This is our apartment building.  We are on the second floor.  There are 10 senior missionary couples plus us that live here.  Around the corner there are several other couples that are missionaries or work for the church.

We were able to go home for a week at Thanksgiving time to help bless our new little grandson.  We loved our time there but it really was hard to say goodbye again.

This is him on the Christmas Tree Hunt.  This is a family tradition every year.  How we do love our family and enjoyed our week with them.  They have been blessed in so many ways while we have been gone.  Everyone has been so good to Paul and Rebecca with this new baby, with meals and gifts and helping as much as is possible.

 We pass this fountain every day on the way to the mission office.  It is lit up for the holidays.  There is a huge tree not far from this fountain sponsored by the Gallo beer company.  It is at the Obelisco where four of the main roads intersect.  

The whole branch helped to make a wedding dress out of toilet paper for a sister (returned missionary) who was getting married in the temple soon after.  The pinata was a last minute afterthought by one of the branch members.

A couple must be married civilly first.  The woman judge who married them was very good.  She explained that Guatemalan law gave the woman the right to money enough from her husbands earnings to feed and clothe herself and the children.  This same judge then accompanied them to the temple which was just behind the Vista Hermosa chapel.  The judge is also a temple worker there.  How neat that she could be there for both.

That evening, there was a dinner with beautiful decorations and flowers that they arranged themselves at another church , The Monserrat Stake Center, on the other side of Guatemala City.  The couple will be living in that ward.  They are actually living in an old missionary apartment that no longer qualified because it was two stories.  The live band that they had ended up playing recorded music.

We were so excited when our kids sent money and diapers, as well as stuffed monkeys for us to find homes for here in Guatemala.  The dentists will help us find great places to share these things.  The celebration here is much less about gift giving than what we seem to focus on at home.  There are lights and decorations, but the emphasis is fireworks.  We will be having a fireworks display on the 8th which we should be able to see from our roof.  We have heard from several people that there is nothing  better than seeing the fireworks at Christmas in Guatemala.