It's a Boy for Brandon and Camille

Won't our first grandchild (grandson!) be cute with these two as his parents!!! As Ty wrote in his email today "The next generation of Bulloch Boys has begun!"

Congratulations B & C - We love you!!!!!!!

Guacamole Recipe

Reyna makes very good guacamole - and there is a secret "ingredient" that she uses to help it from turning dark so fast. Here is the recipe:

3 avacadoes, fully ripe and soft
2 T minced onion flakes, or to taste
1/8 t. oregano
1/8 t. cumin
garlic powder - just a couple of tiny shakes
salt, to taste
juice of 1/2 a lime
1 c green salsa - more or less to your liking
water - make it as thin or thick as you like

Mix everything together in the blender, just until blended, but not pureed.

Here is the secret - put the avacado pits in the guacamole and it doesn't go dark! Maybe this isn't a secret to everyone else, but it was a revelation to me. Also, try using jicama cut into strips for dipping. It is so good! Let me know what you think if you try it.

Zone Leaders Council

Russ held the Zone Leaders Council for June here at the mission home. We have nine zones, so that means we have 18 Zone Leaders. They came to the house on a Tuesday evening and stayed overnight so they could get an early start the next day. We give them pizza when they arrive, so they are very happy about that. On Wednesday morning they have breakfast, then they meet and discuss the issues and plans for the mission for the current cycle. After lunch, they finish up and always take a picture. We always hold this meeting the week after transfers. We consider it week one of the six week cycle.
Here we have all the Zone Leaders, the Assistants and the three Secretaries. These are some of the finest missionaries in our mission. We will lose four Zone Leaders and one Secretary in the next transfer, they are going home. The time goes so fast!

Our schedule is a six week cycle. Week one is the Zone Leaders Council - "Consejo". Week two we have four days of Zone Conferences. Weeks three, four, and five are interviews with the President, (he interviews all 203 of them!) and week six we have transfers. During transfer week we receive the new missionaries on Monday, and do their training and paperwork. They stay here overnight, then on Tuesday we have the transfer meeting - "cambios". The departing missionaries come back to the mission home with us for the "Despedida". This is the dinner/testimony meeting. Then EARLY Wednesday morning they leave for the airport. It is a busy few days, and there is never a dull moment. The last two cycles we have had missionaries come from the Provo MTC, but they have been late because of visa problems. This kind of puts a wrinkle in the schedule, but somehow it has all worked out. Sprinkle in a few Stake Conferences, committee meetings, Stake training with the Area Seventy, weekly emails, calls on the cell phone, etc.......... and there you have the mission life.

Family Home Evening

We had the Castillo and Doxey families here for dinner and family home evening on Monday night. The Castillo's are in the MC North, and Doxey's are in the MC South. The Castillo's are getting ready to return home, their 3 years are almost up. We will miss them a lot, they've been such a great help to us.

Benemerito Performance

Russ, Ryan and I went up to Pachuca to attend a performance by the Benemerito (Church High School) Dancers called Ballet Folklorico. We enjoyed it very much. The costumes were bright and colorful, the students were very talented. The auditorium it was held in holds about 2,000 people and it was FULL! We went to the evening performance, but there was also one in the afternoon. It was full, as well.
There are two stakes in this area, Pachuca and Pachuca Centro. They are the ones that sponsored the performances. All the members brought their friends and family and of course the missionaries were there in full force. Here you can see the missionaries sorting out the referrals they received in the afternoon. I don't know how many they had for the afternoon, but I know that they received over 500 referrals at the evening performance! I know that the Stake Presidencies of these two stakes are very happy and consider it all a huge success. The missionaries will be very busy for quite a while with all those referrals!

Final Version of Mission Photo

This is how the final version of the mission photo turned out. We have 214 people in the picture here! A few of these missionaries have already returned home and we have a few new ones in their place. We are planning to get a new photo in May 09 and then a last one (for us, anyway) in May 2010. It will be fun to see how the mission changes from year to year.

One Year for Tyler

Our Italian Elder has hit the one year mark today. He is loving his mission - here are a few pictures of the past year.

At the MTC May 2007 - Companion Elder Mason

His district in the MTC

This is his first day in Italy with his trainer, Anziano Blake and President and Sister Dunaway.

Ty rode a bike in his first city, Ravenna. He really loves wearing the helmet :) I don't know if he still rides a bike in Torino, it is a much bigger city. (Remember the Winter Olympics?)

This is one of his favorite foods in Italy - a piadine - but he calls it "a quesadilla on steroids."

He says he found Mr. Bean's Fiat!

This is the baptismal font that they use there. :)

And of course, the real reason he is there in Italy, this is one of the first baptisms he got to participate in.

Keep up the great work Ty! We love you a lot!!!

Breaking Records at ASF

Ryan has been really involved with football, weight training, and plyometrics this year. Yesterday he received an award for "Outstanding Junior in Physical Education" at an assembly in front of the whole school. Last week he was tested on his vertical jump and shattered the school record. The old record was 26 inches - the new record that Ryan set is 31 inches. On his first jump the coach didn't have the measuring instrument high enough, so they put it up 12 inches more because he jumps so high. He enjoys staying after school everyday for strength and conditioning and also football practice. He is in amazing shape! Congratulations and keep up the great work!

Baptismal Service

Russ, Ryan and I attended this baptism last month, with these 6 people being baptized. The little girl with her arm around her sister bore her testimony later in a fireside that night, it was such a strong testimony for someone so young. The little boys look so young! We asked them how old they were (we wanted to be sure they were at least 8) and the smallest one said he was 12. The people here are tiny in stature but large in spirit. Elders Sander and Mora did a great job teaching them and helping them find the gospel. Elder Sander (standing) kind of reminds me of Tyler. He is from Uruguay.

"A Heart Like His"

I just finished a book my good friend Suzanne sent to me, it's called "A Heart Like His" by Virginia Hinckley Pearce. It is wonderful. The only thing I didn't like about it was that it was so short. I wasn't ready for it to be over. I recommend it to everyone. It's about opening our hearts and feeling the love of God - His love for us, and our love for Him - and how we can help others feel this same love. If you want to read a really wonderful book, this is the one!

Tongue Twisters en Espanol

These are some tongue twisters that Ryan got in his Spanish class. He got the paper while Chad and Joey were here and Chad loved them! I made some copies for him to take home, but he forgot them - so I thought Chad and Brandon (and any other Spanish speakers) might like to try them. (Keep in mind this thing is not letting me do Spanish letters and punctuation, ok)

Usted no nada nada?
No, no traje traje.

Tres tristes tigres tragaban trigo en un trigal.

El vino vino, per el vino no vino vino. El vino vino vinagre.

De Guadalajara vengo, jara traigo, jara vendo, a medio doy cada jara.
Que jara tan cara traigo de Guadalajara.

El volcan de parangaricutirimicuaro se quiere desparangaricutiriguarizar, y el que lo desparangaricutiricuarizare sera un buen desparangaricutirimizador.

Pablito piso el piso, pisando el piso Pablito piso cuando Pablito piso el piso, piezas de piso piso Pablito.

Un tubo tiro un tubo y otro tubo lo detuvo. Hay tubos que tienen tubos pero este tubo no tuvo tubo.

*************************************
No, I don't know what they mean :)

Thirteen Nations Represented

We have the wonderful opportunity of serving here with 204 young missionaries and 6 wonderful senior couples. I thought I would post the different countries we have represented here and the number of missionaries serving:

Mexico: 125
USA: 64 (+12 with the couples)
Argentina :2
Nicaragua: 2
Guatemala: 2
Ecuador: 2
Honduras: 2
Bolivia: 1
El Salvador: 1
Panama: 1
Uruguay: 1
Costa Rica: 1
Peru:1

The majority of these missionaries speak Spanish as their first language. It's surprising to me to see how many of them know some English. They are a great help to me in learning Spanish.

Our senior couples are wonderful and I don't know what we would do without them. It's marvelous to see them here doing what they do, and getting around this city so well. A couple of weeks ago we had a breakfast to say goodbye to one of them, the Greer's from Nevada. We'll miss them!

Chad and Joey visit Mexico City

Chad and Joey visited us at the beginning of this month, and we loved having them here. It went by way too fast, though. We went to Teotihuacan (tay 0 tee WUH con) and they climbed the Pyramid of the Sun.

We went to a restaurant by the pyramids called "La Gruta" - it is bright and colorful inside, but the restaurant is inside a cave. The food there isn't that great, but it's kind of fun anyway.

We had new missionaries arrive in the middle of their visit so they went with us to take the Elders for "tacos al pastor" - We go to a restaurant called La Onda in the downtown area.

Ryan and Chad bought these jackets at a tiangi near the pyramids. It was a pretty hot day, so they didn't wear them very long :)

We went over to the Visitor's Center on Sunday, it just reopened on April 24th after having a lot of remodeling work. The hermanas gave us a wonderful tour and they even did some of it in English. They work very hard on their English skills, and they are really improving.





We went on the "Turibus" and saw a lot of the sights of downtown Mexico City. This is by the Angel monument and is one of the most famous. The Angel is actually on the top of the monument and you can't see it (sorry).

We hope you'll come back soon!

Reyna

I finally got to take a picture of Reyna the other day (she's on the right) and thought you might like to meet her. Her daughter Maricela and her grandaughter Yaretzi were visiting, so I took their picture. I don't know what I would do without Reyna, she's the greatest! She keeps everything looking great in the mission home, takes care of all the laundry, (I haven't had to iron a white shirt in almost a year!) and makes the best "limonada".

Whole mission photo

We got the whole mission together last week for a picture. It was exciting to have everyone together even if it was only for an hour. We had half of the zones come in the morning for zone conference and then the other half came at noon. We had the picture, then the first half went back to their areas and the second half had zone conference. The final picture has the temple added in behind us instead of the rooftop and tower. I'll post the final picture as soon as I can.

Ryan loves football

Ryan played JV football this spring at his school, and has had about a month off. Next week they are gearing up for next season and he couldn't be happier! He had a great season last year and looks forward to the new one. He has played at tight end and linebacker. Here's a picture from a game in February. He's #89.

My new blog starts today

Well, I want to get in on this blog thing, too. I've really enjoyed seeing all the new family blogs and want to share what's going on in our world, too. I'm not sure I'll be able to update very frequently, but I'll do my best.