whirlwind week

Love busy weeks!  We got to work Monday and Tuesday with a Medical group in from the states.  They did surgeries from morning until night 3 days in a row here.  Amazing to watch their dedication and the lives touched.  Wednesday we were off to Coban and worked with our Elders there doing interviews for English, handing out antibiotic ointment to carry in their backpacks, and pictures of the Savior and Temples for the walls of their apartments.  One of our current goals is to get a picture of the Savior and of a Temple in each missionary apartment throughout the mission.  Members from stateside have sent down old calendars that we are able to take the pictures from and they go great on the walls!  It has been a whirlwind through the valley doing all of the zones interviews.  Yesterday morning early before we left we had a surprise visit from one of our new neighbors, she brought us a plant and a Mayan calendar to welcome us!  I was super touched by her sweetness.
Tomorrow we get to go to the Chapel dedication in Coral Pek, another one of our very remote areas, one we can´t get to in our RAV 4, road is too rough.  Choir practice in the afternoon, then working on English with one of our new neighbor familys.  Monday morning early we leave for the Poptun and Peten areas to do housing inspections and English.  We will be coming back through an area we have not visited yet, called Chisec.  Hoping it will soon be opened up for missionaries, some members living there are asking for us to come, so we will visit them and take some Book of Mormons.
A few challenges in our new home, mosquitoes!  We now have a mosquito net over our bed from our landlord, but need to buy a bigger one while we are out this week.  Not sure if they are really mosquitoes, as they are very small.  Normally I am the one that has always been eaten by bugs, but they are mainly attacking Elder Spradlin and making life a lot less than comfortable.  We also only have gotten water a few times for a couple of hours each time since moving in ' usually between 3 and 6 am.  They are putting us in a water tank outside, so as soon as that is installed it should fix the problem.  It made Coban really nice because we had hot showers!

Symphony in our New Home

We moved yesterday, to a house about 20 minutes south, that is walking distance, from where we were living.  It is a bigger home and much more private, and painted lime green outside, lime green with inside too, with some of the rooms a melon or pumpkin.  The family that is renting it to us left some of the furniture, so we have a spare bedroom with a bed in it, our office where we also put some of what was our front room furniture, a large living room with lovely furniture, and a large dining area. There is a separate room for the washer and dryer, and  the pila.  They left their dining room table for us - it seats 8, so that with the small one we have will be enough to seat all of our missionaries when they come to eat with us.  Since 8 of the elders showed up to help us move yesterday, I told them I would be fixing all of them dinner as soon as we can get set up, and have a free time on a Monday!  I did make sure that my cookie jars were full before the move - so they could be empty when we finished the moving.  Two sisters also helped us and had my kitchen unpacked for me before we even had everything unloaded.  They are coming next Saturday and we shall bake something sweet together.
  The house seemed quite quiet yesterday after everyone left, but this morning at 5am I awoke to a symphony of bird calls and songs occasionally punctuated by a rooster crow.  It was still quite hazy out, with just the trees and plants surrounding the house and the song of birds.  To top it off one little bird even came and sat outside the window and sang for me. It is now 6:30 and they have all begun to go off to their days work and the symphony is gradually calming, but with calls still coming from each direction.  In back of the house are two banana plants, on one side are two pineapple growing, on the other side we look out to see where our neighbors have ducks and lemon trees, and some other trees yet to be identified.  In front of the house is a variety of plants lining the drive, but then the staple of the world here, corn, grows on both sides of our path up to the house.
The family we are renting from are very dear, their daughter has always called us Abuelita and Abuelito, (grandma and grandpa)  she is now about 4 or 5 years old. She was very excited that we are living in "her house,"  but also very curious as she saw it changed to our things. We have a lot of fun with her and when her grandparents are around we always say, "oh my how lucky you are to have so many grandparents!"    The grandparents are also very special, her grandfather was the first person baptized here in the Senahu area, 35 years ago.
We went and did the housing inspection in the areas up the mountain this past week and it was quite an adventure.  We are certain that the most  remote area we have missionaries placed right now is Chijolom.  So glad we went before rainy season hit, because our car will probably not make it once the rain hits the roads.  Several times Elder Spradlin had to stop, get out and figure out where to drive in front of us in order not to get stuck.  He is a great driver, and I am grateful! Our next trip will definitely have to be in a truck. Once we drove as far as we could we had just a short walk to the church, about another 20-30 minutes on trails.  Our missionaries live in a small room off of the church, with a faucet outside for washing their dishes, a shower and what we would call in the states an outhouse.  The impressive part was how neat and orderly they had organized their things, and how overall clean they were keeping their apartment.  We made a list of a few things that could help them be a little more comfortable and will make those purchases in the market today for them since they have limited time down here on Mondays and Market day isn't till Tuesday.  There definitely isn't availability for the shopping in Chijolom.  I'm grateful for meeting so many valiant Elders, willing and joyful to serve wherever the Lord calls them to go.

thankful

Tonight our youngest daughter is being set apart to begin her mission in Uruguay.  We get to join in that occasion through Skype.  I am so gratefu,l and also very grateful to the many people who have supported and nurtured her.  I think some of my wonderful sisters there have done a better job than I might have in helping her prepare to enter the Mission field!
I am grateful that we found a different house to move to this Friday!  It is a little bigger, more private, and very pretty.  We also have 8 elders close who have volunteered to help us move.  I have volunteered the Brownies!
I am grateful for the humor in our days!  Yesterday we looked back over the day and remembered how many times we had laughed or smiled at the incongruencies we saw around us.
Heading out of Senahu we saw three of the Senahu Police force walking back into town.  The motor on their vehicle blew a few months ago, so they are all on foot.  No chasing people by car for sure!
Between Teleman and Panzos, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the dirt road was a man selling Cotton Candy - even funnier was a car stopped that was buying it from him!
Coming back home through Teleman we saw a drunk directing traffic, and doing a very good job!
We had a romantic candlelight dinner because luckily I had just finished fixing supper before the electricity went off.
Don't forget to smile!  So yes, very thankful for Smiles!