Nicaragua, Big Fish & Hugo Chavez (by Steve)

About the only news that's fit to print this week is that I took a trip from Guatemala to Nicaragua with Dic.  We left on Thursday morning, very early. We were supposed to have returned Saturday morning. Alas, we are still here. Our flight on Copa Airlines has been canceled on two consecutive days.   As usual, you can forgive the technical problems, but not the misinformation handed out by the airline representatives.  I won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that the updates were sporadic, unfailingly inaccurate, and calculated to prevent you from jumping ship and buying a ticket on a different airline. On the plus side, they have taken us to a very comfortable hotel where we have passed the time. We were able to watch most of the BYU game yesterday streaming live on Dic's laptop computer.  Nice win for the Cougars!  We are now booked on a different airline, and hope to get back to Guatemala city late this evening.

Nicaragua is the poorest, and the safest, of the Central American countries.  Of course, "safe" is a relative term down here.   But I have already told enough scary stories, so I won't go there this time.

The purpose of the trip was to meet with the attorneys representing the church in a series of long standing litigations involving a beautiful piece of property the church has purchased with an eye towards someday perhaps building a template here. I have spent literally days studying these cases and trying to understand them so that we can make some good decisions about how to go forward. The meetings were very enlightening and helpful. I am impressed with the quality of the attorneys down here. There is reason for cautious optimism as to how these cases will turn out. Some of the issues involve forgery, bribery, and if not outright corruption, at least unimaginable government incompetence. Sadly, these are facts of life down here.

The site for the hoped-for temple is a beautiful spot of ground.

 

 

 Nicaragua is a lot warmer than the Highlands of Guatemala, and it is a lot more humid. My view of the country has been mostly limited to what one can see through the airplane window and driving around the downtown part of the city to attorneys' offices. (The old heart of downtown Managua was destroyed by a major earthquake in the 1970s, and has not been rebuilt.) We have been escorted everywhere by wonderful church office employees. On Thursday night, we had a meeting with Mario Valle at the University of Managua.  Sr. Valle, who is a member of the national Congress and the Minister of Education in the country, is rightly proud of this university which he founded with his wife.  He spent an hour and a half touring the campus with us, and showing us around a newly constructed computer lab building stocked with the latest technology, the best the country has to offer.  We also saw a beautiful gymnasium, and he told us how Elder Christofferson had been there to address his student body, with 2000 students in attendance.  He said his students were amazed by the message they heard. He had BYU's Living Legends perform in the same gymnasium on another occasion.  He has visited church headquarters, attended a general conference, and is a great friend to the church. He does everything he can to make the tuition affordable for his students, many of whom are quite poor. And he maintains rigorous standards, even if it means that only 250 graduate on any given occasion.

On Friday evening, we went out to dinner with one of the attorneys, Brenda Martinez, and her husband. We had quite the dinner (see below).  After dinner, they drove us around the city and showed us some of the sites, including a huge, well lit monument honoring Hugo Chavez.

 Well, that's about it from me...