A good week

Zone conference weeks are some of the best when serving as Senior Missionaries. This week we had two, one for the Polochic, which included the valley Elders and Chulac. Then the one for Senahu, which included the rest of the “mountain elders”. Love being around the missionaries! Working with and seeing their dedication and love of the Gospel is amazing. We try to make sure we visit as much as possible with each of them individually “checking in” making sure if they have a problem or need something we can help them with. Sometimes it may mean they are out of insecticide, or they are dealing with stress or strain and need some exercises, or they are sick and we need to find out how to help them. It becomes a lot

We were also able to spend time with President and Sister Curtiss and share with them some of our concerns for the members and missionaries in our areas. Refocused a little our direction for these last remaining weeks, so hopefully we will be of more service. We even got to have the Curtiss's and the Kirks for a pancake breakfast at our home! The Kirks are the other Senior Missionaries that are working with us in the mission now. They live in Coban and help with Alta Vera Paz, Coban, Peten and in the office. Still great hopes that a couple will come in to take our place when we leave in October.

After the conferences we headed down to the capitol, turned in the car to get some repairs done then got to spend the evening with other Sernior Missionaries. Every missionary working as a Senior has such a different type of experience in their mission, with what they are doing and the challenges they face. It is novel for us to hear.

Super excited to get to spend some time with the Watt's tonight! We have missed them a lot, but tonight we will go play together. Tomorrow morning we pick up our daughter Erica at the airport and she is going to spend a whirlwind week with us. So excited to introduce her to all our friends and share with her our mission!  I forgot the camera cable so will post Zone Pictures when we get back to Senahu.

Frustration

 Even though we live here I am sure we only see “the tip of the iceburg” So when we see the problems we do, it is truly heartbreaking.

Another young baby died this week, 2 months old. We took pictures of this healthy, beautiful baby boy when he was 3 days old.  When we went by to visit the family this week we found out he had died 2 weeks ago from "a fever" .

  Another family we work with has a 10year old daughter who has a deep cut on her foot,
her little Brother, about 6 years old, was playing with a dull machete hitting in the dirt -then
decided to hit her foot.  We helped the family clean it some and gave them antibiotic ointment.  Since it was late in the evening and starting to rain we told them they needed to get her to the Centro de Salud the next morning early to get shots, for tetanus for sure!  We went back yesterday afternoon, 2 days after the accident, and they told us they had not taken her to the clinic.  The child's foot is
starting to swell and is very painful.  When we asked why they had not gone, again explaining the danger of the infection they told us the little girl  didn't want to go!  I don't usually get strong with people in what I say, but told them they were the parents and it was their decision, not hers.  If they wanted her to live they needed to go.

We accompanied the family of the daughter who had seizures to the Medical Clinic on Monday and she was seen by the Doctor. They can't do all the testing here, but because of the explanation of symptoms have put her on anti-seizure medicine. I spoke with the Church Area Doctor about her and he told me what had caused the seizures and epilepsy is caused by a parasite in the brain from eating undercooked pork. Sure glad we were told not to eat any pork here!
 Hearing a baby cry in the daytime now stresses me, is it a baby that maybe won't survive, or just an angry child.  

The District choir tour is starting to shape up, the members are working to raise money to pay for the trip. We have the songs picked out and the program planned. Dates fixed for 5 concerts, one here, two down in the valley and two up in Chulac. We are also helping plan for a huge activity day on 14 of September which is Independence Day, so they can use it to help raise the rest of the funds.

 This is the Lord's work.
Sometimes we get frustrated because of the problems we see, the unnecessary pain that goes on and it takes us a minute to back up again and remember that this is His work and His time table and some things we just don't understand.

Always Be Prepared

I just realized that I needed to change our logo to the Guatemala, Coban Mission. Two missions in one for us!

We never can tell when we show up for a meeting if we will be called on to speak or not. We were asked to go to an activity in a family's home on Friday evening, we didn't realize from how they were describing it that it was the weekly Missionary night, but they did ask if I would play for it. We took the keyboard and the hymnbooks, so that was expected. I didn't know I was one of the speakers though till they made the announcement, Elder Spradlin didn't know either till after I spoke and they looked at him expecting him to speak. One of our English speaking missionaries was there though and translated from English to K'ekchi for him. After having that happen I was prepared on Sunday to speak, because we went to the new little group at Searanx – there were 44 of us in the meeting. Was grateful when the member who was presiding leaned over and asked one of the other Elders to speak. He said afterwards it was his first full talk in K'ekchi' and he was prepared. It was so much fun in Primary teaching the children “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” We did it first in English, and then we used the new Children's Songbook in K'ekchi. Laughing and playing they slowly lost their shyness and sang with us. Since all of these families have only been baptized for two weeks it was lovely working and teaching these children, We used the song “I am a Child of God” to talk about who we are and where we came from. Then we talked about prayer, and the importance of talking to our Heavenly Father, just as we talk with our earthly parents each day, we want to communicate with Him.

Saturday morning we met the other Senior missionary couple down in the valley and picked up mosquito nets and medical kits for our missionaries out here in the Polochic. They have now all been distributed and our missionaries are getting them up today. Trying to keep them protected from mosquitos, and any other creatures that are too friendly at night when we are trying to sleep! The only solution for Dengue fever is prevention, or lots of water to drink once you get it! From the descriptions we have had, not a fun thing to go through. The mosquito repellant sold here is only 15 level, and very expensive. We are trying to figure out how to get the repellent on a regular basis from the states, so hopefully there will be a solution for that soon!

They missionaries also brought out a mission call for Chulac that we were able to deliver on Sunday. Expecting one more in this week for a sister in La Tinta. Then we just have three others that we have worked with that are still waiting on their Call.

We met a man from La Tinta a couple of weeks ago who invited us to his home, he works with Cardamom, has trucks and a drying building for it. He wanted me to show his wife how to cook with the cardamom, since people here grow and export it, but don't know how to use it. We visited their home on Saturday afternoon and had so much fun! He is starting to run for Mayor, and his family was delightful. He showed us his home, then we sat outside in the shade where it was cooler and all of his family gathered round, children, children-in-law. I explained a recipe for rice, one for chicken, one for cookies all using Cardamom, so they can try them while Elder Spradlin showed them pictures of our family back home on the computer. We needed to leave then, and the family was saying, “but you must stay and we will kill a chicken together and cook and eat it.” We explained we couldn't but planned to go back and visit them in two weeks. We told them that then we will have the day to stay longer. The man is saying, “oh good, I will buy a bed and you can spend the night with us” I explained that we would have to go home to spend the night, but it felt amazing their friendliness. Elder Spradlin gave the dad a Book of Mormon in Spanish and we explained that it is a second witness of Jesus Christ, that it testifies of the truthfulness of the Bible and that Heavenly Father loves all of his children. The man was so thankful, then I pulled out the one I had brought in K'ekchi for his wife, she speaks only limited Spanish, and they were very happy. They asked how much for them, and when we said it was a gift their response was so sweet. She got up, came over and gave me a hug.

In two weeks, it looks like we may get to help kill a chicken!   

We were told yesterday of a family with an 18 year old daughter who is very sick, so we went to visit the family. When we got there the daughter was in the middle of a convulsive seizure, arching her back, arm going stiff, then slumping, then going back into arched position and thrashing. The family was all around holding onto her and praying/screaming, and trying to put scriptures on her chest. She mainly appeared unconscious during the episode, which continued several minutes after we got there. The room was hot with all the people surrounding her, I asked for a small bowl of cool water and began bathing her face and arms, that helped them back up a little and quit grabbing at her. The convulsion passed, she came to and then after speaking laid down to sleep. They told us she had started having the convulsions earlier in the week and when they took her to the Medical Clinic after the first one the Doctor said there was nothing wrong with her. I think that may be because of how they explained it, and she appears perfectly normal in between the seizures. They decided that since the Doctor didn't find anything wrong with her, that an evil spirit is trying to possess her. I can see after having been there why they might tag it that way, looked kind of like an epileptic seizure, and scary to watch.

We came straight home and I got on the computer to do some research on what some of the causes are for seizures and what you need to do to diagnose. There is no diagnostic equipment here, like MRI or EEG, but Coban has it about 4 hours away. We called their Branch President and told him what we had found and he went over to meet us there to talk to them. We wanted to make sure they understand because some of the family don't understand Spanish very well and we were fighting against tradition, to try and help them realize she needed medical attention. She was fine as we were sitting there and we discussed it, with her sweet little one year old girl laughing and playing. They said they will think about it and decide by Monday, but you could tell they were doubtful. We left and went to visit another family, when we passed down the trail close to their home about an hour later we heard them all yelling again and I guess praying, it sounded like someone had died- or something. I was pretty sure she was in the middle of another seizure, but with nothing more we could do we walked on by, and I felt horrid. Hoping strongly that today they get her some help and that they can find a solution, it is hard to feel so helpless.

On the other hand we had an amazing caldo with one family yesterday and another family we visited just found out the wife is pregnant. We went to Poptun District earlier in the week and were able to do a training with the District Leadership there focused on missionary work, and the importance of the members doing missionary work, with the full-time missionaries helping them. We also got to work with a lot of the missionaries on a variety of issues like housing and English. Very grateful that none of them called this week due to sickness, and those that had been ill are all doing better.   

Highlights

When you wake up at three in the morning and can't sleep there is always something that needs to be done.  Luckily with this happening this morning I also found that the Internet was working, we had difficulty all week long to get signal for using it to communicate.  

Some Days are highlights of your lifetime and this week we participated in the Highlights of many people's lives. We helped set up, play for, then helped serve the food after the wedding of one of our young returned missionaries on Wednesday.  We took the youth from the group of Americans to sing and play with children, then one day to learn how to make tortillas.  Saturday though is one of those days that needs a special star. We delivered a Mission Call to a future missionary on our way to a baptismal service in Sajonte. This baptism was unique in many ways, but mainly because it was the beginning baptisms for a community and 32 people were baptized. To accommodate so many people Baptisms were held inside the church and outside in a portable font on the Basketball/Soccer court. The new members are from Saranch, a community about two hours by foot trail, or 45 minutes in truck - away from the nearest LDS chapel in Sajonte. where a Pastor and his congregation in a community about 2 hours from the church in Sajonte became unhappy with the doctrines and workings of the church there, a member of his congregation is LDS, but because of distance was only able to get to the church in Sajonte about once a month, the rest of the time attending this other group. He suggested they learn more about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and then passed on a referral to the Elders and they began teaching the families, walking over to the community with other members three times a week. There are several other families in the community waiting to hear the discussions, but Saturday there were 32 prepared for baptism which is definitely a momentous occasion.

Earlier in the week, in order to level out perhaps the joys and difficulties of the week I had the opportunity to scream like a girl. The slug on the couch I easily dealt with, but then I saw a snake rapidly leaving the kitchen in front of me, I actually let out what Harold called a real "Girl Scream" The snake was bigger than the last one we found and wasn't poisonous, but we waited until it was dead to try and find that out.