Third Month in Belize

Meet our crabby neighbor.  Often at night we see him and his other crabby friends on the street.  Unfortunately, sometimes they don't look when they cross the street and they will get run over by a car. Belize City was built on swampland...hence lots of crabby neighbors!  

 

These are our fun neighbors.  We have spent a couple of game nights together and look forward to many more.  Today we taught them how to play Yahtzee.

Tuesday we drove west to San Ignacio where Elder Magnusson needed to do some business that night.  Elder and Sister Flake live there and took us over the border to Melchor de Mencos, the town just inside Guatemala that’s part of our mission.   

This is a picture of us going through customs at the border.  Right above Sister Magnusson's head you can see the "Welcome to Guatemala"sign.

Elder Flake had arranged for a member to drive us around to see four member families. These visits were all in Spanish since we weren’t in Belize anymore. We had a taco lunch at the missionaries’ favorite spot, and went through the chapel that was dedicated a couple weeks before we arrived— a gorgeous meetinghouse the locals are proud of.

Back inside Belize, we stopped at the Xunantunich ruins, that sit atop a hill near the border, overlooking the whole area. Really an amazing thing to see these ruins and imagine what Mayan life was like here. After crossing over a river on a ferry, it was a mile walk to get there, all up hill, but worth it. 

On our hand-cranked ferry ride

Our beautiful view on the walk to Xunantunich.  

Here are a few pictures from the ruins.  The first picture is the expansive view from the top of the highest temple, named El Castillo. In the middle bottom picture you can see a little white speck, to the right of the middle.  That is Elder Magnusson standing on the very top of El Castillo.  

This past Sunday I was able to help with singing time with the children in our Spanish congregation.  The only thing is I don't speak Spanish. (I can understand a little bit of Spanish) Fortunately, the children can speak both Spanish and English.  They have learned the songs in Spanish that they are going to sing for the Sacrament meeting program in a couple of weeks and they just needed a review.  You can read about my experience by clicking onto our family blog here.  

The best news of all, it's getting cooler! It's getting to be around 79 degrees at night-- Break out the jackets! (Opps...we didn't bring any...)