Our friends, the Gomez and Lopez families from Belize, came to Utah for their first time to attend the worldwide General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City. Also pictured are Derrall Adams and Forrest and Jolynne Flake
As soon as they arrived, they found out that Utah has been experiencing the most unusual spring weather. Just for the fun of it, I took a screenshot of my phone's weather app for Belize City and South Jordan for one of the days they were here.
Do you think they had to deal with any adjustments because of the weather?
They made a snowman friend while they were staying with Derrall and Julie Adams in Farmington, Utah.
The Monday after General Conference, we hosted a senior missionary reunion and dinner with our visitors. These couples who had served in Belize were: Acosta, Alico, Derrall and Julie Adams, Eric and Cheri Adams, Flake, Hintze, Jensen, Magnusson, and Sandburg—28 people in all. These senior missionaries served in Belize over a period of time spanning from 2007 to 2019.
Thank you, dear friends from Belize, for making our gathering possible.
Leovany and Jenny Lopez, René and Nellie Gomez, and Cristy Reinoso (Cristy is a recent BYU-Idaho graduate)
Eric and Cheri Adams served as mission president and companion of the El Salvador San Salvador West/Belize Mission from 2016-2019, while Kai and Diane Hintze served from 2013-2016. I'm sure they had a grand time visiting about their service as mission leaders for Belize.
As the adults visited, the Lopez children were entertained by making Froot Loop rainbows.....
....and highlighting their names with colored dots.
An interesting outcome from the reunion is that we learned about a senior couple, the Sandburg's, who served in Belize a few years before we did. It turns out that Michelle Sandburg is a second cousin to Scott. They have a common great grandfather-George Martin Haws. A few days after the reunion we went to their home, visited, and purchased an autobiography written by her father.
We were honored to host the Gomez's in our home the next two days after the reunion.
René and Nellie requested to attend the temple each day they were with us. Since there's no temple in Belize, they have to travel 14 hours by bus to the Guatemala City Temple.
On Tuesday, we worshipped at the Jordan River Temple which is two miles to the east of our home.
The next day we attended the Oquirrh Mountain Temple a mile and a half to the west of our home.
To learn more about Latter-day Saint Temples, click here.
It was a thrill visiting with the Gomez's and reminiscing about common friends and the time we spent in their beautiful country.
From this photo in our mission book, we learned that we have a common friend from San Ignacio: Lee, the proprietor of Helen Supermarket.
Below is a photo of Scott and René from one of our mission experiences in 2017. The entry from our mission blog: Our church's Humanitarian Program donated the funds to have library bookshelves constructed by the Belizean Mennonites for the St. Matthews Government Elementary School. Here, the elated school principal, Michelle Gordon, meets Paul Woods (center), church temporal affairs administrator in Belize, René Gomez (right), church public affairs director, and Elder Magnusson (left), first counselor in the El Salvador San Salvador West/Belize Mission presidency.
After the Gomez's left Utah for California, the Lopez family was hosted by several other former senior missionary couples. They had many exciting adventures from Idaho to Southern Utah's National Parks over the next two weeks. (You can visit the Lopez's FaceBook page to see their other amazing experiences.)
The day before the Lopez's left for home, we were able to be with them, the Flakes, and Jensens as we attended an Old Testament exhibit in Springville, Utah, the BYU Bean Life Science Museum with it's amazing animal displays, and tour the BYU campus complete with lunch at the Cougareat and a game of bowling.
My son-in-law commented after we sent our family this photo: "That's a great action shot! I don't know how you were calm enough to pose for a picture with all that going on behind you."
Thanks for the exciting times together Gomez....
