Sister Missionaries Birthday Luncheon

On Friday we were invited to a birthday luncheon for the Sister half of the couples that are serving in the Central America area by the wives of the area presidency.  We all paid for our own lunches and then they provided cake and a little gift for those of us who had February and March birthdays.

Elder Adrián Ochoa was sustained as a General Authority Seventy on April 6, 2013. At the time of his call, he had been serving as Second Counselor in the Young Men General Presidency. He is currently serving as President of the Central America Area. His cute wife was there when we arrived so we got to visit with her alone until others arrived. (We is Sister Gordon, Sister Jenson and me.  We walked to the place which was about 15 minutes from our apartment.)

 They are both from Mexico but served in Salt Lake and she speaks English very well.  They have five children and her youngest just started college.  

When we got there I realized that I had left spaghetti noodles cooking on the stove for Mike's lunch but he was gone when I started them and I forgot to tell him.  None of us had phones so I asked her if she could call the temple and ask for Sister Norman.  I then asked Chris to call Mike and save the day which she did.  I wrote Sister Ochoa a note when she forwarded the following pictures to me and told her that it all worked out.  She wrote the following great response to me. 

Oh those are good news, Im Happy that you had good noodles!!

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Here are copies of the pictures that she sent-  They gave each of the birthday ladies a little gift bag with nail polish, files, etc. 

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Being here has been an ego booster for me. It is very seldom that I am paid a compliment except perhaps on my cookingl  Not only have the Guatemalan sisters at the temple continually told me how beautiful I am and how much they love me but some of the missionaries down on our end of the table seemed shocked when I told them that I was 76 and one said to the other something about hoping that she looked that good when she was that age. Then she said something like, "I wish I had the opportunity to get to know you better."  Even 76-year-old ladies like to feel appreciated and admired.  

It was fun that President Ochoa and his wife attended our Ward yesterday so we got to visit with them for a brief minute.  It is always fun to realize how real and down to earth people in those positions really are. 

I'm just going to add our Monday trip here, too, without a special post.  I still wanted to pick up a few gift items but didn't want to go downtown to the busy market.  There is a lovely, high scale (higher priced) artisan craft market called Mercado de Artesanias that is closer to here.  John and Chris took me and Sister Jenson over so that I could get my last few items.  Here are a few "blog borrowed" shots of the place.