This is the gorgeous new temple dedicated today in San Salvador, El Salvador (a country whose name means "The Savior"). I attended the broadcast of the dedication at the district center chapel here in San Ignacio and got to see all my friends from both the San Ignacio and Santa Elena branches--most of them, sadly, for the last time.
The dedication was wonderful. Pres. Eyring presided and dedicated the temple--his first ever! Katie, Maren, Sarah, and I attended the 9 AM dedicatory session. This was an extra-advantageous choice since the first session included the sealing of the cornerstone and also had an English dubbed channel which was not present during the later sessions, much to some of our fellow team members' chagrin.
Pres. Eyring talked about how temples should awaken a sense of gratitude within each of us for the things God has given us and the blessings of the ordinances received therein. He noted that the creative beauty of each temple is an expression of our gratitude to our own Creator. All the talks were great and there was much reverence but also great excitement for this, the fourth temple to grace Central America.
After the dedication, I said rounds of goodbyes. Of a few of them I make special note:
This is Sister Sandra Trapp. She is one of the sweetest ladies you'll ever meet and I've really enjoyed getting to know her in the Santa Elena Branch. She has had many trials that have left her mostly paralyzed and her voice is very quiet so you have to lean in close to understand her when she speaks, but she is very wise and has many keen spiritual insights. She has faithfully come to Church every week I've been here and has rarely missed a week for the past decade since she joined the Church. We often talk about the Sunday School lesson and Sacrament talks after Church and she always has phenomenal insights. When I said goodbye today she gave me the most touching goodbye letter including her testimony. How blessed we are to have sisters like Sandra Trapp in the Kingdom to inspire us!
Here's my Belizean Branch Presidents! At left is Pres. Lemos of the San Ignacio Branch. Even though I didn't attend the San Igancio Branch, I had quite a few opportunities to interact with that branch and Pres. Lemos specifically. He is an incredible man and will likely continue to be an important Church leader in Belize for decades to come. At right is Pres. Pinelo, the President of the Santa Elena branch where I've attended. He is soft-spoken, but a great leader also and I've loved helping serve in his branch, even if only temporarily.
Right after the dedication session, I had another goodbye, this time to fellow team mate Katie. She was supposed to leave yesterday, but her flight got cancelled due to the hurricane, so she left today. She had to get back early because she has a race for BYU Track and Field tomorrow in Park City! Best of luck, Katie!
Speaking of the hurricane, Harvey truly was pretty lame, as mentioned yesterday. In fact, as you noticed in the pictures above, especially with Presidents Pinelo and Lemos, the day today has already been completely clear and beautiful. Now, I actually don't mind that at all! In fact, good weather will be a great blessing to be able to get our work done the next few days before leaving.
Later in the afternoon we watched some "Mormon Messages" videos and now I'm writing my blog post, and that's my day so far.
Moral of today's post: don't undervalue the blessing of a temple! The saints here in Belize are ecstatic to have a new temple that will only require them to travel a day and a half each way at huge expense to be able to attend. I don't know about you, but for me in Provo, the temple is a fifteen minute WALK from my apartment! Let us not neglect that blessing. Remember: Pres. Eyring taught today that temples should turn our hearts to gratitude, and a great deal of that gratitude should certainly be for temples themselves, especially ones with such close proximity!
Well, Harvey came and went without too much excitement. In fact, the brunt of the storm went right over us, but if you hadn't told us so we never would have assumed it was something other than a slightly heavy long-lasting rain storm. It may have been only a Tropical Storm by the time it hit us (in fact it was only ever a hurricane for 1 hour), but the Weather Channel's website made it look like it was still really powerful even though it was nothing. We were all bracing ourselves for a cool show and were ultimately let down by Harvey's utter weak-sauce display. Meanwhile, everyone in the country had shut everything down for the day, so we couldn't even go do anything, especially even work on projects, which would have been nice considering how little time we have left!
Katie was scheduled to fly out today since she has a race on Monday morning, but her flight got cancelled because of the impending storm and now she flies out tomorrow instead. So, we at least got to hang on to Katie a little longer, but for causing such an inconvenience to Katie, I figured Harvey at least owed us some good lightning. Oh, well. Better luck next time, I suppose. Not every Hurricane can be a massive swirling tool of destruction and good wearther theatrics. ;) (Do any of you remember the "big blizzard" that was supposed to hit Provo last year on Thanksgiving? It was all kind of like that story.)
The day itself was rather lazy and laid back. We were mostly stuck inside all day and we all knew we should be packing or cleaning or something, but nobody really had the motivation to do anything. I tried in vain to organize a hurricane party so that at least we could have fun together inside during the rain, but nobody seemed that interested. I kept thinking soon everyone would be together and we'd do something, but it was all in vain and my day became mostly composed of waiting around for others and not doing anything at all in the end. :-/ Talk about a boring day!
In preparation for the Hurricane party that never happened, I made my signature blondie cookie bars, albeit with a few substitute ingredients that worked just fine. More unusual than substitute ingredients, though, was the substitute kitchen tools. We have no mixing bowls or 9X13 pans, so...
...I used a pitcher to mix it in instead! First you have your dry ingredients...
...then wet ingredients on top of that...
...then I put the lid on and just shook it all up! (James Bond would appreciate that these brownies are shaken, not stirred.)
For lack of a 9X13, I just shaped the rather thick batter into half of this larger pan. I would have just doubled the recipe, but I didn't have enough flour. Anyway, they bake for 22 minutes, and...
...Voila! Blondies!
Anyway, despite not having a hurricane party, we did have fun this evening venturing out through the drizzle to the chapel where they were broadcasting the cultural celebration from El Salvador tonight in preparation for tomorrow's temple dedication. It was a wonderful performance and they zoomed in on Pres. Eyring at the end and he and his wife were just in tears from how touched they were are the thousands of Salvadoran Saints who put so much time and dedication into the performance. They had rented out the national arena and completely packed it with audience members, not including the cast, which, at the very end came out in its entirety and filled the entire field shoulder to shoulder!
* * * * *
Okay, so I was about to publish this post, but I'm glad I waited a bit, because I was called away for a bit to participate in a pillow fight and foam pad jumping extravaganza with the other team members who were still awake. We have a ton of extra foam pads since the previous waves of volunteers had lots more people and now we don't need all of them, so we stacked them up and jumped around. Ultimately, it culminated in the coolest photo-shoot ever, as demonstrated:
Rockstar Katie
SuperPete
Lindsay, bouncin' along
Beach Bum Kyle
Sarah, the well-educated
Maren the Guru
And finally, yours truly.
(I thought about jumping with my machete, but my mother reads this blog too frequently. ;)
And with that, I bid you all farewell for the evening! :)
Yesterday was, once again, our "day off" and we took a trip to do some jungle hiking and playing in some of the gorgeous waterfalls. It was peaceful and fun. Here's some fun pictures taken by myself and others depicting our escapades:
Pretty landscape
Pretty small waterfall
Pretty isolated pools of water near little waterfall
Pretty sandy streams flowing to larger river
Pretty Katie contemplating something on a rock
Pretty natural garden formations
Can you find the pretty little brown bird?
Weird face carved into one of the rocks. Pretty sure this is NOT an ancient Mayan leftover, especially given the dreadlocks depicted.
The foliage and these unusual purple spiked berries make for a nice nature shot
Hiking to big rock falls
Along the way we saw some horses
Big Rock Falls
Big rock falls and me, wearing lucky hat, lucky shirt, lucky boots, and... jeans. (Sorry, the orange adventure pants were in the wash!)
Look at how intense we are. Yeah, we're totally tough like that.
Yay Team!
This is my pull-you-in cute face for girls.
A lot of the faces in this picture are classic and just downright zany.
Yay! Waterfall!
I give this waterfall two thumbs up!
So do Siskel and Ebert!
Okay, last shot of me, I promise!
Anyway, I figure the pictures tell the story much better than any words, so that's just about it for my report of yesterday!
As for today, it was my last Sunday in the Santa Elena branch (very sad). Next week will be my last Sunday in Belize, but there will not be regular church due to the broadcast of the San Salvador El Salvador temple dedication. This will be the temple to service the saints in Belize now. The Guatemala City temple is actually closer, as is the soon to be dedicated Quetzeltenango, Guatemala temple, but Belize and Guatemala have never been on very good terms, and it is easier for Belizeans to make extended stay visits in El Salvador and Honduras (where yet another temple will soon be dedicated in Tegucigalpa). By the end of next year there will be 6 temples in Central America! The Church is very strong across this part of the world, though it is a little behind in Belize where the work started much later (1980) than the rest of Central America. The Belizean saints are still very excited for the temples being built and are confident that one day there will be a stake in Belize and eventually a temple as well. After the 3-hour block today I had my quick interview with Pres. Pinelo to recieve my...
...temple dedication ticket!
It wasn't too much of an interview. He mainly just asked to see my temple recommend and then asked if I was still worthy to have it or if there was anything I needed to clear up. When I showed him my recommend it blew my mind to realize that it is only good through the end of next month!!! Do I have a new item on the top of my priority list for when I get back to the states? Yes. Yes I do.
Church itself was great; a fantastic final week in Santa Elena Branch. The sister missionaries serving here spoke in sacrament and I got to teach the Gospel Principles class for non-members and recent converts. It was the lesson on the Holy Ghost and we had a fantastic discussion; everyone participated really well. One of the recent converts brought her non-member boyfriend Jamir for the first time, and he read along in the scriptures and seemed really interested, so the sisters will hopefully start teaching him this week. It made me miss my mission a lot (as this whole experience in Belize has). I'm just glad the Lord always has work for us to do! :)
On the way to Church we saw an unusual amount of commotion. Nobody usually is doing much of anything on Sunday mornings, but today is the local elections and so all the candidates were setting up booths around the voting stands on the main street in Santa Elena where we walk to get to Church.
Getting ready for elections
The political system here in Belize is... interesting. I've had ups and downs dealing with some of the political struggles here, but it really isn't too different than the United States. On a positive note, Sis. Medina, one of the members from the Santa Elena Branch with whom we often have FHE is running to be on the Cayo Town Council. She is an amazing lady with strong goals for positive development of Belize. She also has had an amazing campaign. We've seen her posters and banners just about everywhere and we also have heard that she has gone door to door to talk with nearly everyone in her council region to talk about her ideas and goals and hear their point of view! I personally hope she's elected. If so, she'll also stand out as the first female Mormon to hold public office in Belize (to our knowledge)!
One last cultural picture before I finish this post:
Click to zoom in and look at the sign on the store. The sentence at the bottom is in the Belizean Kriol language. This is a VERY common sign on the stores around here! "Dis da fu we chikin" means, roughly, "This is where we get our chicken", i.e., "Chicken sold here!" Kriol signs are the best, because the spelling has no consistency (some of these signs spell it "Dis du fi wi chiken") and you have to say it out loud to understand what it is saying, even in Kriol.
So, this last weekend was one of the coolest weekends and birthdays of my life! Long before I was born my mother used to live in the Cayman Islands, and frankly I can't understand why she ever left! The Caribbean is a particularly addicting type of heaven on earth and I loved every minute I spent on the Belizean island of San Pedro. The trip was part of a birthday getaway that the team here planned for me since Friday was my birthday. During our 6 weeks in country, we get weekends off from our work as well as two additional vacation days to be used whenever we'd like and as projects permit. Friday was the first (and perhaps only) of those extra vacation days for me. Frankly, I love the projects I'm working on so if I don't have another extra vacation day, I'm totally cool with that. Besides, we have tons of fun on Saturdays anyway, so I already feel like I've had a lot of vacation here in Belize! Nonetheless, whether or not I take another vacation day, I'm glad I took one on Friday for my birthday in San Pedro.
Let me begin by giving you a little bit of background information. Belize as a country is a unique crossroads between the Caribbean and Central America. When looking at a map, the mainland area in Central America is immediately apparent. If you look closer, however, you'll notice that there are lots of little islands coming off the coast connecting Belize with the Caribbean. As a result, these 2 distinct cultures are blended throughout the whole nation, though the Caribbean side of that culture is particularly emphasized on the islands, just as the Central American/Latino culture sees more emphasis on the mainland. Nonetheless, both are pretty prevalent all over along with some other ethnic groups including the sizable Dutch Mennonite population, the Mayan native tribal population, and even a smattering of European holdovers from the British colonial period. Of the islands that are part of Belize, known as Cayes (pronounced "keys" like the similar islands off of Florida's coast), two in particular have noteworthy populations: Caye Caulker and Ambergris Caye. San Pedro is one of the largest towns in Belize and is located on Ambergris Caye. It is a major tourist location and a completely different side of Belize. While I wouldn't say that everyone in San Pedro is rolling in cash, there is definitely much less poverty than out here in the Cayo district where I live and work. The tourism industry is thriving in San Pedro and bringing in lots of revenue for those living there and it's not hard to see why: Ambergris Caye is one of the most gorgeous places I've ever been and there's lots to do! I'm not going to be able to detail everything, but I'll try to give you the best highlights of my weekend there:
Our journey to San Pedro began...
...on this 2-hour express bus from San Ignacio to Belize City. From the bus terminal...
...we all crowded into a couple of taxis that took us to...
...the seaport! We bought our water taxi tickets and...
...loaded on the boat for a 90-minute ride to Ambergris Caye! On the boat...
...Pete sat next to his clone! Unfortunately, the clone never looked this way when I tried to get a picture, but they he, like Pete, was wearing very similar shades and had the exact same amount of facial stubbery, besides the white shirt, shorts, and hair apparent in this picture. Megan and I dubbed them "Pete and RePete." :) Anyway, we finally arrived in San Pedro and peered across the piers:
Then, we walked down the boat dock to the shore, where the first building we saw was...
...The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! Like the Santa Elena Branch, the San Pedro Branch has converted another building into a chapel until they can get a real chapel some day. More about this building and some experiences had there later on in this post. :) For now, let's continue our journey. After walking ashore...
...we began the gorgeous 15-minute walk down the beach to the Corona Del Mar Hotel where we had a reservation. By the way, can you find the iguana?
We had selected the Corona Del Mar hotel because it was an affordable choice that didn't seem like a grungy hole in the wall. We expected some standard run-of-the mill medium-low-end hotel accommodations. Sure enough, the hotel was pretty standard--a lot like a Motel 6 in the U.S., just on a beautiful beach! However, we were in for the biggest surprise of the entire trip when we went to check in and the staff told us that due to the size of our group, it was easiest just to put us up in the hotel's Penthouse at the very top without charging us the usual additional costs of that upgrade. So, let me introduce you in picture format to the amazing Corona Del Mar Penthouse:
Here is the Penthouse, sitting at the very top of the hotel. I was the last of the 11 members of our team who went to enter it and consequently got to feel my anticipation rise as I heard 10 consecutive exclamations of "Oh my Gosh!" before entering for myself and saying the same thing.
Here is the main living area, bar, and kitchen.
Same, viewed from the other direction.
Bedroom #1 had this cute little towel puppy.
Meanwhile, the other had these swans. Here's Megan Swan with swans!
Nice kitchen
Nice Bathrooms (including toilet paper folded into roses)
Towel ducks in the bathtubs
Decorative pottery on the coffee table
View of the pool and the beach from the living room window
Anyway, I could go on but you get the point. We paid US$25 per night per person to stay there, as that was the original price of the rooms we thought we'd be getting, but got much better! Now, I've stayed in some fancy Marriott suites in my day, and this was very similar to those, but how many of those have you seen with a price point like that? (Of course, as mentioned earlier, I actually didn't pay at all since my amazing team members paid for me as a birthday gift!) Needless to say, we were all super excited about our hotel arrangement. I should actually note that we did also still require one smaller room and we 3 men stayed in that smaller normal room at night, but we spent any other time at the hotel with the girls of the group in the Penthouse! :) So, now that I've detailed the journey to San Pedro and our fantastic hotel arrangement, let me introduce you to some of the rest of my San Pedro adventure. I note here that although up to this point I was taking pictures like a fiend, the rest of the weekend I took far fewer pictures than I usually do. I did take a few, but many more are on other people's cameras and I'll have to get them later. Anyway, I'm going to break with the narrative style now and just put pictures up with captions to finish detailing Friday:
The docks are so photogenic! You practically can't go wrong taking pictures at the beach. Amazing!
Pete and Jake just chillin'.
The team, taking a swim in the Atlantic! (Don't worry, I joined them too!)
Sarah and Emily in the pool.
Jake and I with a palm tree.
Emily, Rin, and MacKenzie work on cooking up...
...a delicious spaghetti birthday dinner with garlic bread and watermelon!
I wish I didn't look so creepy in this picture.
By the way, aren't those enormous rum goblets awesome? Obviously, we only filled them with water! :)
So, that was my fantastic Friday birthday--travels, a sweet penthouse, swimming, chilling out, enjoying scenery, and then a birthday dinner! A major festival was going on in San Pedro this last weekend (basically like the Ms. Central America Pageant), largely sponsored by Heineken beer, so we decided it was best to stay in the penthouse and hang out together at night rather than be outside among all the drunk partiers from all over Central America. So, after dinner I taught the team one of my favorite games--the Progressive Pictionary game--and we had an absolute blast! We also ate homemade Oreo cake-batter cookies instead of a cake since I love them just as much and nobody could find any birthday candles anyway! :)
So, onto Saturday:
Most of the team went Scuba diving or snorkeling on Saturday, but Katie and I, for reasons of frugality to put it softly, refrained and stayed back on the island and hung out together all day. Rather than mere pictures, I can show you a much more vivid detailing of our day as we created a music video together (one of may favorite past-times) at each of the various locations across the island that we explored! See for yourself:
As you can probably tell, it was a particularly enjoyable day! :) Let me share a few other pictures from Saturday:
Can you find the lion fish?
Can you find the sea horse?
One of the locals told us that this is the most photographed tree on the island, and I believe it! I also got to know this tree pretty well as I climbed it to the top to try picking a coconut, but there were no good or ripe ones left. I climbed it in local fashion, where you hug the tree and then push away with your feet to kind of walk-shimmy up the tree. They have absolutely no hand or footholds, so they are rather hard to climb! One local lady walked by as I was climbing and said, "that man is a true Belizean!" That was pretty awesome! :) Katie got a picture of me at the top, but I haven't gotten it from her camera yet. I'll post it once I do!
This building was perfect for Katie as she is a dual citizen of the US and Canada and is currently in Belize--a perfect set of 3 flags, not to mention a funny looking scuba tiki!
Can you find the crab?
On Sunday we attended Church in the San Pedro branch, in the little building we saw when we first got off the dock on Friday. It was a wonderful experience! The ward is bilingual, so one of the missionaries (who is also a counselor in the branch presidency) translated all of the testimonies either from English to Spanish or vice versa depending on the speaker. It was a smaller branch than either Santa Elena or San Ignacio, but everyone there still carried that marvelous spirit of faith and conversion with them. The missionaries there are truly the glue holding things together and often run the whole show on Sunday. They didn't have a teacher for the youth Sunday School class that week so I volunteered and taught a wonderful lesson on the conversion of Paul to 4 young women and 1 young man. They were so attentive and interested and it was an absolute delight to teach them! Sunday School was followed by a wonderful Elder's Quorum discussion on one of Pres. Monson's talks from this last conference. There were 9 men there, including the missionaries, Jake, and myself, but that little quorum had one of the most relevant, on-track, uplifting discussions I've ever had in a priesthood quorum. One of the men shared how when he joined the Church he realized that his business, which sold Alcohol, needed to change. He himself had quit drinking to get baptized, but realized that if God didn't want him to drink, he shouldn't "peddle that poison to others", to use his own words. He gave up his business entirely on faith and switched to selling arts and crafts items. He hasn't necessarily done as well since, but has always gotten by and been provided for and is much happier because of the choice he made. Overall, the San Pedro Branch may have been one of the most uplifting Church experiences of my life.
The rest of my Sunday was mainly travel. Some of the team would be using one additional vacation day the next day, but some of us had projects we couldn't wait on to get back to. So, a few of us packed up a couple hours after Church and began the long journey back to San Ignacio, arriving there in the evening. It was hard to leave that paradise, despite my deep love for the Cayo district on the mainland, and I definitely could enjoy returning some day! Meanwhile, this is Kenneth Kenworthy signing off from this detailed report on my brief by fantastic visit to that wonderful piece of heaven we mortals have borrowed and named San Pedro.
P.S. I will write about my Monday work tomorrow night. Lots of great stuff with the Succotz project today!
