"Echoes of Eden" Dayle King Searle

  Friday we and three of the other missionary couples arranged to take the day off from the office and go see Monarch butterflies. You’ve probably heard that Monarch butterflies migrate seasonally like birds. In the summer, they spread out across the U.S. and into Canada. In the winter, they go to Mexico—they are smart insects. In Mexico, they don’t spread out like they do in the U.S. Instead they are concentrated in pockets in the mountains a couple of hours west of Mexico City. Reserves have been set up in those areas. We hired a guy who arranges tours to take us. His name is Nacho (not really his name, but his name is a lot harder to say so he goes by that) and he took us to a reserve called Piedra Herrada.                Driving into the mountain forests, we were surprised at how much they reminded us of the forests in Idaho and Washington. In fact, when we got to Piedra Herrada, I felt like I’d arrived at a church camp back home. It was great to smell the mountain air scented wi

            The biggest news for the week is the Elder Renlund of the quorum of the twelve apostles and his wife visited Mexico for ten days. They went home yesterday. They were here last week when I wrote, but I figured it wasn’t my place to announce an apostle’s itinerary. However, now that they’re gone, it’s public knowledge and I feel fine talking about it. Our department has been preparing for this visit for a couple of months, and it was exciting to have it happen. It was Elder and Sister Renlund’s first international visit since the COVID pandemic began.

            Monday was a holiday, so our office was closed. The Alsops had friends visiting from the U.S., and they invited us to join them for a leisurely walk and breakfast at St. Gines (the place with the delicious churros and dipping chocolate.) After we finished eating, we walked to the Museo Soumaya. This interesting building houses the private art collection of Carlos Slim, the richest man in Mexico and one of the richest in the world. It is named for his late wife, whose name was Soumaya. The collection holds over 66,000 pieces of art, including the largest collection of sculptures by Auguste Rodin (who sculpted “The Thinker”) outside of France. In fact, the sixth floor is entirely sculptures, hundreds of them. That’s where you start your visit through the museum. As you enter, an attendant directs you to the elevator and up you go. It's hard to believe that isn't a cloth veil covering this sculpture, but it's really all carved in stone. This one is called "Mi

We got new computers in the office this week. We said we liked our old ones, but they basically told us “too bad, so sad—you’re getting new ones.” Pretty much the issue is they like to keep the equipment up to date, but we're old and don't like change. As part of the process, we had to go to the technology department. They had a large picture window there which looked out over our apartment building. I took photos through the glass and decided to start this week’s blog with a little tour of our neighborhood.                First  of all, despite the fact that we say we are living in Mexico City, we really aren’t. A few years ago, Mexico City was made a state, so it doesn’t have a mayor, it has a governor. It’s state name is Ciudad de Mexico (CDMX.) We live in the state of Mexico (which is right next to CDMX) in the municipality of Naucalpan, in the neighborhood of Tecamachalco. I am quite proud of the fact that I can tell you that, because when we arrived four months ago, I c