Hi Everyone!

   We left for church (the CCM) this morning at 7:30 and got home at 3:00 to find out that our electricity has been out since 8 this morning. They say it will be back on by 4:00, but it is now 4:15 and no lights yet. Ellen, who works at the clinic at the front desk, went to church with us today.  Her husband is an Area Attorney here and is in Costa Rica for a couple days to start an Addiction Recovery group there.  He and Ellen started one here in Guatemala City in May.  It is so needed here as well as everywhere else in the world. She doesn’t speak much Spanish and was really excited to come with us because we have two meetings in English each week.  Ellen and Jeff are our good friends and are going home in December to Fresno, California. They know Randy and Vicki Bott because Randy was a Mission President in Fresno.   Small world in the church!

    We had a little excitement at the Clinic this week.  We have a beautiful tree in the parking area that they decided to cut down because it is causing damage to the roof and building.  They are cutting the whole tree down and then chopping the limbs up with machetes only!  I have a short video of one man chopping and it shows the tree after they had worked at it for a while.  

     Notice on the other picture they have a rope tied to an upper limb and are ready to put it toward them if needed.  They brought about 20 Tio Juan kids to help out and they chopped the twigs off the tree’s limbs and stacked them up very nicely.  This was Wednesday and they said it would be finished Friday.  We will check it out tomorrow when we get to the Clinic. 

     This is a picture of "Cheeky" playing in the tree limbs.  She is the Tio Juan boys dog at our little complex.  Dad has taught her some tricks, imagine that!

    This last Tuesday we had a screening at the Villa de Los Niños.  They are a new school for us.  We screened about 600 kids and found a lot of dental work and needs, but not as much as we thought we would.  The school is for boys only and has about a 1000 there starting at 6th grade age.  These boys live there all year around and only in May and September can they have a visitor for a little while.  I am not sure how long that is…one day? perhaps two?  It might be an aunt or a grandmother or grandfather, but many of them do not have a regular family.  If they do, they are too poor to provide for them so they sent them here.  The boys have to do well and not cause any trouble or they can be kicked out.  These pictures are of the screening which was done in a large outside auditorium/basketball court.

    The Senior Sisters here watched the Women’s session of Conference together at Ellen’s apartment after having a dinner of soup, salad, bread and dessert.  The guys got together in another apartment and had pizza and watched a football game.  It was Penn State vs. Ohio and I guess it was a pretty good game.  

     Well that’s the week and it flew by as fast as the others.  Enjoy your week to come.   Love to all!    MOM, Grammy