Conference and updates!

Conference Weekend was great! The members from up on the mountain came down to watch it on Sunday morning and they used every chair in the building. People watching in the classrooms, the chapel, the hallways, some in Spanish and some in Q'eqchi' We were very happy with the little 13 inch TV they were able to set up for all of us Gringo Missionaries in English! Loved being able to greet and talk to all of our members between the meetings.

Last week a 13 year old young man and his Dad came in from the states to do his Eagle Project. He chose to do a service project in Teleman. The Branch President there has come up with an amazing plan to help his members become more self-sufficient with raising chickens and putting in home gardens. One of the surprises here is how few people know how to do simple gardening and rotation, something that could be an extremely important tool for combating malnutrition. Elder Spradlin and I got to spend part of a day going out with them visiting homes and it was awesome. The thing that probably touched Elder Spradlin most was when we were visiting one of the families, the Branch President asked the 13 year old boy for permission to use some of the money to build walls around the area of the home that only had a roof - the family uses it for kitchen and dining room. The response was an immediate yes. This will double their enclosed living space. Then the Father/Husband turned to the young man and said “what you have done here has changed our lives, Thank-you so much.”

The little 2 month old (now almost 3 months!) from Santo Domingo is still gaining weight and is back home. She has gained up to 7 pounds now, averaging a pound a week. Rosie is getting stronger at sitting up and will reach and grab for toys when we play with her. I took her and her brother and sister to the market with me on Saturday to buy vegetables and had a lovely time with them. Today we went and I worked with Rosie while Elder Spradlin helped her siblings learn how to do a puzzle. We are hoping now that she is doing better with her vision she will begin to catch up developmentally.

response to comment!

This message shows my computer illiteracy!  We had a comment asking us if we had to speak Spanish for our mission.  The answer is that I honestly don't know!  I spoke Spanish before we came, Elder Spradlin began learning Spanish when we got our mission call.  I started learning a little Q'eqchi' when we found out it was spoken here, but I still on speak a very limited amount.  I know that a Senior couple entered the South Guatemala Mission with very limited Spanish and served a wonderful mission.  Love tends to break down even language barriers.

culture crossing

April 1

As far as I know April Fool's Day is not celebrated here. That said when our young girl, who comes once a week to help, was sweeping today she handed me an earring she found on the floor. I told her thanks and put it up, a couple of minutes later she said “oh and here is this one” and handed me a dead cockroach! I jumped and yelped, then we laughed. She thought it was very funny! Some humor definitely crosses borders. Harold sprays the house regularly, so it is not a dead cockroach that puts me on alert – just the kind that still want to walk and run!

Semana Santa finished, the nightly parades are interesting here with their drums and dirges and carrying the statues through the town, stopping to pray and preach along the way. No school for the week, so the children enjoyed their break. One strange law we learned though was that people aren't allowed to cut wood for building and only enough for their own home cooking during that week. We only found out because some of the members saw people arrested for transporting wood!

We did a lot of work by phone last week, checking on each of our Spanish speaking missionaries to see how they are doing with their English and giving reminders to everyone to make sure their apartments are clean. We start our inspections round again this week and that is always a lot of fun to visit with all of our missionaries.