It's Too Early For Farewells

I know it is too early for us to be having “farewell” parties, but that didn’t stop us from having one this week. About a month ago, Mary Ann Grant contacted me and said they’d like to get together for dinner before we go home. The Grants are the leaders of the Mexico City West Mission. The relationship between the Teca Once missionaries and the Mexico City West Mission is a little complicated. That is the mission we live in, and it is responsible for taking care of our temporal needs—paying our rent, helping us get our residency cards, arranging our flights home, etc. However, that mission doesn’t get any of the benefits of having senior missionaries, because we all have Area assignments. The Grants don’t seem to mind that, and they like to get together with us every once in a while so they can talk with actual adults—not young adults, which all their missionaries are. They are really busy as mission leaders, so I told her we would plan it around when they were available. That happened on Monday. We went to Fisher’s to eat. It’s close enough that all we Teca Once missionaries could walk there. The food was good, and the company was even better.

A couple of nights later the Camejos invited us over for a visit. They travel a lot with their assignment and were only back at Teca Once for a few days before taking off again. I teased them by saying to everyone else, “Ellos no vivan aqui, solo visitan.” (They don’t live here, they only visit.) Zoila Camejo made us chalupas, but they were better than any I’ve had before. I think the secret was the tortilla. These were small, very thin, very light, and very crisp. Zoila said she hadn’t been able to find that kind of tortillas in Mexico City, so they had brought them back from Chiapas. I would give you the recipe, but without the right tortillas, they wouldn’t be as good. The Camejos also made watermelon ice cream, which was good too. I feel bad that I got photos of the food, but not the Camejos!

We’ve been busy at the office working on details for the VIP events that will happen in connection with the Tabernacle Choir’s visit. The Choir has travelled in the past, but the way they are doing it now is all new. We are the guinea pigs. Ron has been working with their accounting department to take care of the bills for our events, and on Friday he found out the last one had been paid. That was cause for a bit of a celebration since he has been working on it for over a month. I’ve been working on getting our hosts lined up and getting the last details ready for the dinner and reception. I also worked on a couple of articles, one for the Friend and one for the Mexico Area local pages of the Liahona. They are both based on the same family. The dad saw how adept his children were at playing video games and thought if they can do that, they can do family history research. So he and his wife taught their then seven year-old son and eleven year-old daughter how to work on Family Search. The kids, especially the son, really got into it. The son, who is now ten, has a YouTube channel where he has videos teaching people how to do family history. Here’s link to his channel. He only has two videos now, but he said he is working on another one. The videos are in Spanish, but it’s still fun to see such a young boy teaching family history. He has fourteen subscribers. I think it would be fun to bump that up a bit, so if you don’t mind doing it, please subscribe to his channel.

Link to Aqui con Javi

Saturday afternoon, we, the Deavers, and the Frandsens went to Coyoacan. If I had to choose my favorite place in Mexico City, it would be a tie between Coyoacan and Avenida Paseo de la Reforma. We found Coyoacan when we were on the Turibus getting an overview of the city. When we saw the park Jardin Centenario at Coyoacan, we said, “Forget the rest of the tour, let’s get off here.” We did, and I fell in love with that place. First we walked a few blocks to the Museo Nacional de Culturas Populares (the Nacional Museum of Popular Culture) which we haven’t been to before. It left us scratching our heads a bit. When we entered the complex, the brightly colored buildings looked promising. One turned out to be a library, we weren’t allowed in the largest one, and one contained four small rooms of exhibits. That was it. There were some spaces outside that looked like they sometimes hold events there, but as far as being a museum, we were left wondering if we missed something. The Barnetts had been to it before and told us it was good, so I asked Debbie about it today. She said when they went there were tables set up with people selling handcrafted item and sometimes there is dancing there, so it sounds like it just depends on the day you hit it.

One of the few exhibits that were there was a collection of lithographs from an artist named Rafael Hernandez Vasquez. It was called "Suffering." Many of the piece dealt with Mexico's revolution.

This one was called "Children that Work." The pitiful look on the boy's face is heartbreaking.

After that we walked back to the park and cathedral that are the heart of the historic area of Coyoacan. We hadn’t planned to do a lot of shopping, but Pat Frandsen had some specific things she was looking for, so the women made a quick trip into the Artesan Market while the men hung out in the park. The buildings all around the park and for a few blocks beyond all have an old colonial feel to them. Most have been turned into shops and restaurants, so it’s quite touristy, but it still gives you’re a feeling of Old Mexico in the middle of the City. For dinner we went to the restaurant where Ron and I ate the first time we went to Coyoacan. The food was good, and we were serenaded by a Mariachi, so it was a great time. When we finished eating, Ron said he’d like some ice cream. We had been to an ice cream store there before, but it wasn’t the best we’ve had. We thought about looking for a different ice cream store, but then Tracy Frandsen suggested we catch an Uber to the Amorino ice cream shop on Prado Norte. We knew they had good ice cream there, and it is close enough to Teca Once to walk home. So that is what we did. Coyoacan is a bit of a ways from Teca Once, and we don’t have plans to go there again. So that was probably another farewell for us, even though it is too early for farewells.

Ron with the Frandsens and Deavers in front of the San Juan Bautista Church and Monastery in Coyoacan.

The ceiling in this church is gorgeous.

Vicki did her most successful shopping before we even went to the artesan market.

From these photos, you can see why I love Coyoacan.

This is the restaurant where we ate.

Every Mariachi has to have trumpets...

...and a singer who may or may not be on key, but will definitely be loud.

Here's a little taste of the music:

Ice cream on Prado Norte and then a walk home in the rain. It's the rainy season so we should never go anywhere without an umbrella, but we did, so we got wet.

Here are a few photos from this week to end with: