Mud and Miracles

Last Sunday we got to go up to Chijolom, about a 2 hour drive up further into the mountains, with the District President.  It was then a 25 minute walk further up on a trail through a Cardamon field.  Beautiful - but as always a little bit slippery!  The primary teacher was a young 15 year old girl with great faith and about 8 children.  Beautiful land, people and great faith.  Coming back down one of the brethren cut me a pole to help me keep from slipping down the slope. It was exciting when climbing way up in the 4 wheel drive truck, coming around the corner on this one-lane road we met a logging truck coming down!  They backed up a few feet and we went over to within a few inches of the drop off so they could come around!
  We also went to the Chulak area this week to work for a couple of days, to get there and come back we went by bus, mini van, tuk-tuk, and part of the way on the back of a truck! While there we were able to cook and eat in the Elder´s apartment and we slept in one of the classrooms in the church. Chulak is way up in the mountains with people of amazing faith and a sky that seemed to hold every star available when darkness hit- especially since the people have no electricity to hide the beauty!  Elder Spradlin was asked by an older couple to bless the wife who had had, (we think) a heart attack and had just gotten home from the hospital.  The husband said he could tell Harold was a man of great faith and for that reason he wanted him to give the blessing.  Sweet people!  While there we also did a Primary and Young Women´s teacher training.  One problem here is that the manuals are in Spanish, but many of the people only speak Qéqchi´, hard to know what to do if you can´t read the book!
On Wednesday we hiked back to Sepamac, a village further up the mountain - hiked up and then down in our boots through some mud in a mist, for over 2  hours to get there so we could start going up and down again to reach the homes of the saints we needed to visit.  Before we had made it all the way I had figured out that I wasn´t going to be able to hike it back out, But the Lord blessed us and we were able to make all of the visits. Again the brethren used their knives and cut me a pole to get down one of the muddy slopes.  In order to visit the last sister the Brethren wanted us to see we missed the one ride back up and out...  Using my pole the other Elders from Chulac and us started the hike back out.  By this point I was going on great faith, and leaning strongly on my pole the Brother had cut me.  We had hiked for about 15 minutes when we saw a truck stopped, right at the beginning of the steep acent out.  They gave us a ride part way out, over the highest part of the summit, on the back of their truck!  Oh how grateful I was.  Over the top and part way down, the rest was possible.  With a break for supper we were able to go out again in the evening.  My miracle was that I was able each time to get up and walk again even though I knew it was not my own strength I was using.  The next day we had to walk a lot more and visit a town called Panzos.  Waking up in the morning I felt no pain whatsoever and again was grateful to a Very Loving Heavenly Father! 
Elder Spradlin noticed that in Sepamac, as we sat  in a home with an unlevel dirt floor, with large rocks in the middle of the room.  The house held up by sticks, large cracks in between holding up the roof.  As he watched the smoldering fire from the earlier breakfast built on the ground, we could still feel the spirit of the Lord and the strength of the Sister as she bore her testimony while sitting on the edge of the table so that we could use her benches to rest on.  The faith of these people here is overwhelming, awe-inspiring and leaves us in awe. 

Rocks and Baptism

Elder Spradlin used a new type of hammer, well at least for us.  He helped put in a raised garden for a family.  They put down the wood sides, then made stakes with their machetes to hold them up.  To hammer the stakes in they used a big rock for a hammer.  It worked!  The next day while out visiting families we were invited to take a seat, the seat was another huge rock.  Great recycling I would call it.  A lot ofthe places we go are uphill, or downhill and very muddy, keeps us praying that we won´t slip and fall.  So far we are very grateful for answers to that prayer!
On New Year`s Eve the Elder`s had a baptism in one of the branches for an 89 year old man.  It was supposed to be at 11am, but when we got there at 10:45 we found out they couldn´t run the water because the town was out of water, not an unusual event here, there were only a few inches in the fount.  Great predicament, till The Branch President stood up and explained to the people it would take a sacrifice from all for the baptism and he sent everyone out to their homes to carry back water.  Many of them lived over a half mile away, again up and down the hills.  The people got up and a lot of the adults and teens left.  Some adults stayed around with all of the children.  A little later a stream of people came back carrying water on their heads, over their shoulders and between them.  A huge demonstration of faith and love!

Later that afternoon I went to a family`s home who had just recently gotten  a propane gas stove with an oven, they had never had one, so didn`t know how to use it.   Both of the women spoke only Qèqchi`, so with my little amount and the children helping translate from Spanish we made a chocolate cake.  A little later one of the children brought out a flashlight and looked in.  Oh the surprise when they realized the cake was rising!   It turned out perfect and we were all very pleased.  The next day they tried helping me learn how to make tortillas.  Not as easy as I thought it would be!
New Years Eve we were invited to a sweet family`s home for caldo, a broth with Chicken which is considered a great delicacy for them.  The family uses candlelight and cooks over an open fire in their kitchen.  They brought out the soup for us to eat and I said -oh we will wait for you¨-  that is not the normal here, and so it caused a slight problem because they did not own enough dishes for everyone when we ate with them.  So the mother had her daughter keep making tortillas, which is the traditional way of women, to make tortillas while the family eats.  We have experienced such generosity and love here in Guatemala.

Sun and Mud

The good thing about hard dirt floors is when it rains outside, which creates lots of mud, we dont have to worry as much about tracking mud into homes!  We went on Sunday and visited a sister with a new 3 week old baby, she had delivered cessarian, and I am clueless how she ever made it back up to her home, hopefully it was dry that day, because I slipped and slid the whole way up.  Had me praying more, so I guess it was a good thing.  The sister had not named her baby yet, so Harold suggest she name him Harold.  We shall have to go bck and see what his name is!  We went and visited another family that day where the father has been sick on and off for nine months, every time he starts to get well he starts getting a cough again and it weakens him, they have even taken him to Guatemala City to try and get help, but no treatments seem to help.  While we were there the Mother was bearing her testimony and said how the night before she had dreamed of a patient, older, white man coming and that everything was then better.  She had no knowledge that we were even here. Harold and the other brethren there gave her a blessing of strength in helping with her husband.  The strength of these members is overwhelming. 
The elders have 6 baptisms lined up for Saturday, that is what I call a white Christmas!  We are going to be trying to help the Primaries here, they really don´t have many resources to use.  We went into a Primary Sunday where one amazing teacher was working with a group of 12 children, with a Bible and a hymnbook.  We were able to teach them Follow the Leader, or at least act it out and talk about Prophets - with my very limited Qéqchi´and a little girl about 4 who spoke Spanish and Qéqchi´.  We did the story then of Ammon being a great missionary and defending the Kings flocks by cutting off the Robbers arms.  I didn´t know the word for sword, so used the term Machete, which we see all over around here.  We have even seen them being worn around in the office buildings and municipal building.  I think the Mayor back home would pass out if someone walked into his office with a machete strapped to his back!  No big deal.  Didn´t think till later that it might be a problem, if any of the kids got mad at a sibling and decided to try acting it out for real! 
We have the Childrens stories in Spanish, so we have pictures and the story from the Qéqchi bible of the Saviours birth, and Christmas songs lined up for this Sundays Primary, so  am excited to try and help the Sister with Primary.  We just need to know how to do it more effectively and that will take some research and reaching out to some of our inactive members.
We wil lbe going to about 4 different Christmas Branch activities here, and caroling as much as possible to members and investigators homes.  What a wonderful way to celebrate the Saviours Birth, in his service.  We are so grateful for our family and friends and the love and support you all give us.  Christmas wishes to all!