Letter--Long Overdue

9 de enero 2009

Greetings to our loved ones,

Our lives have gone crazy the last few weeks with work, work, and work. We have started our classes t CUNORI and a couple of classes have been added. We are now teaching seven classes at CUNORI and five church classes. That has required a lot of preparation. Last week we gave English language proficiency tests at the university in order to place students in classes. Also, for the medical English class we had to create a textbook and we are also creating our own lesson plans—which basically means I am creating it , since I have the medical background and we are starting with medical terminology and moving into terms for anatomy and physiology.

We have 100+ students at CUNORI and 75+ in the church classes. Some classes are huge and some are smaller. The largest classes are the beginners and Spencer has those classes in both places since it is easier for him to explain things in Spanish to the brand new students.

Yesterday we had a change in Ward leadership. Bishop Diaz was released and Eric Rodriquez was sustained. But he doesn’t have counselors yet, since it takes a while to get names approved in SLC when you are in the outback of Guatemala. It just all seemed so casual. It was sort of weird. They didn’t have the new bishop talk. They did have the outgoing bishop bear his testimony, but that was it. Otherwise the meeting went on like previously planned. The same thing happened when we had a missionary come home. They had about four other speakers and a rest hymn and just had him bear his testimony. Lots of things are really, really casual. [Even tithing settlement—which never happened—the bishop just sent a list of people who pay tithing —and that was incomplete—which may have been a factor in our change—that, plus the fact that the bishop was out of town about half the time (he has a business in another town as well as here and makes frequent business trips to Florida)—do you think we needed a change? ]

We have had to cut back some on the families we are nurturing along in the gospel. But we are having successes with the ones we are working with. One family (Garcia’s) has been attending regularly and just had their 8 year old baptized. I have to amend that—everyone but the dad and the teenage son are attending. In another family (Ramirez’), the mom and kids were attending—they have two unbaptized children, but the dad is out of work and the mom is now preparing food and selling it at the side of the road and has had to do that on Sundays as well, in order to feed the family (of 8 children and her parents). Even with those challenges, there has been progress. She and her husband were separated, and are now back together—tenuously. The kids love us and when we get off the bus a block away from their house they run down the street to greet us and hug us. We are also meeting with Perez family every week. They have a 9 year old who isn’t baptized. Dad is coming to church. Mom wants to come, but has a sewing class on Sunday morning—she is trying to learn a trade so she can bring in some income. So far the boys (9 & 10) haven’t come out. We are working to re-activate the Lemus family. They have a severely handicapped child, so mom has only been to church twice, but dad and the teenage son are coming quite regularly. Spencer is friendshipping Hector Zaboleda (NM) who’s wife is an inactive member, but children are active. At least that is his excuse for going to the Ferreteria (hardware store) every other day—and always seems to find something to buy . It’s a guy-thing. The Benitez family—mom is active and is a returned missionary, but dad is completely inactive—dad has agreed to have us come visit, but it hasn’t happened yet.

We have one really great investigator family (Vargas’) that we are meeting with on Monday nights. They have been to church once and are really promising. They still have questions and haven’t committed to baptism, but there is definitely some hope.

Life is very hard for people here--especially when there isn’t work. The Monterroso family is a great example. The dad has been out of work and couldn’t find a job. Eventually they had to move in with the wife’s parents. There were already other adult family members and grandchildren living there. They vacated one room for this family of six to occupy. The oldest child, Kimberly, is confined to a wheelchair. There were marital problems due to the financial stresses and dad’s lack of ability to provide for his family. The family was only recently reactivated and the Grandmother was baptized by David Limburg the last day they were here for their mission. I have been giving Kimberly piano (teclado) lessons—don’t die laughing—it is true, but only because she can’t go to the ones at the church (they don’t have a car and can only afford the bus for the church meetings and it is too far for dad to carry her and the dirt roads and hills are too rough for the wheelchair). I just try to stay one lesson ahead of her. When we there for her lesson Saturday (Spencer gives the new member discussions to Marta, the grandma while I teach Kimberly), Kimberly told me she was sad (triste). She is usually so optimistic that I was surprised. I asked why and she said because her mom and her uncle (Mom’s younger brother) left Monday morning at 5 AM to go to the United States and work. Her mom plans on being gone 2 years. I cannot even imagine the desperation that would cause a mother to leave her family for two years. Dad is working now, but there just isn’t enough to get them out of the hole they are in. My heart was heavy at the difficulties of life. Now Grandma has four more children (ages 3-12) to raise for the next few years. I was so touched on Sunday, when I greeted them, to see that Dad was filling out a tithing slip before the meeting started. Spencer had just taught tithing the day before to Grandma Marta. They are good people in desperate circumstances. There are so many families in the same situation.

There are two brothers in our ward who haven’t seen their mother in years. She is working in the US to support them. She sends money and calls them a lot. They live with their two great-aunts. One of the students in my class at church, who is 18 years old, says his dad went to the US when he was seven months old. He hasn’t seen him since, but he calls often and sends money to support the family. Families are so shattered by the need to survive and take care of each other. I haven’t decided if they don’t understand the importance of the family (as in one or two parents leaving children behind) or if they understand it better than we do, because the extended family always steps in to raise the kids when that happens. It appears to be an automatic thing. Some stay behind to raise the kids, others live to find a way to send money back home.

One week a couple of weeks ago we had a week when everything seemed to break. We had our two big fans quit. Our heating unit for our shower burned out. Our living room clock blew off the wall and broke apart (we have had some strong winds). Our internet keeps going out (I don’t know if it is a computer problem or a cable problem—it is sporatic. The overhead projector Spencer just bought had to be rewound. The list goes on. But we are getting the most essential things taken care of. It just all takes time—and usually work on Spencer’s part.

You would have laughed at the shower situation. There aren’t hot water heaters here. If you want warm water for the shower, you buy a little unit that heats up the water as it goes to the shower head—and you can’t heat it all the way or it trips the circuit breaker. We heat water on the stove to rinse dishes and everything else is done in cold water. When the shower quit, I just took deep gulping breaths and continued showering. Spencer bought a couple of plastic tubes and a bucket and heats water on the stove, pours it in the bucket and carries it up the stairs for his bath—everyday! Not an easy task. I tease him about being a “woose”. In a few months a cold shower will feel good, but right now it is a challenge!

I have learned something about Spencer that I didn’t realize before. He is much more of a compulsive shopper than I am. If I see something I am inclined to buy I ask myself if I need it enough to purchase knowing that I will either have to ship it home or leave it behind. There are lots of things I can do without when facing this criteria. Spencer just goes ahead and buys—because he can. Sometimes it makes me laugh at what he brings home and other times it drives me crazy—depending on how much he spends. He just loves going to the Ferreteria and buying stuff “to put shelves here” or “it isn’t that much for this project” or “this will help me organize”, etc. It is amazing to me that we can move in where another couple already had things fixed up and serviceable and Spencer can still find so many things he wants/needs to add. Now if there were a Seagull Book here he could tease me about being a compulsive shopper—but alas—I have to do without! But I will make up for lost time when I get home.

The mission president has given us a new assignment. There are two branches near here that are part of the mission. One has a local branch president and the missionaries are the counselors and the other has the missionaries as the counselors. We have been asked to help strengthen the branch in Esquipulas. The president is a Chorti Indian (hence the name “Lapjoc”) and is wonderful. But he needs help. So we are going to be doing training once a month with the members. We will go there on a Saturday, having training meetings, spend the night in a hotel, attend church on Sunday and ride the bus back. The bus ride is an experience all its own, because Esquipulas is in the mountains—it is actually cold there. But climbing up into the mountains for 1¼ hours means there are lots of curves for crazy drivers to speed around. I just hold my breath, close my eyes and pray. February 21st we will be meeting with all of the RS sisters. There is a brand new presidency who will need some kind of training. Being a part of the mission—headquartered 5 hours away from them, they don’t have any Stake leaders to come and teach them about their new callings. They are really on their own. They also don’t really understand the value of visiting teaching—so we are inviting all of the sisters. Then in March we will be teaching them how to teach (all of the adults) since in most classes they just read the manual. This has also put a big demand on my time—I have really had to work to pull things together in Spanish for the RS training. It would be easy in English… And we are now starting to find resources in Spanish for the “capacitación on teaching.”

Our first Sunday there, I had an interesting experience. I was sitting in RS when someone came to the door and spoke to one of the sisters. She turned and said that I needed to go with this YW leader. When I got to the classroom with her, there were two young women, she told me the lesson was on temple marriage and the manual suggested she have a sister who had been married in the temple come talk to the girls. She was young and single and had never been to the temple. The girls (sisters) are from a part-member family and none of them personally have a close relationship with anyone who has ever been to the temple. Everything they know is theory and from the manual. They have never had a chance to ask questions. I have a strong testimony of the temple and could teach a lot, but I was hard pressed to find the right words in Spanish. I wish I had had a chance to review temple vocabulary—but then I wouldn’t have relied so heavenly on the Spirit, so maybe it was better this way. The four of us sat in a circle and talked for the next 45 minutes. I would go as far as I could with a thought and then say, “¿Cómo se dice….?” And express my thought in English while my mind searched for another way to explain it in Spanish. I was blessed. They understood and I was able to bear a strong testimony. They were able (all three of them) to ask questions like, “Have you ever had any special experiences in the temple?” and I was able to answer all of their questions. It was a spiritual experience.

We love all of you. We miss you. Everyday I check for emails the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night. Rarely do I get any news from our humungous family. Sigh. When we get news my heart is happy and my face lights up! I’m glad we have Skype and we can call you. I hope some of you will sign up (especially if you have a webcam so we can see your beautiful faces)! Today I am taking my computer to see if it will pick up the internet somewhere else, so I will know if it is my computer that has the problem or the cable company. There has been so much wind, that we even wondered if that was affecting the cable—but I don’t understand any of that technology, so that is probably a far-fetched idea. We just aren’t computer literate enough to know. Spencer told the cable company there was a problem, but they haven’t shown up to investigate.

Write back. We feel lonely.

Love,

Mom/Jeanine