Reporting in from Chiquimula

June 3, 2009

Dear Family,
Ten days ago I posted pictures in place of a letter—I’m not sure what my excuse is for not writing last Sunday night—maybe just fatigue—but that is OK ‘cause I’ll write tonight.

We spent two week-ends in a row in Esquipulas. Each week the drive up the mountains reminds me more and more of driving up through Oak Creek Canyon to Flagstaff. It is incredible. We are starting to know the members better and they really seem to appreciate our visits. When we visit their homes, we have sort of a mini FHE with a song, prayer and message—sometimes with a five minute DVD to make a point. Then we challenge them with whatever is an appropriate challenge, pray and leave. Some are gradually/sporadically attending church.

Last Saturday when we checked into the hotel, we emptied our bags. Spencer was surprised to see that he had brought a Preach My Gospel with him and tossed it aside. When we called the Branch President to see if there were new priorities on who to visit, he asked if I would be one of the speakers in Sacrament Meeting. I was glad Spencer unwittingly was inspired to keep the PMG in his bag. Having it there made it very easy to prepare a talk in Spanish about “Recognizing the Spirit (Personal Revelation) in Our Lives.” I even was brave enough to include two things that weren’t written out in my notes and just “talk”. That is so easy to do in English (stop laughing, I know you are all thinking “Yeah, she can definitely talk”)—and so hard to do in Spanish. But I did it, and everyone seemed to understand me—even when I couldn’t think of the word for “coach.” (I was referring to Elder Christoferson’s conference talk on recognizing the coach’s voice during a tight football play). But one of the Ladino elders on the stand provided the word and I went on—almost not missing a beat. Whew!

It is amazing how some people live. We take so much for granted in the states. We have great expectations of how we should be able to live—and those ideas are incomprehensible to most people here. We were in one home – the same one where the adult son of one of the older sisters was deported and turned right around and returned—this time making it to Utah and finding work. Some might criticize him, but sitting in his family’s home, with adult chickens, five pullets running around, pooping on the floor, chicken scratch on the floor, concrete floor in only one room—the rest is hard packed dirt, no hygiene—and no way to improve the situation, I can’t really blame him for striking out for the USA and trying to provide money for his family here in Guatemala. To them, there doesn’t seem to be any other way to scratch their way out of the squalor and poverty.

In this little branch, where everyone is so poor, it is really an exception when a younger sister wears a skirt or dress. Some of the older sisters always wear dresses that are covered with a soiled little apron that is worn all the time. The younger generation mostly wears clean, but faded jeans—but they walk long distances or ride on motos to church. You just accept it and love people where they are. They are wonderful and loving people. We love working in the Branch. It is like being with the perfect example of the Lamanite descendants.

Our classes are continuing to move along. Those that regularly attend are learning a lot. However, attendance is starting to drop off, as the stress mounts in their other classes. If the students fail even one of their other classes they lose the entire year of school. Even though the English classes are “obligatorio” that is only a word and it appears to be up to the students whether or not they hang in there to take advantage of this opportunity. But we continue to work hard at having good lessons and learning opportunities for them.

We have had some changes in our zone. One of our elders from Esquipulas went to the office to work and one of our sisters in Chiquimula left. But we are always impressed with the new missionaries. We have the sisters’ furniture all stored in our apartment. They are staying at the Benson Institute while they are trying to find a new apartment. They had to move from the old one because they had a shared courtyard and single guys moved into one of the apartments sharing this space. As we all have been watching for rental property signs, I am amused to see that “have adequate/abundant water” is a selling point. Many places have water shortages on a regular basis. The elders have only the water in their huge pila (the size of a small pool) to dip out of to flush their toilet.

Our apartment is still sort of messed up again/still because of a leak that has been coming through the wall from the other apartment. It was flooding our downstairs bathroom and then the living room. For most of a week there were workers in here digging up our floor, punching holes in the wall and carrying out buckets of water. That’s when they decided it was from the other apartment. They sealed ours up and went over to start digging up his apartment. It leaked again yesterday, but this afternoon the neighbor told us they have it fixed and we should be OK. I’m not putting all the furniture back yet—I don’t have quite that much faith in the solution being permanent. Especially because the neighbor says they are new some leaks by his upstairs shower. Such is life in Guatemala.

This Saturday morning at 3 AM we should be picked up to accompany members of the ward to the temple. They are renting a van or bus—I’m not sure. We weren’t here for a couple of weeks so we missed the final announcements. But we are on the list and should be going. It will be nice to have this association with the ward members. We aren’t very involved in the ward anymore, so this will put us back in touch with friendships we had developed previously.

We went to visit a completely non active member in our ward, at the request of the bishopric. He has had many tragedies in his life. He is now an alcoholic. He “talked/shouted” to us through his opened wooden window. He was very drunk. He says he can’t come to church because “they” killed his wife and killed his son and if he leaves the house “they” will kill him too. One member of his family was murdered, but we aren’t sure that it was both—but now he is a sad, paranoid alcoholic. Life is full of many challenges for so many people. We can’t even imagine what it would be like to walk in their shoes.

We are grateful to have the privilege of having been born in the land of plenty. We are grateful for the gospel and the foundation it gives us in our lives. We are thankful for the light and knowledge we receive through the Holy Ghost. Mostly we have a testimony of the atonement and know how personal and how universal the Savior’s love is. We are grateful for our families — parents, siblings, spouses, children, and grandchildren. We are grateful for the lives you live and for your commitment to your covenants. Thank you for just being you. We feel privileged to be connected to you and to be servants of the Lord in this wonderful country. Life can’t get much better than that!

Love,
Mom/Dad/Jeanine/Spencer

PS: We are also jealous of all of you who have had wonderful times at the cabin! Wish we could be in two places and enjoy making memories with you.