for conference. On the way we took the Zapata's on a little tour of the Santa Cruz area of Huatulco and up to the viewpoint to see Playa Santa Cruz.

We spent the day Saturday watching general conference, me in the room with the English speaking missionaries and Rosa in the chapel with the Spanish speaking members. The missionaries speak Spanish very well but prefer to listen to conference in English. We were able to reconnect with our former new friends, The Johnson's, the couple that replaced us in Huatulco and meet the new Elders there. We also ate at a few of the places we loved in Huatulco including Atole and tamales pina for breakfast.

Here are a couple of pics of me with the missionaries watching conference.

Sunday we spent watching conference and then when the last session finished we went to the Johnson's for dinner and games. We played No Comas Tomas, the mexican version of Don't Eat Pete that the Johnson's made. It was a great time with again a mixture of new and old friends.

We also had lunch Sunday with Hermana Pearla and the Pineda's.

Of course seeing old friends and eating good food was fantastic, however the real blessing was the opportunity to watch General Conference. The counsel given and the feelings we experienced top any of the other activities of the weekend. From President Uchtdorf's talk about recognizing spiritual experiences and miracles to begin the conference to Elder Renlund's to talk about the Joy of repentance to finish the conference we were inspired to be better Christians and better people overall.

Here are several pictures of us and our friends in Huatulco.

Of course a trip to Huatulco would not be complete without some beach time. It was beautiful as usual and the water was fantastic. I am not in near the swimming shape I was seven months ago and so I was unable to actually catch any puffer fish this time, although I did touch two just not able to grab enough to get them to puff up. Oh well when we come back down in December I will have more time to swim and get back into shape.

Second breakfast of tacos and a drink in a bag after swimming.

And of course a trip to the Huatulco sign is a must for any first time visitors.

Finished the morning with my a paleta from my favorite ice cream place in Huatulco.

As I was writing this my sister called and reminded me that it had been a couple of months since my last blog post. I will try to get one out at least once a month from here to the end of our mission. So you can expect 5 more blogs.

Thanks you all for your prayers and support. May God Bless each of you.