Los Limones

Coming up from Telemann in a truck on Sunday we met a School teacher from a small community called Los Lemones.  He invited, asked us to come to visit his school and work with the children in English.  Said it wasnt very far out, only about 12 km.  That there is a truck that leaves from Seamay at 6am.  We decided to go, and took our new friend Debbie with us, she had come down with Gordon Ham to see this part of Guatemala and do service.  We left the house at 5am, got to Seamay about 5:45.  The Truck we needed had left at 5:30, but another passed and said they were going that way.  Up we climb, yes of course it was raining,  into the back of the truck.  About an hour later the truck comes to where we need to get off, and then wait for the next truck to go up further the next road.  One passed fairly quickly, yes it is still raining,  up we climb again and go about another 45 minutes.  Beautiful terrain, surround by coffee bean and bean fields.  Different types of hills than before, but yes still kind of misty.  We get off the next truck and begin walking, it feels like we are in the middle of a painting with brilliant colors and shapes and sounds.  Sorry, no pictures.  Enthralling, but still misty.  The teacher passes on his motorcycle about 30 minutes later up the road.  Says hello - asks if we are still coming.  Thought it an odd question since we had been traveling about 2 hours already.  So of course we say yes and climb the next hill, go down...  Then we of course see another big hill and think, oh my, now way.  Blessings appear in the form of another truck headed up and they give us a ride up.  Pretty much to the end of the world it felt like.  The school had 3 classrooms and amazing children.  Taught them, lost my voice.  Kept on teaching.  They were then saying afterwards that they needed help finishing one of the rooms on the school, the Municipality was supposed to do it, but when the new mayor changed offices the process stopped.  We went on to the next class and worked with them.  In the two younger classes the children sang for us in Qeqchi and Spanish.  Their teacher was so proud of them!  After we saw the last class and went to look at their ruins a person drove up in a truck and this unexpected meeting started right next to the school.  The mayor had shown up and they were discussing a road they are putting in.  We went over with the teachers to ask about the school - she said if they would turn the original project plans in to her office she would see what the commitments were and keep them.  Wow, next surprise - she gave us a ride back down.  We were able to visit with her on the way about education, projects in the area and our desires to help in the community.  We couldn{t have gotten in to see her if we had tried probably, but here we rode down with her for over an hour and a half.  Amazing miracles!  Found out her daughter is finishing up her teaching assistantship and is working in one of the classrooms where we are teaching English.  Such a small miraculoous world here sometimes.  Sorry no pictures of Los Limones, but we promised we would make it back up in April and I will get some amazing ones then!  By the way Los Limones was a lot lot farther than we thought when we started, and on the way I sure wondered why we were headed there.  In the end though it was amazing.

Dentists and lessons learned

We had a clinic of 4 dentists from the city here this week.  Wonderful volunteers from the community and hundreds of opeople who needed help to relieve pain.  The dentists helped 240 people.  It was amazing!  Lesson learned, if you never brush your teethe - they will fall out.  Some people only had the roots of their teethe still on many teethe and needed them pulled still.  One girl of 13 needed all 4 of her front teethe pulled,  One elderly gentleman had never used a toothebrush.  Hopefully we can help educate people and stop some of this pain in the future.  It was very hard for me to see the pain and suffering that goes on, and to know that this was just the tip of the iceburg for people who have the same sort of problems here.   The members made QaQiq (spelling)  a turkey soup that is served only at weddings, graudations and large celebrations, to serve to the Dentists on the last day as a wonderful surprise, and one sister brought them in a Tres Leches Cake to show the gratitude of the people.  Such a giving loving people we work with here.  The funny things though that happen - One young brother called me on Monday night wanting to know if he needed to bring in his 40 day old baby to see the dentist, because it has 2 teethes and that just isnt normal.  I told him it was fine, just make sure he keeps those two teethe clean.  
We hiked up on the mountain behind the house last Friday and stopped in a sweet home - shy little boy who completely came alive when he found out he was going to get his picture taken.  The mother asked if we could, she had seen the camera.  When I said yes, everyon e went running to get dressed up for the picture taking!   Afterwards they walked partway back down the hill to make sure we didnt get lost on the paths!  They also gave us bananas from the tree in their yard.  We felt so loved!  We are heading back up to deliver the picture to them, and really looking forward to it. 
The other lesson learned, again, this past week is one I have to make sure I always remember, We can never judge where someone else is, or what they are going through,   we are all here as servants and that, thankfully is the only job we have to fulfill.

flowers and children

When we taught at the school today, Elder Spradlin came in late and brought me a flower.  I thanked him and put it in my hair.  Later during the pause a little girl brought us a few flowers and presented them to him, we thanked her and told her how pretty they were.  Then the snowball affect and children started bringing us sweet flowers.  We got two cups of water and saved them all to carry them home.  The children are so very very sweet.