Elder Spradlin's Sunday Reflections

There we were on the back of a pickup truck which looked like it was made to haul cattle, a light mist falling, and we were only about an hour behind schedule. Sister Spradlin was in the cab with the driver and I was on the back with the District President and some members of the High Counsel on our way to Yalijux for Sunday meetings. Some of the counsel and the President were dressed in white shirts, some in other colors - along with their caps and boots. A couple of times each month these men go up to various branches, by riding on the back of a truck, to support the branches higher up in the mountains.

As we traveled I could not help but let my mind wander. I first thought of the dedication of these men and their willingness to serve the Lord in these conditions. I took in the beauty of the mountains with their green background spotted with flowers from red, blue, yellow, purple, and many other colors. I thought of how the Lord had blessed this promised land to the children of Lehi. We post pictures, but a camera can't capture the beauty that is seen by the natural eye, nor the feeling of the spirit as we realize that we are in the middle of the fulfilling of prophesy.

At the meetings we were able to work with the primary. The kids here are what makes it worth all the effort. Sister Spradlin has such a great talent working with children. She has them up doing “head, shoulders, knees, and toes”. Then she tells stories by getting the children to act as charioteers in the story. They are shy at first, but then they become excited and are anxious to participate.

What a thrill to serve here with the dedicated children of Lehi.  

Little things count!

There are some days when we think we haven't accomplished much and it makes us wonder what we are doing here. At the end of one day like that last week we sat down and made a list of things that had happened, or that we had done. It filled us with such gratitude to see the list was much longer than we had realized.

There is an older sister in the branch here who has been very sick. One of our other sisters took us to visit her last week and we have been able to go back a few times to see her. She is so very sweet! We talked about flowers one day, so I took her a couple the next day from our yard. She had said her favorite ones are white, but I didn't have any of them. Coming back into our yard in the car from meetings down in the valley the following day, I saw two women walking down the street towards the market with arms full of white flowers. I got out of the car as soon as we parked and headed after them, I was too late though and couldn't catch them. Coming back up towards the house I looked to the side and there was a neighbor with his fence open, and a yard surrounded in beautiful white lily-type flowers. He probably thought me very strange when I walked in to ask for a flower, but he so kindly got his machete and cut me one to take to our sweet sister.

The grandmother of our little seven year old that just started school last week, came to see us because the teacher said he is having problems. We went to the school with her to see the teacher – found out there are 52 first graders in the classroom! The other first grade has the same amount. My hat is off to the teachers here that try to work in such conditions! The teacher said they will be getting one more teacher this week and dividing the classes, that should help some. Our little one though is behind his classmates because he never went to the preschool, his family speaks Kekchi with very little Spanish, and with illiterate parents he has never learned any of the basics. We spoke with our landlady who has her grandchildren in the school.  She and her husband are raising them, and she used to be a teacher. She and her young granddaughter will be tutoring him after school. We are hoping and praying that he is just behind and that it is not a learning disability.

We helped check and doctor one dog bite for one of our Latino Elders and baked cookies for two Elders who had received ingredients from home in packages. Yum, Brownies and Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. We got a few from each, but more fun was watching the Elders enjoy their treats.

We are very excited by the District training meetings we attended last Saturday with three of the Districts and a member of the Mission Presidency. We are now planning a training for the Presidencies of all the auxiliaries on the District level for the end of February. That means that the Districts that don't have Presidencies will hopefully get them called! The next step then is to have the District leaders help us train the leaders at the Branch Level in March. That will be followed up by visits by the District Auxiliary Presidencies to the Branches to help support and assist. We plan to go with each District at least once to help with the training.

The problems here for leaders are overwhelming. Some branches do not have enough people who know how to read. Some Branches don't have all of the materials, like the right books, but the leaders don't even realize they don't have them. The biggest problem though is probably that they have never seen how things like Primary, Young Women's and Relief Society should function. They are amazing in their dedication, their love, their testimony of the Savior and their desire to serve, now if we can just help them get the tools they need to be successful in their efforts.

Children, Stir Fry and Future Missionaries!

Playing with children has to be one of our greatest joys on our mission.  Rosie and her parents finally made it home from the second eye surgery and we got to visit with them on Saturday.  She is reaching for things and watching them, warned her sister to watch out for her long hair!  It may take another surgery or two in the future for lens implants, but she can see and that is a miracle.
 Two of our young brethren here are teaching English in the schools and we are working with them helping them with lesson plans, activities and materials.  They both speak some English, but neither have had formal training beyond High School, they got the jobs because of their English.  I can't imagine being a teacher and never having had any teacher development at all- and one of them doesn't even have materials, besides his language study program from his mission.  That means his students don't have books either.  We are letting him use some of the materials and supplies that we have gathered.  We think working with them will be much more effective in the long run than us trying to hold English classes at the church!
 We have a wonderful family in Seamay that always feeds us when we go to their house, so this past weekend we went in and made vegetable stir-fry with them.  We took in all of the ingredients, needed to feed 20 people because the extended family comes in and out throughout the day,  I chose local vegetables so it can be easily remade.  They were a little surprised I think when I added in wisquil (a type of squash) and macuy (a weed, kind of like greens or spinach).  It turned out rather bland, should have taken some chili with us, but I think they liked it - and of course they made tortillas to go with it!
  We helped the District President and one Branch President from Chulac fill out missionary forms last week.  We are teaching them how to use the computer to do it, they don't have computer or internet access in Chulac, but we met at the Teleman Building and used their computer.  It is in the middle for both of us, since Chulac and Senhu are up different mountains about an hour for each of us!  We finished one file with them, they have three left to go.  Senahu District also finished a missionary file last week and have about 7 in process.  The District up here has a goal of getting 40 missionaries out and they are working hard on reaching their goal.  To prepare to do a file the future missionary has to go with a leader, or a group of the futures go with a leader to the capitol to the church Dental Clinic (ran by Senior Missionaries)  and get their passports while there, some also get their physicals in the capitol, this is at a minimum a two day trip by bus.  One problem we are facing is that President Watts has to interview each of these future missionaries and give his recommendation, but he has very little time to get out here and do the interviews with so many other responsibilities and new missionaries entering the field.