Spencer's report - June 26-28, 2009

This "used to be" road is in Chiquimula on the way to Gladys' house.



Trip to Esquipulas
June 26-28, 2009

This past weekend, Jeanine and I took a three day, two night trip to Esquipulas. Our purpose was to contact all the branch members, active and less active and ask them to be in attendance at the Saturday and Sunday Branch Conference with our mission president and his wife. The conference was a combined one for two branches that are so remote there is no district to support them. They report directly to the mission president. The Ipala branch is more than an hour’s bus ride away from Esquipulas. They rented a bus for both Saturday and Sunday.

Our bus ride from Chiquimula was great—very beautiful this time of year with our abundant rain fall. The mountainous terrain is exceptional. Green trees, corn patches (milpas), and grasses covering the mountain slopes are so unique to Guatemala.

Esquipulas is a tourist place for most of Central America because the Catholic Basilica there is very large and has a famous crucifix of a black Christ in it. This attraction brings buses from all over Central America. This makes it a tourist center with a thousand people (+/-) on holidays and weekends. There is a lot of tourist merchandizing, hotels and food establishments. There are also many Protestant Churches competing for members.

The LDS church branch is weak for a variety of reasons. Our assignment is to help the struggling branch, especially the brethren of the priesthood. Some are addicted to alcohol or just have to work on Sundays to survive.

The combined branch conference was good. The mission president (President Alvarado) and his wife were accompanied by the first counselor of the temple presidency (President Alas) and his wife. Both couples are from San Salvador.

They gave great messages along the lines of attendance, tithing, reactivation, and provident living during these difficult times. The economic crisis is affecting the country here, too.

Jeanine gave a welfare talk during the 4:00 PM Saturday Leadership Training with the sisters and I gave a Home Teaching talk to the priesthood leaders. Then at 6:00 PM, Jeanine gave a nice talk on Staying Strong and Paying Tithing. She was followed by Sister Alvarado and Brother and Sister Alas and President Alvarado. Sunday morning was our normal conference session.

The two visiting couples joined us at the hotel we normally use. This gave us extra time to visit. We also ate dinner Saturday night and breakfast Sunday morning together. We were able to get to personally know them more. Both couples are exceptional leaders and presented inspired messages equal to any I have heard in the United States.

We made the rounds to visit branch members all day Friday and on Saturday morning to talk to people about the conference. I want to relate one very special experience that I was moved by this week end.

We were aware of a family that lives out of town. It takes about 15 minutes in a vehicle (when you know where you are going). We had no idea how to find them and we don’t have a vehicle. Visiting them would involve an out of town bus ride plus a couple mile hike to someplace we didn’t know. We started inquiring about how to visit them. The local Elders, who serve as counselors in the Branch Presidency, had never actually found them.

In our visit with a sister, she tried to explain how to get to their house. She knew right where it was. She thought perhaps her inactive husband, who has a pickup would take us since his business is to transport people to and from the mountainous villages in the bed of his 4x4 Toyota pickup. At her suggestion we called him. Who knows where he was driving to/from and if he even wanted to get into this deal, but he said OK. We told him where we were.

We were at another visit and we were trapped there because of the heavy rain. We waited such a long time for him that this very impoverished sister insisted on feeding us. I was hungry and bought some cookies, but never dreamed of imposing on her. The food was good, but I wasn’t sure about its preparation. Jeanine felt comfortable with it because the sister is a nurse and is fastidious about other things—even in her poverty. We thoroughly enjoyed the rice and tortillas. We hid some money under a plate, but then she cleared the plates. I had to really talk to get her to accept it. I explained about our comparative plenty. She reluctantly accepted it.

As I said, it was raining hard, and just as it let up some, the couple (Hugo and Marleni) showed up in the pickup. The wife planned on sitting in the wet bed of the pickup. Jeanine wouldn’t let her do that (besides, the rain had only subsided a little—it hadn’t stopped), so we decided Jeanine would visit a little longer with Lidia and then go back to the hotel and I would go with the two of them to make this dark and rainy drive. Hugo had to know the mountain village roads to take us to a place that remote.

We took the highway towards Honduras for awhile and then took some forks in the muddy roads until we arrived at a dark dwelling. There were two adobe buildings. One was the kitchen. In one corner was a primitive wood cooking area (the raised bed for a fire and a tortilla pan on top) and a little wood dining table. There was a dirt floor, no electricity or lights and six ducks. We met the brother (a very nice man) and he found a candle to light. The family gets along fine with the light of the cooking fire under the tortilla grill. They have three daughters in 1st, 2nd and 6th grade who attend a little country school. They found some plastic stools for us (nothing matched). I must add that while the ducks were nipping on my socks, pants and the hymn book while we were together, it was a memorable experience. I asked about the ducks and he said they use them to make tamales. I said, “Use this one for the next batch, because it keeps biting me!” The two couples were friends from the past—when they lived in town and could come to church. They enjoyed the visit. We had two hymn books between us and one candle. We began by singing “How Great Thou Art.” Everyone joined in singing in this little cooking/eating room and we sang like you wouldn’t believe. I felt a most uplifting spirit. We had a prayer together. I asked him (the father) to give it. He now works out of town on construction and he works every Sunday. It would be really difficult for the mom and girls to walk to the highway and expensive to catch a bus into town to attend church. So I don’t know if they can be reactivated right now. But there was definitely a good spirit there. After talking about the Branch Conference, we made our way back to the truck in the dark. The real triumph was to get a less active brother to take me to visit another less active family up a skimpy four wheel drive road and to have such a great, shared spiritual experience.

Our experiences teaching English at the medical school and at the church are wonderful experiences and then to have such a nice proselyting/reactivation experience is most rewarding. We love serving here in Chiquimula and in Esquipulas. We feel like this mission was just made for us.

Love,
Dad/Spencer