The week of highs and lows!

February 22, 2009

Dear Loved Ones,

What an eventful week! A couple of deep low spots and lots of incredible high spots. So sit back and prepare for “another really long letter.” And thanks to all of you who responded—now Spencer can’t harass me about writing a long letter. Besides, he says he must really love me—because he worries about me—isn’t that romantic!? 

When Nathan was on his mission in Costa Rica I remember him sending a picture home of one of his investigators who didn’t come to church. The missionaries went by and he was inside his house with the door open, but the outer door with bars was locked and he said he was locked in and couldn’t get out. That seemed like a flimsy excuse to me. But it is true that all doors and windows have bars (usually very decorative and beautiful) on every opening.

Last Sunday night, we met the 21 people who came from the US to provide free dental work. What great people. It was arranged that we would go with them on Monday morning at 7 AM. As you know, I was really excited about this. At our apartment we had been collecting water in buckets and containers all weekend because there were problems with the well and having water was very sporadic. On Monday morning, we had no water (again). I got ready, but Spencer wanted to heat up some of the saved water for a bath. We decided it would be fine if I took off—partly to get a good walk in that morning and just because I was too excited to just sit around waiting. On the way, I stopped at the church to use the bathroom—since they have toilets that flush! Seminary was just getting out at 6:50 so I didn’t even have to use my key to get in. When I left the bathroom and went to the front door, I discovered that everyone had left the building and the seminary teacher had used her key to lock the dead bolt. Guess what. Nate’s investigator was telling the truth. If you are locked in, you really can’t get out. Later, I learned that the Bishop had warned Spencer about this risk—but no one told me! I tried my key on the inside and it didn’t release the dead bolt. That has to be done with a key from the outside. I’m not really claustrophobic—tight places don’t bother me—but being somewhere without a way to get out really pushes my buttons. My heart started racing, my palms were sweating—I was on my way to a full blown panic attack. I immediately called Spencer’s cell phone, but he didn’t have it with him and he had left the house by then. I redialed him numerous times, even though I knew it was useless. I could only call numbers I had programmed in my phone. I called the Benson Institute where everyone was meeting, but the phones are inside the business offices and none of the employees were there yet. I also dialed them a bunch of times—in futile desperation. I called the husband of the Seminary teacher—who is one of my students and the former Stake President. His wife had the key. I told him I was really scared and think he knew I was about to panic. He said he would figure something out. I was doing everything I could to calm myself down—you know, self-talk, like, “This isn’t life threatening. You are safe. You might miss the outing, but life will go on.” etc. Since I didn’t know when/if Arnulfo would come, I eventually called the Stake President and he said he would come—but he lives a long way out from the church. I just kept praying to Heavenly Father so that I wouldn’t completely “lose it.” I told Him, “I can’t open this door, but you can.” I remembered where a window was broken in a class room. I checked there, but the bars on the window prevented an escape through that route. I went around and checked all of the doors and tried my key in each of them. Nothing. It was 7:10 by then. Those 20 minutes felt like that many hours. I was finally calming down and just letting it go. I gave up on getting to go with the dentists and tried to resolve myself to spending the day at home and studying. It was now 7:15 and even if I got out, I was many blocks away from the Benson Institute. Even though I was beginning to calm down, I was near tears and went back to the front door to wait for either Arnulfo or President Paiz. When I arrived at the front door, the dead bolt was unlocked. [No exclamation point here, because I felt humbled—not ecstatic—overwhelmed, loved, reassured, you name it…] I know it didn’t open with my key. I was reminded of my favorite scripture [which I “received” from Mom after she died—another long story that will have to wait for another “visit”] It is D&C 84:88 “…I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up.” I also thought of Joseph Smith’s quote to the early Relief Society sisters, “… If you live up to your privileges, the angels cannot be restrained from being your associates.” You can draw your own conclusions. I think you know mine. I haven’t had that direct of an answer to pray in a long time. I only share this with you because I trust you to treat it with sacredness.

As I reached the outside gate (also locked), Arnulfo was just entering it. He had gone to his wife’s school, retrieved the keys and rushed to my rescue. There wasn’t time to talk. I hugged him and said “I have to run—literally!” And I took off at a dead run—skirt flying and all. Arnulfo was also on foot, so he couldn’t help me further. I knew that my destination wasn’t on any of the normal bus routes, so I had to just run the whole way. I was actually tempted to hitch hike, but resisted—that’s how much I wanted to be able to go to the aldeas. As I was running as hard as I could down 3rd Calle, a bus driver pulled over and asked where I needed to go, I answered “17th Avenida and 3rd Calle.” He said, “I’ll take you.” Now you need to know that his bus was packed. I jumped into the very last seat and he took off down 3rd. Not one person complained about this unexpected detour. When we got to the right corner I held out Q2 for the ride and he refused it, “No hay pena!” basically, “It’s OK. Don’t worry about it.” I didn’t have time to argue the point, so I just yelled “Que le vaya bien” and ran across the street—where I could see that at least one of the trucks was still there!

My heart had barely slowed down from panicking, when I pumped it back up running. I was sweating and breathing hard—but I was there and they hadn’t left me behind! Spencer, of course, was very concerned, but had no idea where I could be, so he couldn’t really start searching. When I told him I had been locked in the church he started to laugh—probably just from sheer relief, but I still wanted to cry—and I said, “Don’t laugh. This isn’t funny yet. Maybe in another hour you can laugh. But first I have to have time to let my heart slow down and gather my wits about me.”

That was an incredibly awful and awesome experience all at the same time.

There has been one negative side affect. The hard run on these cobbly streets created some inflammation in the plantar fascia again (as you may remember, we had to delay two months on sending in our mission papers while I cleared up acute plantar fasciitis). I’m doing all of my exercises—icing it at night, heat in the morning, etc. and I think it is getting better.

The rest of the day was incredible! We went with two different teams to villages high in the mountains. The Chorti are the poorest of the indigenous Mayan groups. There are about seven dry months where crops don’t grow. They live on corn, black beans and a local grain. There is lots of malnutrition. Our clinic was set up in the open air under a tin roof attached to a sort of community center. We had three dentists and assistants and two other helpers. The wife of one of the dentist gave me her camera and asked if I would start taking pictures. They brought a printer and photo paper. At first they were shy and some said “no.” But once they realized I was truly giving pictures away “gratis.” I became the most popular person in the village. I should have had a marker to put dots on their foreheads, because some kids kept coming back for more. It was really funny once when I was taking one girl’s picture (about 13 y.o.) At the exact moment when I asked for a smile, her mother admonished her to be serious! Go figure. Some mothers took their children home and dressed them up in their best clothes and brought them back. The girls went home, slicked up their hair and put glitter on their faces for pictures. Most of them have never had a picture of themselves and they don’t have mirrors in their homes—that is a luxury, not a necessity. They are basically a shy people. When I gave them their pictures they had incredible smiles and were beaming as they looked at them—and then usually hid their picture under their blouse so other people wouldn’t see it. We took some family photos even. It was amazing. If you ever want to spread cheer, bring a camera, photo printer and lots of ink and paper to the aldeas of Guatemala. I also cleaned and sterilized dental instruments in between picture taking and printing. I translated some basic stuff for the one dentist who couldn’t speak Spanish. But if got too complicated we had to rely on the RM Spanish-speaking, dentists.

In the later afternoon we had time to walk to some of the houses in the village. I took a lot of pictures, which I will put on the blog. There was one little community farm shared by 25 families. They had probably 12 laying hens. Do the math. Each family could get one egg every other day—or something like that. The women climb down the hill to river every day to carry jugs of water up to their adobe or palm huts. They don’t have running water, plumbing or electricity, but they are a basically happy people who have adapted and survived. However, child deaths are very common and the life expectancy is short.

Now for Spencer’s report: “We drove up the side of the mountain on a breath taking narrow road, 4x4 required, to get to a 4 room school with an outside patio roof. The school personnel worked for 1 ½ hours to get the lights to work in the class room. They never did work right. They were going straight up a ladder supported by three men to try to get these old light bulbs turned on. They were standing straight up in the air in the middle of all the dental equipment and chairs. Luckily, they didn’t fall. We were just glad the fans worked, even if the lights didn’t. The work went on with flashlights and the dentists’ head lanterns. The natives who had signed up were standing in long lines to get in. Some were trembling and fearful. They had some rotten teeth extracted and there were also some teeth that could be saved with fillings. The dentists had me put on a glove and pick up a badly decayed molar that had just been extracted. He told me to take it out to all of the kids and the families and tell them that this problem was caused mainly because of lollipops (which they use to satisfy hunger pains). I took it out, showed it around and said, “No more bonbones! (suckers) I got lots of awe and laughter. Even though there were some terrified young people that the dentist could hardly extract teeth from, it was an act of kindness to relieve them from their pain. The village council and its members were sooo appreciative. We worked until almost 7 that night. We had to turn some away who hadn’t signed up and because we ran out of time. I asked the dentist what they were prying against to loosen those teeth and they said they preferred to not use the work “pry.” They give it some other glamorous name. It was a scene and an experience that I will always remember! At lunch, some of the community council invited me to eat with them. I couldn’t say no. Thankfully they offered me a Pepsi—which I drank, purely to kill the bacteria and safeguard my health, you know. There were angels round about. Viva Guatemala.”

Tuesday thru Thursday were crazy days with many classes—especially since we hadn’t had Monday to do lesson preparation. Once they opened up the Principiantes (beginning) class to 1st year medical students, Spencer’s morning class grew to 75. It was insane. But how do you turn people away who want to learn English? There were too many for them to get to speak much and he couldn’t get through the aisles to the back of the class room to listen or observe their work. So we are dividing the class and instead of team teaching with me in the afternoon for the Medical English Class, he will have a 2nd session for the principiantes. Darn. That was the only teaching we were going to be doing together.

Friday I went to the church to help (if needed) while the dentists were checking prospective and current missionaries. We had two prospective elders come in from Ipala—another little tiny branch in our mission. These two young men have no resources, so they had to have their examinations and all of their work done on the same day. No breaks, no return visits—get the teeth taken care of for their mission applications. They were pretty swollen and bleak looking by the time they left. I felt sorry for them!

In addition to being very busy with classes, I was trying to finish preparing the Leadership Training for the Relief Society Sisters in Esquipulas. Our training was Saturday afternoon. We took the bus up and arrived about 1 PM. We found the room arranged for us ($20) and went to have some lunch before going to the church. We went to nice restaurant. I had a great shrimp dinner and Spencer had a steak. The vegetables were pickled and hot (picante). As the meal ended, I realized I was having an allergic reaction—I’ve had them before, but we have no idea what the food allergy or food intolerance is to—so it is hard to avoid. Just ask Lark what I look like! I had one at the Pioneers’ Home one time and we thought it might be an external skin product that time. I don’t know if it was the shrimp, MSG, some spices in the vegetables or what. I was flushed and headachy. As we walked to the church I started getting welts on my neck, chest, back and hands. Once again I just prayed that I would be protected until I finished giving the presentation—that I had spent hours and hours and hours preparing. Spencer went to find a pharmacy. He brought me a powerful antihistamine. It slowed things down—but not before my right eye was puffy and swollen. But, I was able to give the presentation. Another tender mercy from the Lord. We had 12 sisters there (we thought 15 would be the maximum in this little Branch). They seemed to enjoy it. The Branch President was so happy with how we showed them to organize Visiting Teaching, that he asked us to postpone the training on preparing and teaching lessons. He wants Spencer to do basically the same presentation with the Priesthood brothers next month and help them organize home teaching. Even today the sisters were kind in their remarks and thanking me for the help.

Where we stayed was right across from the Mercado—much cleaner and much more “tipico” stuff than we have in Chiquimula. Here, it is mostly produce. There it caters to the tourists. Spencer bought a nice leather Guatemalan belt and he bought me a Guatemalan outfit—it was a lot of fun to finally find lots of stuff to choose from—it’s the first time we have spent much on clothes/souvenirs. I continued to have lots of allergy problems all night—mostly itching, but the hives decreased and became flat. Of course to accomplish that I took Benadryl and another dose of the Loratadine. So the allergic reaction was a second low spot in what was otherwise a great week. Satan surely tries to get his claws in there to discourage us when things are otherwise going great.

We are back home tonight, safe and sound. The hives are just red spots. The itching is minimal—and my foot (fasciitis) hasn’t hurt at all today (probably because we did considerably less walking on Saturday and Sunday). So life is good. We are ready to start another week. Maybe this one can be a little mellower!

We love you. Thank you for your prayers. You are among the most powerful sources of love, support and “angels” in our lives.

Mom/Jeanine