Happy 4th of July and Viva Mexico!

July 5, 2016

July 4th

Just finished the 4^th of July here in Mexico.  Our ward here is full of US Embassy people and so our ward had a great 4^th of July celebration.  It was fun and reminded us of how we do love our country.  In our FHE last night, one of our group gave a presentation on the history of Mexico.  It is interesting to note that they too have had a real struggle for independence, much longer and far bloodier that ours.  Most of us want freedom and will fight for it.  I am grateful for those who at one time gained ours, and am reminded that we need to continually struggle to maintain it!  (BTW, did you know that in Mexico they call the Mexican War, the War of North American Intervention and that we pretty much took away almost 1/2 of their country?)  Who said our policy of Manifest Destiny was correct?  Just a thought.

Mexican's love their flags big, big, big.  This is the one in the Zokalo which is the old town center of Mexico City

friends at 4th of July party

Real del Monte

This weekend we visited a little town in the mountains about 2 hours out of Mexico City.  It is Real del Monte and was a former mining town, which over the years has supplied about 6% of all of the silver in the world.  Most of it was shipped to Spain and the mine was closed in the 1980’s.  The town imported miners from Cornwall in England to work the mines and they were a huge influence in the town, especially the food.  They have become famous for Cornish Pasties (Pastes in Spanish), which are like empanadas, but much better.  After the mining dried up, pastes became the main staple of the town and they are shipped all over the country.  It is a very beautiful town, high in the mountains, with yummy food.  What more could you ask for?

this is a beautiful canyon on our way to Real del Monte

canyon

 

this is a view of the town

The air here

Everyone keeps asking me how we can stand the dirty air and pollution here.  I’m posting this picture of the city that I  snapped a few days ago.  It isn’t always like this, but it really is quite lovely a lot of the time.  It is the rainy season so that gets the air a bit cleaner.

the view out of the church office building a few days ago here in Mexico City

Just a few more pictures of crazy buildings here.  I really love them and am constantly amazed at how unique they are.  So many of them I just can’t photograph because we are driving in the car and I can’t get pictures.  They give so much character to this city.

This is Jim and my office here.  You can see that we have a lot of togetherness.  Jim can sit here for hour upon hour, but I get very antsy after an hour or two.  I have to get up and do something different for a while.

 This is one of my favorite things to do here.  Flower stands and beautiful flowers.  I have so missed my beautiful garden and the flowers at the Saturday market, BUT these do help ease the pain.  These stands are on almost every corner and provide me beautiful flowers for bouquets on a regular basis.  This bouquet was in Church last Sunday.  It was huge and so beautiful.  They like their arrangements the bigger the better and the more colors the better.  It is a joyous habit.

The other day Jim and I took some time off to go visit the Anthropological Museum here.  It is one of the most famous and beautiful museums in the world.  It is the repository of the major collections of pre-Columbian art and artifacts in the world.  It is quite close to us so we just hopped on a bus and spent a few hours there.  We just visited a small part of it because it is so big, but figure we have plenty of time to go see the other parts.  This is a picture of us in front of what they call the Aztec Calendar.  It is actually not a calendar at all, but that is another story.  It was all extremely interesting.

It may sound like we don’t do anything here but play.  We do play a lot, but we also work a lot (especially Jim – he is on the phone all of the time trying to help solve missionary health problems).  But I don’t know how many pictures of us sitting at our desks or on the phone we need to include.  I keep busy with missionary applications and helping Jim. (At least I try).  We are enjoying this lovely country and city and the beautiful people who inhabit it.  Hasta la vista!  Until next time.  BTW, we always enjoy hearing from all of you!