Cayala

     Another Sunday afternoon already!!  We had our devotional today on Gathering Israel and it went well.  It is in English, that's a plus.  Dad does so well, last night he looked on his computer for his Keynote slide presentation for today and for some reason there was a problem with it and he couldn't open it. So quickly he found pictures and put a new slide presentation together.  Amazing. I need a few days to get ready for something like that.  

     Last Thursday I had to give a 20 minute little class to the new missionaries on the Doctrines of Christ....in Spanish!!!  When Dad told me the Branch President wanted me to do that I felt like sitting down to have a good cry and almost did, but decided if he asked me to do this, he must think it is possible so I will give it a try.  Well, I did it!  I had them look up 3 Nephi 27:13-22 and take 3 minutes to read and re-read it if there was time.  Then I had one person in the companionship teach the other person what they learned for 3 minutes and then the other companion teach for 3 minutes.  I then asked them to share with me what they had learned.  One of the teachers at the CCM who is bi-lingual whispered into my ear as they were talking and they gave really good answers.  Then I shared some scriptures with them and told them their first convert needed to be themselves.  I shared my testimony and ended in 20 minutes.  All of this Spanish was written down of course, so when and if I have to do this again I can improve on it a little.

     While sitting in Sacrament meeting today, Dad was announcing the speakers and announced that the other counselor’s wife would speak and then the counselor.  I realized that the Branch President and his wife had spoken last week, so I then began to recognize a pattern.  I am pretty sure they are going to ask me to speak in two weeks because Fast Sunday is next week.  I guess I had better start preparing!  This will also be in Spanish.

     We went to a place this week here in Guatemala City called Cayala.  A large shopping area that is kind of an outdoor mall.  There are large white buildings with stores on the ground floor and condos and apartments on the upper levels, lots of restaurants and a few play areas.  

They even have a church. Rumor has it that it was built to launder drug money, all I know is that this place took a lot of money to put together. 

I have added some pictures of the area and the church and also some pictures of Dad next to some cars on display there. I thought you guys might like the cars. Check out the name on the windshield.

    At the CCM Thursday I asked one of the teachers, Mario, about his suit and he took off the suit coat and showed me the lining.  It is the Guatemala flag!  Dad turned the coat wrong side out and had him put it on and model it.  Mario told us he felt like Michael Jackson.  

    Here are a couple of street salesmen and a very crowded Red Bus. 

And one more picture of a pickup full of people.  

    Check out the scriptures on the Doctrine of Christ when you get a chance.

    So glad Lana is much better and Sam and Jonathan made it one more year to enjoy another birthday!  Did everyone have black tongues after enjoying the tire cake?

      Love you all and hope all is well!     MOM/Grammy

CCM

Hope everyone had a nice Valentine’s Day!  We had pizza on the roof and play the "newlywed game".  It was a fun evening. 

The rest of the week was pretty much the same.  We stayed close to home this weekend, but did run into the Central Market on Friday for a little while. We watched a pretty good movie for Movie night called The Lost Valentine with Betty White. Very touching. I don't think there was a dry eye in the group.  Saturday we went out to lunch with a few other couple and then played cards that evening.

We were assigned the Apostasy and the Restoration for our devotional today so that took a few hours of our weekend to prepare for.  Even though I only take 20-25 minutes and Dad the rest of the time, it still takes me a while to read some lessons and talks on my topic before I can feel good about putting together some ideas for a discussion.  I am really enjoying this though, as they always say...the teacher learns more that the students.  I definitely am.

These young Elders and Sisters are so amazing. I envy their ability to learn Spanish so quickly and so well.   Every once in a while, I imagine Tresha and Corey in the MTC and wish I could have been a fly on the wall.  I love to hear their stories and why they are here.  One Sister, Sister Booth, from Washington State told of her parents today.  She is the youngest in the family, so spent a lot of time with just her parents after all her siblings were gone.  When her mother was young, her mother had a difficult time.  She was close to her father but was not at all close to her mother.  I guess her mother was not much of a mother to her.  Sister Booth’s grandparents were not active but her mother decided, when she was young, that the church was true and was what she needed, so she clung onto it. When it came time to go to college her father told her he would pay her tuition at any college but BYU.  Her mother chose BYU so she stayed home and worked for a year so she could go.  She went and met Sister Booth’s father there.  They were married in the temple and Sister Booth’s grandparents could not be there. Sister Booth has such a strong testimony and a strong love for her parents.  She says her mother has such an inner strength that has been a great blessing to their whole family.

Sister Jacobs was very close to her Grandmother who spoke Spanish because she was born in the Colonies.  She passed away when Sister Jacobs was 12.  Because of her Grandmother she really wanted to learn Spanish so has taken every opportunity to learn it and speak it for the past four years. She knows a lot about the gospel and has a huge jump on knowing Spanish and reminds me a little of Debbie Roghaar.  She is in my district and will be a great missionary.  Wish I had taken pictures of these sisters to share with you.  I will try to get one next week.  I also want to tell you about Elder Pacheco next week.

In our devotional today we talked about what gives us hope.  Then we talked about the Apostasy and what we lost after the gospel was no longer on the earth and how they were pretty much the same things that give us hope.  Satan is very smart and was able to take away the hope of mankind by taking away their knowledge of God and their relationship to him.  If we didn't know who we are, why we are here and where we are going, how would our lives be different.  I know mine would be very different if I thought that it all ended when I died.  It is a lot to think about and sure makes me sure appreciate the Restoration a lot more.  

The pictures are of the CCM. The front of the building,

 

the entry gate to the parking area,

 

an empty classroom 

and some Sisters having personal study time in another classroom,

 

Dad in the hall,

 

the lunchroom 

and the serving area in the lunchroom.  

Next email I will send a picture of the fruit that the cashew nut comes from.  They make a juice from the fruit.  I really wanted to try to make it, but decided against it because they were so small. See the area where the nut is on each individual fruit?  

The other picture is a truckload of Brama Bulls we saw today on our way home.

And one more picture of some cute little Patitos we saw this week.

Love you and have fun in the snow!    MOM/Grammy

School Kits

I just finished my devotional at the CCM to the English speaking Sisters about modesty and Dad is giving one to the English speaking Elders about the Ordinances. Then at 4:15 he gives the same devotional on Ordinances to the Spanish speaking Elders and I am going to sit in on the one on Modesty for the Spanish Sisters.  Hopefully I can pick up some info I can share next time I give it.  

I was just thinking how things have changed since we first got here.  We were first assigned to a ward where we helped with Family History and other than that I would sit in meetings totally in Spanish and feeling like I wasn't getting much out of them and never really contributing much.  Now we have two of the three hours each Sunday in English and we are preparing devotionals for almost every week we are here. It has been really good for me to prepare and present a discussion about a topic. I enjoy being more involved with the Sisters here at the CCM.

This past week we made arrangements to not be at the Clinic on Thursday, but to go out with some of our dear friends the Reynas and Curtises to distribute school kits to three rural elementary schools just about an hour outside of Guatemala City.  They were OK schools, but very basic and a little primitive.  At the first school there were two grades in each classroom and just four classrooms with about 75 kids attending there.  We had a young female dentist with us at each of the schools who helped the kids with a fluoride rinse.  She said she is there once a month.  The children would all stand in a line outside the classrooms where we would handout the school kits. Then the dentist would give each child a small disposable cup with rinse in it and tell them to wait there as a group and put the fluoride in their mouths when she told them to.  When they were all ready she told them to go ahead and swish for three minutes, a long time for these kids.  Invariable some would start laughing and spit it out early, but when the time was up she had them all spit on the ground and warned them not to spit on their friends.

The second school was the same routine but with more kids.  I have added one picture of the kids that if you look close you can see all the confetti in the girls hair.  This week is a holiday called Carnival and last week the kids had several eggs shells called Cascarones.  It is a shell that the egg has been taken out and then the shell is colored like at Easter, then filled with confetti and a small square of tissue paper glued on the opening to seal in the confetti.  It is then broken over someones head.  Maybe you kids remember that we had some at Easter that Marta gave us.  It is evidently a custom in El Salvador also. We haven't quite been able to figure out what the holiday is for.  Someone yesterday told us the carnival is celebrated 40 days before Easter.  I just can't see the connection.

At one of the schools we saw a lady walking by with some large chickens under her arms.  Their feet were tied together and they were very docile.  Dad went down to talk to her.  She was a single lady with no family and she was selling these chicken to make a little money.  As he was talking to her she reached down and pulled out a small black chicken from her apron pocket and had more in other pockets.  She let me take a couple pictures of her.  Hermana Curtis gave her a few quets and the lady tried to give her the little black chicken, LaFaunda said she was giving her money so she didn't have to take a chicken home.

The Third school had two classrooms and perhaps 25 students.  Some people in Italy had donated some new desks to this school and they had more than they needed so they stacked them up against the wall. This school had more books than I have seen in any other school here, they were not new but still I was impressed.  They had a little two room outhouse and the girls would hold the door whenever a friend was inside using it.  After driving several miles on dirt roads we came to this little steep sidewalk up to the school and here is a picture Dad passing out the kits and one of all the students with their school kits. 

I have a question for Elders Martin and Laren Edwards.  Are your missions being effected by the change being made in 19 missions.  The Logan mission is being dissolved and the area being added back into the Ogden mission.

A couple more pictures just for fun.  Bananas for sale on the side of the street.  

Two chicken buses.

Happy Valentines Day!!  Later this week.  We will be having a pizza party on the roof that day. 

 Love you all, each and every one!   MOM/Grammy

These are the pictures of the third two room school.

Wheelchairs

    Happy February Everyone!

Our week was a little different than most weeks here.  Monday morning we worked at the Clinic then met Dave and Susan Oyler and went to check out a place where they make and place wheelchairs.  There is also a dental clinic in the same building, so we went along to check it out and see if there were any opportunities for us to come there once a week or so to help out.  The lady in charge of the dental clinic was not there so we had a tour of the wheelchair factory and watched as they were helping 15 children get their first wheelchair. You can't just pass out a wheelchair to a child and their family. They have to have it adjusted to the particular child, especially if the child cannot sit up on their own.  It was pretty amazing, most of the people working at the factory are in wheelchairs themselves.  They make every part of the chair except the wheels and they put about 250 chairs together each month.  Irma is a volunteer and works several days a week there. She showed us around, this picture is her with Susan and me.

We were at the Clinic Tuesday, but on Wednesday Dad needed to be at the CCM for new missionary interviews at 8:00.  I went with him and then walked to the temple to do a session, but while I was at the CCM the bus pulled into the parking lot directly from the airport with the missionaries from the states.  It was so fun to see them all, about 15 piled out of the bus, collected their luggage and headed into the CCM.  I have added a couple pictures of them.  

After interviews and the temple we had lunch at the CCM with the missionaries then we decided to go back to the temple and do initiatories for the 10 cards Angie left with us after the kids did the baptisms while they were here in December. 

Thursday was dental screening at the CCM in the morning and then back again by 5:00 for dinner and orientation for the new missionaries about how their Sundays are scheduled and what they are responsible for.  Friday we went to Antiqua again with another couple and found some new places to check out.  

I even got a pair of boots!! with tipica fabric on the heels.  They are shorter than yours Callie, but we got them in the same town.  

Movie night was "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers".  We haven't seen that one for a while, but it was cute.  We just had a Krispie Creme (sp??) open here, so someone brought a bunch of them to movie night.  I am making popcorn for movie nights with all that great popcorn you guys have brought/sent us.

Last night we had a farewell party for one of the couples here from Virginia, the Whittiers. He is a veterinarian and they have been the humanitarian missionaries for the whole Central America Area.  They have done some amazing things and will be missed very much.  The couples leaving now are the ones that we have known the longest and it is a little harder for us to see them go.  I am sure all of you who have served missions, including Martin and Laren, will know exactly what I mean. There is a new couple here from San Antonio to replace them, they just seem a little more reserved than the Whittiers but I am sure they will do a great job.

We gave our devotional at the CCM today, it is actually an hour meeting, on the Gathering of Israel.  The more I studied, and prepared for it, the more I was so impressed that the Book of Mormon is definitely the instrument of the gathering.  In fact, President Nelson said that without the Book of Mormon there would be no gathering. We talked today about 1 Nephi 15:12-16 and I have been so touched by verse 14 where Nephi describes the things that the Book of Mormon will teach his descendants:

"And at that day shall the remnant of our seed know that they are of the house of Israel, and that they are the covenant people of the Lord; and then shall they know and come to the knowledge of their forefathers, and also to the knowledge of the gospel of their Redeemer, which was ministered unto their fathers by him; wherefore, they shall come to the knowledge of their Redeemer and the very points of his doctrine, that they may know how to come unto him and be saved."

 I am so thankful for the Book of Mormon and for all that Joseph Smith went through to get it translated and printed for all to read. It is so amazing to be here in the midst of some of the descendants of Lehi and think of these scriptures pertaining to the gathering of Israel.  Yes, God has a plan and everything is going as planned, I am thankful to be a small part of it.

This is inside an older church not used anymore in Antiqua, and a little tienda in Pastores where we found a ceramic store behind it. You never know what is behind the walls in these little towns.

We Love you all and am so thankful for all of your efforts to be a forever family.     MOM/Grammy