The Tom and Julie Seymour Family

Hi everybody!

It's my turn to write to all of you and let you know the latest from the Puebla front. There is a lot to talk about since I last wrote three weeks ago.

September 16th, Independence Day - Jenny mentioned this in her latest e-mail. We celebrated Mexican Independence day with the ward. It was really fun! We ate some very unusual things like corn on the cob with mayonnaise and cheese, posole, and my favorite, chalupas. The chalupas were originally created in Puebla many years ago. They cooked them in a really cool set up. Think of a tripod with briquettes in the center and the cooking surface above. The cooking surface looked like a big, 3 ft diameter upside down sombrero with hot grease in the center. Around the outside they put corn tortillas and warmed them up. Then they would put different kids of meat and cheese on them and slide them into the grease for a minute. Then they would return them to the outside and add more stuff. After doing this a couple times they were ready to go, They were delicious! I'm sure I got my fat quota for the year, but they were good. The party lasted until late at night with plenty of music and dancing and more food.

It was really cool.

Teotihuacan - The next day we went to the ruins of Teotihuacan, which are between Puebla and Mexico City. This city is amazing! It has two huge pyramids, the temple of the Sun and the temple of the Moon along with dozens of other structures. The city was built around 400 BC.

It was amazing to see the structures, the carvings, and the murals.

We also got to see a couple dozen live dancers, in full dress, doing ancient Mayan or Aztec dances. We'll have to get pictures on the blog. It was very cool. A Sister in our ward, whose father is an archaeologist who dedicated his life to studying the ruins in the area, believes that this city is Bountiful in the Book of Mormon.

Work - The job is going fine. We were fortunate enough that our results in September were the best of the year. That helps build confidence in the team I'm creating. So far, so good in October.

When things go well I have a lot less pressure from Corporate.

Mostly, so far, the changes I've made focus on putting the right metrics in place so leaders can see what's going on in time to do something about it, and ensure the leaders clearly understand what they are accountable for and what resources they have to work with.

In addition, we've organized the improvement projects so they have solid leadership and are adequately resourced. We then follow up on them to ensure each leader is meeting their plan - we can't let things slip. Anyway, there is much more to be done but we are off to a good start.

Siemens - We had the company Siemens come in and do some work in the plant on September 4th. Well they messed something up which caused our main control room to lose power for about 10 minutes. As a result of that our main oven became unstable and we damaged seven platinum/rhodium bushing (each is worth $1 million). The bushings can be repaired, but the bottom line is that their error cost us about $850,000. We we're going after them. We really don't have much of a basis for a lawsuit because our contract with them does not include consequential damages. Regardless, it's my job to convince them that they owe us a bunch of money. I've had one meeting with them in Mexico City already. They're a tough bunch. But we're going after them! We'll see what happens.

Brazil - our last two shipments to Brazil arrived with several pallets of product missing. We have another shipment leaving the plant tomorrow. We we have a private investigator firm ready to follow the truck from the plant to see if the driver off loads some material before taking it to the port in Veracruz. It would be great to catch whoever is doing this and get them in jail. If we get them I get to be the one to head to the police department to file the formal complaint. I've done this kind of thing before and it rarely pans out, but we'll see what happens tomorrow.

Church - We like our ward. The members are terrific! Every week I'm so impressed by their faith as well as their knowledge of the gospel.

Even though the church has grown quickly in Mexico, the majority of ward members were baptized many, many years ago. I've been called to teach the single adults in Sunday School and I've was set apart today as 1st assistant in the High Priests Group. Julie was just called today to lead the music in Relief Society and to be the choir director. They don't want to start up the choir until January. I'm very impressed by the single adults. Several are returned missionaries and virtually all of them were baptized at 8 years old.

They come from good families. We have about 10 sisters and 3 brothers in the class. All very sharp.

In addition, Julie, Jenny and I are singing in a stake choir. It's a good sized choir that will perform in Stake Conference in November. We don't sound very good but we're trying!

Jenny - As you know Jenny got her hair cut. She looks fantastic!

She's doing good. Her Spanish is improving daily. She likes her school and is in the school choir, art program and the school play!

Julie - Julie continues to impress me with her Spanish. Her lack of fear is helping her to progress quickly. She continues her Spanish classes three days/week, two hours per session, which are taught one-on-one in our home.

Napa - We had a great time last week in Napa. We were really busy all the time so it was not a vacation. It was great seeing everyone! We were able to get our visas, Jenny's documents apostlled and have many of our belongings packed up and on their way to Puebla. It was also great to get my bike! I'm amazed at how much fitness I've lost since my last event in mid-July. Oh well, at least I know how to get it back.

The bank - I really, really hate Mexican banks. They are so inefficient you'd think they were run by the government. Julie and I went to the bank on Friday morning to open a checking account. We can now do that since we have our visas. After waiting for a long time we finally got our account set up. The problem is that they don't give you temporary checks so we have to wait for the printed checks to arrive. And when I tried to deposit money from my savings account to my new checking account they basically said I can't but that I had to

do it in the branch where I opened my savings account. They are only

open from 8:30 to 4pm so to go I have to miss work. And then, once this was done, for some reason they froze my account so I can't get any money out of the ATM. So tomorrow I'll take off from work and try to get it cleared up. Waste of time!

Yesterday - We had a good day yesterday. I went for a bike ride in the morning near the Puebla airport. It's a nice stretch of road that has a smooth wide shoulder and is about 5 miles long. It felt good to get out and ride albeit slowly. On my way home I saw a large group of people marching along the side of the street carrying religious banners. I thought it was some kind of pilgrimage. When I got closer I noticed they were also carrying a casket! At the back of the crowd was about a 25 person brass band playing. It was very cool to see.

Later in the day, Julie, Jenny and I went downtown to look around. We visited this large outdoor shopping area that was full of people and small shops selling all kinds of things, mostly designed for out of town visitors. We marveled at the cool buildings. Most were built in the mid 1800's and look very French with the small balconies on each level. We also visited a couple of cathedrals. They were beautiful both inside and out. The main one was completed in the early 1700's and is just huge. We then ate dinner in an outdoor cafe along the main plaza in town. It was all really fun.

Vonage - As I was trying to disconnect our phone service with Vonage, it turns out that by taking the equipment to Puebla we just transfer our service. We brought it on the plane and hooked it up. Now our phone service is just the same as it was in Napa. Anytime you call our Napa number, it rings in our home in Puebla. The charges to the calling party are the same as if you called Napa, and our charges are a fixed $20/month with unlimited minutes. You've got to love the internet!

Next week I have meetings in North Carolina, so I'll get to see Laura and Tyson on Sunday!

Anyway, we really love and miss all of you!

Take care,

Love,

Dad/Tom