What an amazing week as we had our
daughter Erica here with us. Fantastic sharing with her some of the
friends and places we have grown to love here on our mission. The
hard part was as heading back to Guatemala to drop her off and
realizing all of the things we would have still liked to share, but
we had run out of time! We played with children, worked with the
choir, visited members, ate Caldo.
Funniest event of the week was
visiting the family in La Tinta where I had promised to teach them
how to make a meal using cardamom, especially since he deals, dries,
and sells cardamom. No one here knows how to use it, only thing they
do is grow and export it. We arrived at their home and visited,
telling them we wanted to go see the swinging bridges and would then
return, the wife was going to kill and clean the chicken while we
were gone. Went to the swinging bridges and some of the family
accompanied us on a lovely walk there as we crossed the huge swinging
bridges and then walked on the other side. When we returned to their
home, the chicken was ready to go- they had just started it on to
boil, so after explaining it should not be boiled and taking it off
the heat I helped with chopping the herbs and vegetables. Next step
was outside to the waiting fire to put it all on to cook. First we
sauteed the herbs and vegetables and were ready to add the chicken -
they then held up the chicken head to put in, very evident still that
it was a rooster. Oh My!!!! I was glad it had already been cleaned
and cooked a little. They thought it was very funny when I reacted,
because to them it was all quite normal. The food turned out great
and so did the visit!
In the capitol they changed out our
tires to more rugged ones, we thought it humorous, since we are now
at the end of our mission! Hopefully our replacements get our car!
They also put on new brakes and a new battery. This is starting on
our 3rd set of brake pads, and since we don't drive that
much it seems crazy, but the roads and hills and turns and children
and animals on the road put a lot of wear on the car! Very grateful
for the new battery, since the car didn't want to start this last
week once when we were in Teleman, not a good thought, luckily the
Branch President had the number for a member who is a mechanic and he
brought jumper cables (riding on his motorcycle) and a transport
driver gave us a jump start. Neither one of them accepted any
payment for their kindness and help. I love the goodness of the
people here!
We are hitting our one month mark this
week which feels very strange. How much can we accomplish in one
month? We are headed back out to Senahu today excited to fill our
days with this wonderful work. Having to plan also for our return
home makes it a little interesting, so it is definitely mixed
feelings we are enjoying. We love the people here, but also very
excited to be with our family back home.
