January 6th is Three Kings Day or El Día de los Reyes. It is a big deal here in Mexico! We were invited to President and Sister Machuca's home for "Rosca de Reyes" (Kings cake) and hot chocolate. It was yummy, especially the hot chocolate from Bilbao, Spain. The rosca, or cake, is a large round bread with candied fruits and sugar on it. Inside there is a small plastic doll hidden in the dough that looks like a baby or a wise man. The person that gets the little doll has to make tamales for the group on February 2nd. John got the doll--luckily he found it with the knife and not his teeth. So guess who is throwing the next party? (note the little doll on the top of the box--many cakes have as many as 6 of these). The temple president was telling us that they had one at a party one time and only finished with four "babies." He said that his fear was that two of them were mistakenly eaten!
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| Small "Rosca" with one doll. |
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| Large "Rosca" with 6 dolls |
This weekend was an adventure. We worked Friday night, arriving home about 10:30. We grabbed something to eat and then spent some time winding down. About midnight we crawled into bed. There was a party next door, so sleep didn't come until about 2:00 a.m. At 6:30 a.m. the phone rang. The President needed us to take the 7:20 session as the only workers were the president and wife and the coordinators. The coordinators were already on a session and there were people waiting for the next one. We made it just in the nick of time and finished around 10:00. We went home, had some breakfast and then crawled back into bed. At 12:30 we were back at the temple for our real shift. We were really ready for bed by the time we finished that day!
I remember that night when we were in that hotel with you in Mexico and the music from a party pounded all night. I hope you don't have too many sessions like this. It is hard enough to stay awake in the temple at times.
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