Our apartment in Guatemala

     Until September of this year, the Senior Missionaries either lived in the CCM (Mission Training Center) or in apartments.  The apartments had two couples in each with two bedrooms and two bathrooms, one kitchen with two frigs.  The church owned 4 houses that were used for visiting patrons of the temple.  They remodeled these and have made our current apartments out of them.  The Temple President lives in one of the houses and our house was made into 4 apartments. 
     I am standing in front of our house, the other doors are for the garage which is full of extra furniture. 

     We have to use a key to get into this door.  It has a buzzer and if someone wants to visit us, they ring the buzzer and we can see who is at the door from our apartment and we can open the door or not.  We have temple guards watching to make sure we are safe.

If you walk across the street from our front door, you can see the temple.  That is how close we are.

       You enter the first door and this is our front walk.  You go through this gate and door and the hall leads to three of the apartments.  Ours is on the left.  There is also an apartment upstairs where the 2nd counselor lives, President Harris.  The Murri's live straight ahead and the Barlow's on the right.

 

     Lon thinks that our apartment resembles a single wide.  We have the utility, then the kitchen. Then down the hall to the living room, the bathroom, and the bedroom.  Between the kitchen and the living room we have a private patio and out the bedroom door we have a common yard that all 4 of the couples have access to out a door in their apartment.  The building next door is the Distribution Center and cafeteria and they use the common yard as well. 



 

 

     Each apartment is completely different than the others because they used what space they had to create the 4 apartments.  The Temple President's house, President Burk, is exactly the same size as our house, only it is his alone.  We had our Christmas dinner there and it is beautiful.  We haven't seen the ones across the street where the other 4 couples live yet.  But we are told that they are completely different then ours.  The other counselor lives where President Mask used to live, just down the street. 

     We are the first ones in this apartment and have been busy unpacking everything, dishes, utensils, linen, etc, and buying the items that we need.  We spent yesterday shopping at Price Smart (Costco) and Walmart.  Today we walked to the stores that are near by to see what we have close.  We can walk to about three different small malls.  One of the stores reminded us of Super Selectos.  We have been amazed at the variety of items offered here.  They have a much bigger selection than in El Salvador.  They even have whole wheat flour on the shelves!!  I make whole wheat rolls today. 

     We are going to be very comfortable here.  We have our very own washer and dryer!  Our apartments have no furnace or air conditioners.  The weather here is supposed to resemble spring all year round.  The mornings have been cool enough that we want a sweater on, but as soon as the sun is high in the sky, it is just right.  It is less humid than El Salvador so far but the rainy season has just ended here.  Well, I've rambled on enough for now. 

     Merry Christmas to all.  We are so thankful that our Father in Heaven sent His Son to the earth.  We are thankful for His example and for His love for us.  We send our love to all.