Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo

First things first.  As promised, I will reveal who Ella's Biography Pumpkin is supposed to be.  Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Moses, and even Gandalf were good guesses but it's....John Muir!  Ella picked this subject all by herself and was excited to learn more about the man who first explored some of our favorite places in California and brought Yosemite to the public.

With the biography done, it was time to switch gears to a new project this weekend.  When you are a fourth grader in California, you are expected to do a big project on a mission.  Ella had to pick a mission, research it, visit it, decide which aspect of it she wanted to write about, and then create a project that reflects what she learned.  She chose this beautiful mission in Carmel, the Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo, and wants to build a model of it.  While her choice was based purely on the fact that this particular mission had several fountains and a bell tower that Ella was excited to construct, I had no complaints about her choice because it's in one of our favorite areas and gave us the opportunity to make a little family getaway out of this long weekend.

To help with her report and project, I took tons of pictures, so here are just a few from this really pretty place.

While we visited, they were holding a high mass.  We did not attend the service, but had some great conversation with the girls while explaining kneeling benches, holy water, lit candles, confessional booths and priests in fancy robes and why Protestants and Catholics have similar and different ideas about things.

The cemetery

Just a really cool looking, old, twisty tree

Bell tower

Fountain #3 in the courtyard

This mission is also a basilica, which we learned means a place the Pope has visited and deemed as important.  Here Dave and Ella check out the robes and various other items Pope John Paul II used when he visited here in 1987.

In walking around, Ella realized that one of the main stories of this mission was about its founder, Father Junipero Serra.  Father Serra founded 9 of California's missions.  This one in Carmel was his favorite and the place he even chose to be laid to rest.  For her report, Ella is going to write about Father Serra.  While answering Ella's questions, a docent spoke about the love Father Serra had for the impoverished natives of this area.  His vision was always to connect them to resources and knowledge that would provide them with a better quality of life and tools they could use to acclimate in a changing culture, all the while furthering God's kingdom and showing Christ's love.  With our church's work in Guatemala, this message and the original work of the mission hits pretty close to home!

The front of the basilica

Lovely flowers everywhere!

The mission was an interesting and beautiful thing for all of us to take in.  Now the work begins, as Ella sorts out all she learned and dives into this huge project.