Day 7- Quetzaltenango (Temple Dedication)

We got tickets to attend the temple dedication from Tyler's mission president.  They were broadcasting the dedication to all the stake centers, so we made our way over there in the morning.  As we were just sitting there, Tyler noticed our tickets were a different color than everyone elses.  As he read through the tickets, he realized that our tickets were for attendance in the temple!!!  We raced up to the temple where they allowed us to go right in and park.  It was so amazing to go inside and see the grandeur and design of such a beautiful building.  We got white hankies that had the temple and dedication date embroidered on the corner.  The service has so spiritual just thinking about the great blessing it is to these amazing and humble people to finally have a temple in their area.  My favorite part was singing "The Spirit of God,"  as the voices just vibrated all throughout the temple and in my mind throughout the whole town with every stake center participating as well.  

 

After the dedication, we started driving to Panajahcel and Lake Atitlan.  Some claim that Lake Atitlan is the "Waters of Mormon" in the Book of Mormon.  It was only suppose to be a 2 hour drive.  We were well into an hour of it when the traffic came to a complete stop.  People were out of their cars just hanging out.  The word on the street was that there was construction and the road was going to be closed for several hours!  Then we started hearing it was going to be closed over night.  Well, instead of taking our chances we just decided to take a detour through the southern route.  It made our drive an extra 5 hours!  We pulled into the town about 9pm.  I was sad that we got in so late because I'm sure the scenery would have been exceptional coming in with several volcanoes and the lake.