End of Jan

 I made cupcakes for Sister Flores, a temple worker who turned 80 years old.

A group of 19 with recommends from Cancuc, they rode 3 hours standing in the back of a pick-up truck from the mountains NE of Tuxtla.

Some of the women in their traditional clothes.

 After a long Saturday shift the temple presidency took us out to eat at Sazon del Chef. Alan had lasagne and I had chicken breast stuffed with pineapple and ham.

 We shared a dessert afterwards.

 They call it a gullet, garganta, because it looks like a throat.

After our morning walk Thursday we got bolinachos and a mango/coconut drink for breakfast, mmm good!

Beginning of Jan

 72 birthday party for Oscar Colmenares, a sealer in our temple. The church was full of well wishers.

 Mariachi band played, Mexican folk singer sang, and we ate chips with many foods to dip into.

 Wearing his corona (crown) of flowers.

It is tradition to honor someone by crowning them with flowers on special occasions like this. It shows great respect and love.

Jan 6th is Dia de Reyes in MX. We had FHE with the Ulloa family. We are all singing a hymn with the words on our phones. This day marks the end of the Christmas season.

 We talked about revelation and how we can get more this year, from Pres. Nelson's conference talk.

We ate chips with salsa and shrimp and the traditional king cake with hot chocolate. These king cakes are called Rosca de Reyes, or "Ring of Kings" because they are baked in large ring, and adorned with fruits, representing jewels. After each one is baked, a miniature plastic figurine of a child is pushed inside (from the bottom so nobody knows where they are). Our cakes each had 4 figurines.

The cakes are very popular. Here you can see them stacked in the red boxes at Sam's Club this morning. The cost is 269 pesos, or about $13.50 for the bigger cakes. The ones we ate were a bit smaller.

Everyone takes a turn cutting into the cake and if you touch or get the figurine in your piece you have to make tamales on Feb 2 for day of the candles. The cake represents the wisemen and the figurine represents the babies that Herod killed  (it represents the wisemen finding Jesus also).

Here is the figurine that we pulled out of our piece of cake. We think the boy is holding a candle.

 Cutting the crown cake in our english connect class.

Alan got one in his piece.

 Wed, the 7th, I fell on our morning walk.

My knee and hip got some wounds too.