Haws Kids Visit - Part 1 Villahermosa

In December our three youngest children were able to come stay with us for two weeks.  The first week, they got to see what our mission life is really like - we went to a Zone Conference/Christmas Activity everyday of the week.  Driving to each corner of the mission; Minatitlan and Acayucan Zones in Minatitlan, then Coatzacoalcos Zone in Coatzacoalcos, Gaviotas and Cardenas Zones in Villahermosa, Carmen Zone in Carmen and last Villahermosa Zone in Villa! They enjoyed meeting all the missionaries and playing broom hockey with them and helping us set-up and serve the meal. We then enjoyed Christmas day together and attended the Deportiva Ward in Villahermosa.  President and I were asked to speak, so they even got to see us speaking, which we do that a lot!
  The second week, we were able to be tourists a little bit and go see some of the places that we have heard about in our Mission area.  Here are some of the photos of some very wonderful places.
In Villahermosa:

A famous building in Centro of Villahermosa

Mirador from the street

The walkway to Mirador crosses the
Grijalva River in Villahermosa

This is a Lookout Tower that is very famous in
Villahermosa called Mirador.  

Seth and Sam and I climbed to the top!

The view from the top of Mirador

We visited a cacao plantation. They make the
cacao plant into chocolate!  Seth, Sam,
Emily and I took the tour while President was
working.  But we brought him back some
chocolate!

LaVenta Park is in the center of Villahermosa.  It has
Olmeca ruins that were brought in from the
archeological site named LaVenta.  It also has a zoo.
This alligator is stuffed and has his own exhibit, because
he lived at the park for 20 years. When he died they had
him stuffed and there he is today.  He is huge!

At the LaVenta Zoo, you can hold some
of the animals!  Sam is holding a very
famous snake, you may have seen this
snake with some of your missionaries, he
is photographed a lot!

Seth got to hold a beautiful macaw. We
were able to walk into the aviary and the
birds were right next to us.

I got to hold the crocodile too!

Emily got to hold a crocodile!

The famous Olmeca head at LaVenta Park!

You may have heard about the famous fish
in Villahermosa - it is called the pejelagarto.
We have wanted to try it since we arrived and with the kids seemed like a good time to eat it.  So we went to a members restaurant, we had to let her know we were coming the day before, so she could get it for us. There it is, one for each of us and it was really good!

President and Sam are excited about this!

I was ready to go, and it was
pretty good!

Not everyone is excited, Emily
was skeptical

Seth was having fun, there are other
things to do with a scary looking fish
besides eating it.

We also had the famous fish- mojarra frita
Very delicious, they are very common and
sold many places.