Christmas Came Early to Belize

Christmas for the Magnussons came early to Belize with the arrival of three of our children, Rachel and Lisa from Salt Lake City, and Sam from BYU-Idaho. What joy it is to have them visiting through Christmas.

It's great to have family around our kitchen table once again.  

If you ever wondered what complete surprise looks like, this is me opening an early Christmas gift from Lisa:  homemade granola!  The last time I ate my favorite breakfast cereal was before my mission.  The ingredients are too hard to come by here in Belize for me to make it.  

As a family we were able to pass out newborn kits to six new mothers in Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital.  I enjoyed talking to the mothers about their newborn babies and their families.  One of the mothers asked Elder Magnusson to say a prayer over her new baby.  It was memorable because we are missing all of our new grandbabies.  And this time of year made us think that perhaps Mary would have loved receiving a newborn kit during her stay in the stable.  Poignant moment, for sure.  

We took an excursion to Lamanai, the Mayan ruins an hour north of Belize City, best reached by boat on the river. 

We had the best tour guide:  Nefi Gomez.  If you are ever in Belize and want to tour the beautiful sites of Belize,  I would highly recommend getting in touch with him.  You can check out his website by clicking here.   

Nefi taught us jungle survival skills, like how to eat termites! 

Lamanai was the site of a large Mayan city, estimated to have been occupied 1000 B.C. to 1500 A.D. Its name is believed to mean "submerged crocodile", a nod to the wildlife of the river it borders. Much of the city's stone structures remain hidden in the dense brush, and under centuries of mud and foliage. 

The Temple of the Jaguar. The worn face of the beast is still visible with earrings dangling on either side. Jaguars continue to roam the forests in the countryside.

The Temple of the Mask is an amazing testament of the ingenuity and craftsmanship of the ancients who inhabited this land.

What goes up, must come down.  

On Saturday, we traveled to the island of Caye Caulker.

We met up with some members of the local branch. Swimming in the Carribean in December...

On Christmas Eve we had Elder and Sister Adams over for dinner.  

And yet, work must go on. Other happenings this week....

Weekly district meeting in Belize City, conducted by our new district leader,  20-year old Elder Reyes from Texas.

Helping the elders re-open the town of Orange Walk for missionary work, with the branch president.

 Our neighbor children getting into the holiday spirit.

Christmas Eve in front of a church member's house, with friends, family, and missionaries joining in singing Christmas carols.

Merry Christmas to all of our family and friends in faraway California, Utah, and Idaho. May the peace that our Savior brings to our lives be with us through 2018. 

And Then There Were Six!

When we left for our mission in July, we had 3 grandchildren.  On Wednesday our 6th grandchild was born -- A baby girl to Kristine and Bryce.  The first picture we received was her footprints. Next, we were so happy to see her beautiful picture after she was all dolled up.  

It was fun to receive this video of another one of our grandchildren who is full of the Christmas spirit.  Maybe she can sing for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir someday?     

 You can also see the video here

This week was a busy one full of service and visits.  We have enjoyed participating in the #LightTheWorld initiative.  I was touched by this video that will be featured on Tuesday for Day 19.

How will you #LightTheWorld?  Here are some suggestions for day 19:

"Rejoice, and be exceeding glad."—Matthew 5:12  God loves us and wants us to be happy. We have many reasons to be happy, even if we don’t realize all of them. One way we find joy is by helping others feel joy.

WAYS YOU CAN SPREAD JOY

     ~Who do you know who could use some joy in their life?

          Send them a personalized care package in the mail.

     ~How often do you stop to think about your blessings?

          Reach out to someone who has blessed your life, and thank the person for his or her example.

     ~When was the last time you celebrated someone else’s accomplishments?

          Find somebody who doesn’t receive thanks very often, and make the person’s day amazing.

Transfers for the missionaries this time are happening over several days.  Sometimes transfers for the missionaries are a little more complicated because this mission is split between two countries -- El Salvador and Belize.

On Saturday our home was the staging area for the elders who are being transferred to El Salvador from Belize and the two sister missionaries who are returning home after serving their mission.  Some of the missionaries had traveled up to  three hours by bus from the areas where they were serving, and we were happy to enjoy a nice lunch together.

While we ate, we played a couple of Christmas song games.  Join with the missionaries and try to figure out the Christmas songs from the clues below. 

Click on the page to view 

The answer to the first one is "O Come all Ye Faithful ".  You can view the games with all the answers  by clicking here. 

Saturday night we were able to go to the Christmas party for the Belize City Branch.  It was well attended and all enjoyed beautiful decorations, good food, great entertainment and the Christmas spirit.  

As missionaries, we were in charge of the activity.  We got into small groups of about 6 people, passed out copies of the paper below, and enjoyed discussing the Christmas topics in our groups.  

You can get a copy of the game here

Before the dinner we were able to view the annual Belize City Christmas parade as it passed by the church.  Being from So. California, it was fun to compare the Belize Christmas Parade to the world famous Pasadena Rose Parade and the Duarte Route 66 Parade.  

This was the first entry of the parade

You can also view the video by clicking here

This is our Christmas card for this year, 2017.  

You can view our Christmas greetings through the years by clicking here.  

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas

This past week we were able to attend some of the branch Christmas parties in our district.  Also, last Sunday I enjoyed watching the primary children re-enacted the nativity scene.  Children bring a special spirit to Christmas.   

I've enjoyed giving out paper nativity sets to the children that we have visited this week.  It's been fun to watch them set up the characters of the nativity:  shepherds, wisemen, angels, stable animals, Joseph and Mary, and of course, baby Jesus.  #LightTheWorld Day 7

You can get the pattern to the nativity set by clicking here.  

When we visited Corozal, I loved seeing the clever decorations at the public library.  The Christmas tree is made out of Sprite bottles and the snow man is made out of library books covered in white paper and encyclopedias.     

Our travels also brought us to Orange Walk where we visited friends. This couple has been members of the church for three years, hold leadership callings in the branch, and tell of the peace, blessings and great changes the restored gospel of Jesus Christ has made in their lives.   

Visiting San Pedro on the island on a cool and windy day.   

Speaking of cold and windy, here is the latest breaking Belize news.  As you can see on this Facebook Breaking Belize News page that 1.4K reacted to the weather conditions with 43 comments and 193 shares.  

Last Monday, we had dinner with a new member of the Belize City Branch, Joe England.  As we got acquainted, we were surprised to learn that Joe produced for the Church my favorite youth mormonmessage, "Sanctify Yourself", based on the talk by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland.

We got out our laptop and he answered our questions about the process of producing the movie as we watched it.

You can also see the movie by clicking here.

This is what your pants look like when you have vehicle trouble in Belize City.  (There's a lot of dust from the road construction going on here) Thankfully, we were able to get help dealing with our dead truck battery from Elder and Sister Adams.

We got news earlier this week that one of the Belize City branch members, who lives alone, had a stroke.  After he was seen in the hospital, he was sent home.  When we visited him, we were humbled to learn that he was being attended to by his "good Samaritan" neighbors.  This painting by Walter Rane immediately came to mind when I learned about all that this couple were doing for their neighbor. Their compassion was nothing short of what we read about in the Bible.

The Good Samaritan

by Walter Rane

Luke 10:33-35

33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,

34 And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.

35 And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.

You can also see the video by clicking here

We'll See You in 2 Years, Elders

We had two young missionaries from Belize leave to start their missionary service this week--  Elder Cherrington to serve in the Peru Lima West Mission and Elder Salam to serve in the Panama Panama City Mission.   We were excited to send them off as they start their missions.

 President and Sister Adams with Elder Cherrington          Elder Salam with Elder Magnusson

Have you ever wondered how Mormon missionaries are assigned to the area where they serve?   Elder Rasband explains the process in his April 2010 General Conference talk.  Click here to hear Elder Rasband's explanation.   

This past Thursday we had our Belize Zone Conference.  We were well taught by President Adams and the mission leaders.  As the missionaries sang Christmas hymns, read from the scriptures, and bore their testimonies about the birth of Christ, the Spirit was in abundance.

Sister Flake headed up the luncheon.  We had a lovely meal of chicken cordon bleu, twice baked potatoes, vegetable medley, rolls, layered Christmas jello, and pumpkin crumb cake for dessert.

It was fun to watch the elders gather round the Christmas tree, put their name tags on the branches and then take a picture of their "decorated" Christmas tree. 

The Church continues with it's Christmas #LightTheWorld initiative.  I enjoy reading the suggestions each day on mormon.org.  Day 2 had a scripture and some thoughts that caught my attention:

Matthew 25:35  "I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink."  

People around us are thirsting both physically and spiritually. We can help them receive the life-sustaining water that their bodies need and the living water that their spirits need.

WAYS YOU CAN BLESS OTHERS IN NEED

Service
Did you know that access to clean water has the single greatest impact on global poverty?
Consider donating to a cause that helps provide safe water to individuals or communities.

service
Want to make a difference on a local level?
Donate a case of bottled water to your local shelter.

service
Is there someone you know who is spiritually thirsty?
Share your testimony of Jesus Christ, the “living water” who can give everlasting life (see John 4:10–14).

I like to give out bottles of water on a hot day, which is pretty much everyday here in Belize.  This week I gave some bottled water to our hard working gardeners who maintain our yard.

You can also see the video by clicking here.

Thanksgiving Day and more

Thanksgiving Day came and went here in Belize.  Even though it's an American holiday, it was fun to celebrate it in Belize with the missionaries. We had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner complete with stuffing, mashed potatoes,  gravy, veggies, cranberry sauce, jello, rolls, and a yummy pumpkin crunch dessert.   Where's the turkey, you ask?  He didn't show up, so we had chicken instead and pretended like it was turkey.  

Before our meal we watched, "In the Spirit of Thanksgiving".  The video has random people on the Streets of New York City responding to one simple question:   What are you thankful for?   

After we watched the video we shared what we were thankful for.  We all agreed that missionary service is on the top of our list of blessings this year. 

You can also see the video by clicking here

We enjoyed getting pictures of where our children spent Thanksgiving this year without us.   They were with different family and friends (from left to right) in Idaho, Montana, Utah, and California.

Speaking of being thankful to be a missionary, Elder Mérida's shoes tells it all of what it means to dedicate his life--well, two years of it (and his shoes) to serve our brothers and sisters here in Belize.  

As we visit people we invite them to read the Book of Mormon.  It is a second witness of Jesus Christ. I took a photo of one woman's open Book of Mormon, who we're teaching. She started reading it in September and is a diligent studier.  It's the only book of scripture that contains a  promise to the reader of how to learn of it's truthfulness, found in Moroni 10:4-5.  

4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.

Sometimes missionary work is a gas. Here, Elder Magnusson is moving the empty butane tank out to be filled. All residences in Belize have tanks for fuel. Ours lasted four months. We're just glad it ran out the day after Thanksgiving!

This morning during Sunday School Class Elder Magnusson taught about the #LightTheWorld initiative.  Mormon.org explains what it is about:

No season of the year shines as bright as Christmas—and the brightest light is Jesus Christ, the Light of the World. Once again we celebrate His birth by making Christmastime a season of service. Join us this year as we learn His teachings and follow His example to #LightTheWorld.

This Christmas season, how will you #LightTheWorld? Start today at mormon.org to learn how you can be like the Savior, Jesus Christ. Serve as He did helping light the way for others. 

So, I will echo the words from mormon.org. How will you #LightTheWorld this Christmas season AND all year long?

I Love to See the Temple

We were able to go to the Mérida Mexico Temple this weekend with 42 other members of the Belize District.  As I anticipated the trip, I thought about a General Conference talk given by Elder Holland  several years ago where he talked about members from the most southern town in Chile and their experience of attending the Santiago Chile Temple.  Elder Holland describes the location of the stake where this story takes place as the "Church’s southernmost stake anywhere on this planet".  Here is Elder Holland's  description of their experience taken from the April 2004 General Conference: 

The Punta Arenas Chile Stake is the Church’s southernmost stake anywhere on this planet, its outermost borders stretching toward Antarctica. Any stake farther south would have to be staffed by penguins. For the Punta Arenas Saints it is a 4,200-mile round-trip bus ride to the Santiago temple. For a husband and wife it can take up to 20 percent of an annual local income just for the transportation alone. Only 50 people can be accommodated on the bus, but for every excursion 250 others come out to hold a brief service with them the morning of their departure.

Pause for a minute and ask yourself when was the last time you stood on a cold, windswept parking lot adjacent to the Strait of Magellan just to sing with, pray for, and cheer on their way those who were going to the temple, hoping your savings would allow you to go next time? One hundred ten hours, 70 of those on dusty, bumpy, unfinished roads looping out through Argentina’s wild Patagonia. What does 110 hours on a bus feel like? I honestly don’t know, but I do know that some of us get nervous if we live more than 110 miles from a temple or if the services there take more than 110 minutes. While we are teaching the principle of tithing to, praying with, and building ever more temples for just such distant Latter-day Saints, perhaps the rest of us can do more to enjoy the blessings and wonder of the temple regularly when so many temples are increasingly within our reach.

Well, it turns out that we didn't spend 110 hours on a bus....our experience wasn't quite that long.  We did travel 650 miles round trip which took us 24 hours of traveling time. We left our house on Friday afternoon at 4:00 pm.  We returned home Saturday night at 10:00 pm.  That is 30 hours that we were gone.  During that 30 hours we were either on a bus (trying to sleep), going through immigration, transferring buses between Belize and Mexico, eating at a roadside diner at 2:00 a.m., buying ice cream from a street vendor in Mérida and, of course, we were 6 hours in the temple.  

The temple is the House of the Lord. In it we truly felt our Heavenly Father's love for us, His children.  Mormon.org describes the temple as: "A quiet, holy place where we can seek answers to prayers, reflect on life and its priorities, and learn eternal truths about the purpose of our time here on earth."  

Elder and Sister Adams wrote a detailed description of what went on in a previous Belize District Mérida Temple trip on their blog, with additional photos.  You can read about their experience by clicking here.  

The top two pictures are of our group as we drove through Belize on a school bus to the border. The bottom picture is the bus we took from Chetumal, Mexico north to Mérida.

The next day we got up early to catch the water taxi, where we attended branch conference in the San Pedro Branch.  As we and a member family returned to the wharf after the Sunday service to catch the boat for home, we were greeted by this beautiful rainbow.  I looked at the rainbow as a beautiful ending to a wonderful weekend.

This is a picture of  the sunset that we saw from our boat ride home.  

On November 15th our church posted this video and commentary on mormonnewsroom.org.    We are grateful to belong to a church that reaches out to aid others in their time of need.

You can also see the video by clicking here.  

In response to the generous help given following a series of recent unprecedented catastrophes, President Henry B. Eyring, first counselor in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, expressed his gratitude. “In the midst of this suffering, people throughout the world have rallied to come to the aid of their brothers and sisters,” he said in representing the First Presidency.

Following a rash of hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires, famine and mudslides, members and friends of the Church have responded by giving generously of their time and resources to provide relief in their communities and across the globe. Hundreds of thousands have lost their homes, their belongings and in some cases even their loved ones through the tragic effects of natural disasters and conflict...