It seems like we are saying good-bye to missionaries monthly. On the 8th we had our despedido to say good-bye to 5 of our dear friends.
Hermana Cordon, Los Cuellar's, Los Padilla's
Hermana Cordon is from Guatemala. She has served for two years. She was so kind and thoughtful when I broke my legs. She came over at least every other day to visit and bring goodies. She has every hymn in the book memorized and taught the 3 year old class in Primary while serving here. She will be greatly missed. Her family is trying to get her to move into Guatemala City to be closer to them and we would love it too as then she could serve in the temple as an obrera. She is a widow.
Los Cuellar's are from Honduras. They had gone back to Honduras for medical reasons when we arrived last December. They missed about 2 months of their mission at that time. They couldn't stand to not finish what they had been called to do so they came back and finished all of their two years.
Hermano Cuellar is a painter and wanted to paint us a picture before he left. We decided that we needed a picture of our two temples, El Salvador and Guatemala City. He finished it on the day before he left. It is about 2' by 3'.
A priceless treasure for us.
Los Padilla's are also from Guatemala. They are so knowledgeable and such a blessing to have in the temple. We are excited that they are planning on returning to serve every Saturday, as long as he doesn't get called to be their Branch President.
It will really be different without these 5 in the temple. They are not afraid of long hours and hard work. We are so thankful that we were able to serve with them.
We were assigned to attend the Estaca Central to speak at their Stake Conference. We called the Stake President about transportation and he said that he would get back with us. We called twice more and still didn't hear anything from him so we figured that we would not be going there after all. We got up Sunday morning and went to our regular ward for Sacrament meeting at 9:00. At 9:40 a man came in and sat down beside us and said that he was here to take us to Estaca Central. We came by the apartment to get my talk and headed down town. It takes about 15 minutes to get there and Conference started at 10:00.
The good thing was that at this time on a Sunday morning the streets are almost empty. Estaca Central is called "the cave" only because the outside of the building is very plain with no windows. This chapel is in one of the most dangerous sections of town, Zone 1. 
This is the front door of the chapel, taken from the car window.
We really were in a different world inside the walls of the chapel. Outside the walls the inner city was bustling by the time we got out of conference.
I had been lamenting that I hadn't been able to sing with a choir this year for Christmas, so when the choir began to sing Away in a Manager as postlude, I just had to join in.
I didn't step up on the step so that I wouldn't be so much taller than everyone else. The girls next to me thought it was great. The lady second to the end on the right hand side is an obrera in the temple, Hermana Molina.
We had many temple workers in this conference. We got a picture with Hermano Fuentes, the Wednesday morning Coordinator.
Our driver was thrilled that he got to park in the chapel compound instead of in the parking that was about 2 blocks away. We are so thankful for the dedicated men that are so willing to pick us up to take us to these conferences.
Today is our P-day and I am in charge of the laundry again while President Thompson makes cookies. We are giving all of the temple employees a bag of cookies as their Christmas gift from us. We have to have 27 bags for the employees and if we have enough, we will also give some to our missionaries.
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