Trip to Guatemala City

Last week Spencer mentioned our trip to Guatemala City to get our Resident Visas finished. It actually turned to be a blessing that we had to postpone watching conference on Sunday because when we hit the tops of the mountains we were socked in with fog for about 50 miles or more. Sometimes we couldn’t see more that 5-6 feet in front or to the side of the car. It was so dangerous. Once there was a truck that had just simply stopped in the right hand lane. Another time a motorcycle. It was crazy. There is often fog in the morning—but this was in the afternoon. Tuli says it is called an “Alaska” when this occurs. Lucky us—we were able to experience one. But we arrived safely! I was so impressed with the efficiency of the church in getting our visas. They had done all of the leg work in advance. On Monday morning when our driver picked us up, he received a call that a staff member from the Area Office was already in line and it would be awhile, so we had time to go visit the grounds of the Guatemala City temple. It was wonderful to be back “home”. So many memories came flooding back for us and we even remembered some of the security staff and vice versa. When it was time to head to the Immigration Office, our person lead us in a single file line past people who had been waiting for a LONG time to a designated window. They called us up one at a time, took our picture and verified it matched our passport and we left! We were only in the office for about 5 minutes for the entire group! I had been in telephone contact with Tuli and I was so excited to get to see her. We drove to PriceSmart (a subsidiary of Costco) and shopped. Tuli helped us all check out since she had a current membership card. We had about an hour together. It was wonderful. I was amazed at the things they didn’t have that we take for granted in the USA. We then went to lunch and started home. Our trip back was better than going down, but there was still a lot of fog.