"Echoes of Eden" Dayle King Searle

  Us exploring the city on a Turibus, which you'll read about later.  I spent the first part of this week recuperating. By Thursday I finally felt well enough to go back to the office. We’d only been there a few hours when we received an email from our director, Gustavo, who was sick and had been working from home for two days. The message said he had tested positive for COVID, so our entire department was supposed to quarantine for five days and work from home. To be honest, we have ignored those instructions. I had not been around Gustavo for over a week when he got sick, and Ron was only around him briefly on Tuesday. Plus we’ve both just recovered from being sick ourselves, and we’re pretty sure that whatever Gustavo has, he got from us. So instead of quarantining, we’ve been busy getting reacquainted with the city.

                At the end of our Communications Committee Meeting on Monday, Gustavo asked if anyone had anything else. Ron said, “Just one thing, when are we going to get shrimp?”                That harked back to a couple of months ago when Armando told us there was a place where people line up to get shrimp. We said we wanted to go there sometime, but we never had.                Gusatvo laughed at Ron’s question and said, “I like how you think, Elder Searle. We’ll go tomorrow.”

  One thing I’ve learned in life is that when you move to a new area, the two hardest people to replace are your doctor and your hairdresser. This week I got the hairdresser taken care of. I needed a haircut. My bangs were hanging in my eyes, which really bugs me. I’d already whacked them off once myself since we got here, so I decided it was time to take the plunge and get a professional haircut. The other missionaries here all go to Juan at a salon in the pueblito. We had dry cleaning to pick-up and needed some produce, so we thought we’d stop in at Juan’s salon and make an appointment. When we did, the receptionist told us he would be back in forty-five minutes and could cut my hair then. I hadn’t really gone there planning to get a haircut that day, but decided it was as good a day as any. We got our produce and then went to a little hole in the wall restaurant next to the salon to wait for Juan to arrive. (All the businesses in the pueblito are literally “holes in the wall.”) The

  I thought with December over, things would get back to normal this week. However, I noticed that Christmas decorations stayed up all over the city and holiday songs continued to be played everywhere we went. I thought maybe the Mexican people just like dragging the holidays out for as long as they can, but then I learned about Día de Los Reyes, Day of the Kings, celebrated on January 6 in honor of the Wisemen’s arrival to see the baby Jesus. So the holiday season actually does extend into January here.

  When we first came to Mexico, we were told that for a couple of weeks in December and July, things in the area office would be very slow, and if we wanted to plan a trip, those were good times to do it. I know, I know, it sounds crazy to be on a mission and plan a trip, and I’m pretty sure that’s not standard practice for all senior missions. However, it is an option here, so we got together with the Wrights and the Davises, hired a driver/guide, and went on a tour of three colonial cities in Mexico. The colonial era refers to 300 years from the 1500s to 1800s when Spain ruled Mexico. Colonial cities have historical districts where the buildings from that time still stand and are still in use. They are full of Spanish architecture, cobblestone streets, beautiful plazas, and cathedral after cathedral after cathedral. We stayed in hotels in the colonial districts in three cities we visited. This meant the hotels were charming, quirky, and in some instances, just plain odd.