Busy, Busy!

We had 983 at Senahu District Conference on Sunday, over 100 of them participated in the choir. Pres. Watts met with all of the youth after conference on Sunday and told them they need to start learning English.  We have been assigned to start again, and had our first class last night in Senahu. We get to start doing the housing inspections for the missionaries now in the Polochic, Poptun, part of Alta Vera Paz and the Coban area.  They have to be done 4 times a year, or better said once every three months - so we will be getting to visit with a lot of our amazing Elders here. I help set up the appointments, but Elder Spradlin is going to mainly be taking care of the inspections and writing up all the reports to email in. It is neat as we call to set up these appointments in some of the areas where we are also working with the Leaders, and the Elders let us know things we can help their branches with, one needs some support with geneology, another with setting up a reactivation plan.  When we went up to Chulak this week for the inspections we also met with the Future Missionaries there, two Branch Presidents and the District President.  We are trying to help the branches with a new plan of organizing their youth and having the youth organize themselves, they will make a commitment to read from the Book of Mormon every day to their families, then report back once a week to one of the youth who will keep the records and be the "cheerleader".  We have explained to the branches we are working with that in the goal of all families reading the Book of Mormon daily, our youth are a great strength.  They will be as the Army of Heleman in leading and supporting their families, by doing so they will strengthen themselves and their families.  Up here where many of the parents are illiterate it will be a great strength.
 This weekend will be our first trip up to the Poptun area, not only will we be doing the housing inspections there but getting to know the leaders to see how we can be more support to them.  This is their District Conference weekend so it should be great!   We also have received a list of young people that are the age of future missionaries that we are going to work with the leadership to try and locate throughout the area and see how they are currently doing.
We have been real involved for the last week trying to help make reservations and arrangements for the Kekchi Choir tour coming through the Polochik, and also for the Dental clinic that will be held the last week in Teleman.
A funny to close on, last weekend we were visiting with a family and singing with their daughters.  They began playing with my hair, then one of them asked me who had cut it (I got an amazing Aline cut about 2 weeks ago finally)  I told her one of the sisters, and asked if she liked it.  She responded, "oh no sister, esta bien feo" (its really ugly)  Then she let her hair down and told me, "but if you let it grow long, it can be beautiful, see.  Really Sister, you can do it!!"  It was so sweet and cute!  Very rarely do you see a female here with short hair, and almost never do you see a boy or man with long hair.  Lots of barbers, but no beauticians.

Dish Soap, or not

A young sister was with us today helping me make Green Banana chips, kind of like potato chips but made with unripened bananas, to take to our Zone Conference tomorrow.  I had been telling Sister Watts about all my new recipes using them, like a green banana curry, and the chips, so I decided to take and share since our supply is still quite large!  We started to clean up the kitchen when my lovely sister explained to me that the soap we have been using for dishes is really the soap used for washing clothes.  Not sure yet what the difference is, since both are big round bars, but she has promised to show us the right kind on Saturday in the market.  The one we were using said antibacterial, and it smelled good...oh well.  We gave her the remaining bars in the package since she washes all of their clothes by hand and will be able to use it.
We are very excited because several future missionaries here have started working on their missionary files and will be having their interviews with Pres. Watts this weekend.  It is so wonderful to see their excitement as we start the files and take their pictures.  We have District Conference this weekend, and the District choir has about 120 members in it. I will be accompanying, the only other member up here that plays the piano will be directing.  Pretty amazing in my opinion, the amount of members so very excited and dedicated to singing at the conference. They have been practicing every Sunday afternoon since about April, because the original conference date at the beginning of June was delayed till now.

Learning

We have learned in the last week that when the Thunderstorms hit hard it is better just to light a candle and leave it burning, so we are not left in the dark when the electricity does go out.   We also make sure the Pila is full before the storms start at night, because it could always hit one of the water lines.  I am still having a little trouble enjoying the storms when they are hard.  They make me a little nervous.

 Elder Spradlin bought a banana tree... well one whole stem I guess you would call it, with over 120 bananas on it.  I quit counting once I figured on that many.  You have to pick them while they are still green, then you let them finish ripening inside, or in shade so they don't get dark spots.  He hung them now from the ceiling in the study/second bedroom.  I went online finally and found out that you can fry them like you would potatoes, also a good curry recipe.  This is good, because when they all ripen that will be a lot of bananas!  The bananas are a lot cheaper to buy in a huge bunch like that, we paid 40 quetzales, they offered it to us for less, but we didn't think they were being fair to themselves since they are also good friends. 

 We have started working with some of the members now on their genealogy and it is extremely exciting.  First we help them start filling out their four generation charts, then we use our laptop to help them start putting their information in the online genealogy system so they can prepare to go to the temple.  It is exciting to watch them begin their searches.  We are also working with starting several future missionary files.  We have 6 that are now in process, each at a various stage. Last week was exciting when 3 young men we had worked with all got their mission calls.  Doing a little preparation for the Q'eqchi choir that is coming from the US the end of July and also the preparation for the Dental Clinic we will be helping with about the same time.  It is great to watch so many projects unfold!  Now if I can just figure out how to upload the slideshow of Elder Spradlin and his bananas!