Whirlwind Week

Dental clinic was the first three days in Teleman and the dentists helped 174 people.  along with 167 fillings, 46 Sealants, there were 268 extractions.  If it wasn't for a lack of time they would have loved to do much more.  One lady needed 21 teethe, or teethe roots pulled. We saw things that were hard for me to even imagine.  Needless to say the Dentists were amazing.  Wednesday night was the concert in Teleman, then on Thursday one here in Senahu.  The District mayor attended the concert here.  It was fun watching the people's rapt attention as the choir sang - they were inspiring.  We have a nonmember family here we are working with that we have fallen in love with and they attended the concert and really liked it. Pres. and Sister Watts also made it to the Saturday concert and we were able to introduce our friends to them and to many of the choir members. Saturday after they finished working with the District choir some of the choir members wanted to learn to make tortillas so we took them down to two homes in Seamay, another group went with me into a few other homes and then ended up with our friends where we also made tortillas. The members in Seamay just got electricity in last week, so that helped a lot!
On Thursday when we went up to Yalijux by transport we hit two places where the road had washed out and they were working on it.   The pictures look a little scary, we all walked across and then the Truck drove over the little chasm on boards that broke as he came across. The choir worked with the school there, then as we were waiting for lunch they did another impromptu concert in front of the church building with the yard full of people wanting to listen. We were informed by a lady from another organization that delivers Incaparina (food supplement for young children)  of a family that lives next to the church in a small hut.  The baby is two years old and is very sick from malnutrition and most likely intestinal parasites.  The lady had said they had no food in the home, and that they had had an infant die in the home in December from malnutrition.  One of the choir members had brought money from their ward, so we went out and put together  a weeks food supply (it only ran about $20.)  We took the food to the home and it was very sad, the little boy looked about 11 months old, although he was two and he was crying.  I hope the powdered milk and oats help him feel better. The other organization will be up checking on them in the next week to see what can be done.
Sunday morning we went to El Estor to meet with the members there, making sure things were ready for the choir and doing a leadership training meeting for their branch counsel after the meetings.
Some of the choir members brought down beginner readers in English so we are setting up a lending library to use with our kids in our English classes.  They also brought a lot of ties and white shirts that we will be getting out to different branches, some we will save to give out to our future missionaries.  Exciting Week!!!!

Joyful Days

I think maybe the week gets almost too busy, when I sit down and have to think really really hard just to remember what we did.  Monday evening we had a FHE with a lovely family by candlelight in Seamay.  It began raining at the end, so we were soaked on the way walking home.  When we got into the Tuk Tuk, we were able to catch partway, he told us to put our rainsuits under the seat so we wouldn't get the seat wet.  We obediantly took them off and sat down...only to find the seat already very wet.  Just count it as part of the fun of playing in the rain.  We visited Buena Vista this week and some of their members there with their Branch President.  Also worked with the future missionary files from Buena Vista and Sajunte.  Sometimes things that look like they should be very simple have a way of getting so complicated when working on their missionary files.  We went to Yalijux on Thursday to do housing inspections, see the new church and meet with people from the school for the choir visit.  Elder Spradlin and our Senahu District President sang their way up and talked about the beautiful mountains jostling up the mountain on the back of the truck.  Pres. singing in Qeqchi, and Elder Spradlin in English, all of us having a wonderful day.  Definately rainy season, we ended up not having English class Thursday evening because it started raining so hard no one could leave their houses, plus we couldn't have heard ourselves over the rain anyway!@! Saturday I was supposed to make a lot of calls, went to make them and my line was blocked, turns out when they went to pay the phone company on Friday they accidentally underpaid by one quetzal (13 cents)  and it blocked all the phones on that account.  Crazy world.  Learning a little more patience and to laugh at myself.  I fell twice today when I hadn't fallen in ages, once on a wobbly board set up as a ramp into the church yard when it flipped on me and then later in the day when I stepped into a narrow gutter in the sidewalk.  Didn't even have mud in sight either time!  The good news is that I didn't hurt myself, and I even fell fairly gracefully.  Very grateful for protection from above. A baptism in Sacsuha yesterday and helping set up a missionary file, then church in La Tinta today working on another file.  The Kekchi choir concert today in Sacsuha and the dentists arriving in Teleman for our coming clinic. It has been an amazing week, and the coming one is exciting with both the Kekchi choir here and the Dentists arriving.

Beautiful Places, great people!

We visited a lot of towns this week doing apartment inspections: Tucuru, Sacsuha, San Cristobol, Santa Cruz, Tanchi, Carcha, Chamelca, Coban.  Beautiful areas, some really, really rough roads though. The main road through the Polochik valley could be compared maybe to an old logging road that just had a heavy rain.  Some places are like a washboard, some you look where to dodge the potholes.  We had planned to go to Canlun today, but the rain had been so hard last night and today that the river was up too high to pass without being in a truck.  We helped members today in Sacsuha with their genealogy, tomorrow we will be doing visiting the branch and doing genealogy in Teleman.  It is so awesome to watch the joy as members begin to learn how to piece together their ancestry.  Also worked quite a bit this week on future missionary files, so hopefully several will be completed in the next few weeks.  Many of the youth we help with on the forms have only completed the equivilant of Junior High, but one sister this week from Poptun had gone as far as starting the University - that is quite a feat for here.
 We talk to all of our Elders when we visit about the importance of using disinfectant and the importance of keeping their apartments clean. I call it my lecture. Some are doing a great job...some could use a little improvement.