Spiritual insights

From Spencer: Just a few words about our visit to our old missionary areas. Pardon the preaching for just a few lines. In our preexistent state we made an agreement with the Almighty. The Lord proposed the Plan and we accepted it. We are partners with the Almighty for our own salvation and for those around us. Se secure our own salvation by helping others. That reflects on temple work, family history and encouraging lost sheep among our fellow men. I felt that connection when we visited all those people. Some of them needed our visits. To me it was the highlight of our break. I had a feeling of euphoria. We helped them see their way with our visits and priesthood blessings. We were able to rekindle the ties with the personnel at the university where we taught. We, I hope, helped the struggling branch in Esquipulas. I felt very good about our effort. One of our temple workers, Peter Socop, offered to take me on a hike up a mountain on the other side of the city. He makes a meager living as a car mechanic. I took him up on his offer. Yesterday (Saturday) we left early for our hike. We could see for many miles in all directions. He is pure Quiche, a descendant of Lehi. He taught me a lot about his people and this beautiful area. He has studied the Book of Mormon and can relate its history to all of these parts of Guatemala. He related how all of the dialects relate with the "-ites" in the Book of Mormon. Ishmaelites, Jacobites, Josephites, etc. He shared his strong testimony that this is where the Savior walked when He came to this continent. He could tie events with geographic areas. He taught me all about the trees and their uses, the hot sulfur springs, the crops, and the volcanoes. He told me where Lehi landed and the unique resources there: a place where fishing is abundant and where all kinds of plants grow. It is a place where air currents come and make the weather temperate. He testified that they are the descendants of Joseph who was sold into Egypt. They are true Israelites. It was a special experience yesterday. Here are a few pictures from our hike.

We are back in Xela!

This has been a crazy two weeks. I can hardly believe that is was only two weeks ago that we helped take down the temple veils and clean out lockers. Here is a report on our trip during the break: On Monday we rode to Guatemala City with the Meadows. After dropping them off at the airport we headed out to Antigua. Our first stop was to a tourist office where we picked up maps. The map identified the places of interest on what we referred to as the “yellow brick road”. We had parked the car in a secured lot and we started walking on all of the cobble stone streets. Some of the sites were only visible from the outside, but many had been restored. One Catholic Church was filled with amazing religious artwork from centuries ago. It was well displayed. Our favorite stop on Monday was a monastery, church complex that has a hotel and restaurant built around it. It was fascinating to see the fountain and the remnants of what was once a huge and beautiful complex. We spent a couple of hours there. We have since learned that there were tunnels underneath it that connected most of the church complexes in the 1500-1600’s. We missed out on seeing the tunnels. Our feet and legs ached from all of the walking on the uneven surfaces. We stayed at a simple, clean hotel. Tuesday morning we visited a museum of tipico clothes. It was fascinating. Spencer bought a hat and I bought a jacket there. We headed back into Guatemala City in the afternoon. We were in a wrong lane and got off the thorough fare that would have taken us on the route to the temple. We got into the city and we were so-o-o-o lost. I talked to Tuli on the phone and she told us how we could get back. But we couldn’t get turned around. Fortunately, the Holy Ghost was looking out for us and prompted Tuli. She called me back, had us stop at a strip mall and she came to lead us out of the mess. Then, while Spencer got us checked in to the Casa de Huespedes at the temple, she took me to PriceMart so I could buy a new camera. We were able to attend a session that night and really enjoyed it. When Hno. Percy brought our Visa Simples we were thrilled to find that he also had our passports. We felt legal finally. So I went online and made our reservations for the resort and our bus to El Salvador. Wednesday we headed out to Chiquimula. We found a little hotel “Rio Jordan” that had secured parking, so we stayed there. You can see that in the heat, the owner and a guest just lounged outside in hammocks and a recliner lawn chair. We drove to one house of a church leader and got a lot of information and phone numbers for the people we wanted to see. We were saddened to learn that our dear friend Tere is now less active—but she was still so happy to see us! So were her two youngest kids. It was HOT Chiquimula. We were sweating the entire time. We remembered how hot it was once we got there! It made us appreciate Quetzaltenango (Xela). But we were happy to find that several families we worked with have stayed the course and one family has gone to the temple. Gladis and her children are still active (you may remember her from before, because several of you contributed money so I could help get her kids back into school five years ago. Spencer baptized her daughter Michel. We made a second stop at her house on Sunday because the kids wanted to see us and she had them go to school on Thursday even though we were coming. On Sunday she had prepared a special meal for us and to honor Michel’s 16th birthday. It was so much fun. Her husband still suffers from alcoholism, which hurts the entire family. Gladis teaches in RS and the kids are active (except the oldest son who has married). Her son and his wife live in the same “camp”—you can hardly call it a house. They are poverty stricken, but happy. Here are pictures of some of the families we visited who have stayed active, and one has their second son out in the mission field. Some people we wanted to see have moved. We went to CUNORI and made contact with many people in the medical department and former students from our faculty class. They were all so happy to see us. They made us feel loved. In town I connected with one of my students from my church classes and hoped to see two others. Jesus gave me contact info for Rosana, but I didn’t know how to see Juan Jose, but just walking down the street, I ran in to him! It was awesome. We also saw the dentist that goes out whenever the LDS dentists come to town and the doctor that took care of me when I was sick. I’m not including all of the names, since it isn’t meaningful to you our readers! Friday, we headed to Esquipulas. We visited one household where three families live. One couple has been to the temple with their kids. They shared lots of info about others. Once again we were saddened to learn that some have become less active. I’ll let Spencer tell more about that. But our greatest excitement was to learn that Benedicto and Reyna Martinez—our most favorite family—have been to the temple. We were never able to get all four of them out to church at the same time, but a year after we left he was called as the branch president for three years! The youngest son, Saul, just received his mission call to Monterrey, Mexico. What a great success they have been. Another family, the Perdomos, has been to the temple and are active. Two daughters are planning on serving missions. We loved going to church there. We missed some who have had to move because of economics and/or deaths in the family. Sunday evening we drove to a town called Tetulutan on the highway. They had a great pool and we loved that—I was able to do my aqua aerobics. Yeah! There is a water park attached to it. But the slides and lazy river aren’t turned until 10 AM and we felt like we had to leave earlier than that to return the car, check in to the hotel and buy our bus tickets to El Salvador. Oh, how I wish we had stayed longer!! Agustins met us and guided us thru the city to the Holiday Inn and then took the car to their house to wait for the Meadows. We went to the PullmanTur ticket office with our passports and Visa Simples. You cannot begin to imagine my dismay when they said that we could not buy tickets or board the bus. My best understanding is that with just our passport we normally could have, but now that it indicated we were residents of Guatemala, we needed a regular visa—not a simple. Guatemala citizens can cross with just their citizenship number. We were stuck. Hno. Francisco Ramirez from the Area Office came down and talked to them, but they adamantly refused. He took our passports to the other two express bus lines with the same results! So for the third time I needed to cancel our reservations at Royal Decameron Resort. We skyped with President Alvarado. He was also very disappointed. His secretary called to cancel our reservation—but they said that we had to call ourselves. It was a challenge because cell phones are prepaid and international calls use up the “saldo” faster. Spencer spent about 1½ hours on the phone while I was on the internet trying to cancel. He finally reached the resort and they said because we booked it thru Expedia we had to cancel it thru them. Because we had missed the window for cancellations without penalties, I couldn’t do it online. So we called the USA and used more saldo waiting and listening to voice prompts and music before I was finally able to reach customer service. She said she would cancel it and call the resort to see if they would waive the fee of one night’s stay since it was circumstances beyond our control. She wanted me to hold on, but I explained that I couldn’t. She didn’t call back like I was expecting her to. I tried to keep my tears of frustration and disappointment under control. We went to the pool and exercised again. We stayed to the last minute of check out then rode to the bus terminal with Hno. Percy and took the bus back to Xela. I still felt disappointed. Once we had shopped and restocked our refrigerator, I called Expedia. They were awesome. They had been unable to reach Decameron on Monday, that’s why no one called me back. He called and talked to them, but couldn’t get a firm commitment on waiving the $142 fee. But Expedia decided they would assume the risk while working it out with the resort and they are returning our entire registration fee. They will be my friends for life! Thursday we rode with the Mortenson’s to Chichicastenango to the Mercado. It is one of the biggest in Guatemala. I was so happy, because I really wanted to get some jackets there. It was busy, crazy, crowded and everything I expected. We couldn’t park in our first place because there were too many pigs in the parking lot—I guess on their way to be slaughtered. I bought a post card that shows just what it looked like. Then we drove to Panajachel. We bought a couple of little things there—and did a lot more walking. It was fun. I don’t have those pictures yet, so I’ll include them later. It was a full, long day. We were tired when we got home. I’ll let Spencer tell you about his hike today. I’ve been playing “catch-up” on cooking and getting ready for next week. We go back to work on Monday afternoon when we re-hang the veils. Then it is back to the normal routine. We love you. We miss you so much and wish we could give all of our grandkids hugs and kisses!

Monday, July 14, 2014

The blog seems to be working again, so I'm going to make a quick comment. We leave in about 15 minutes. It has been crazy trying to schedule our trip for our vacation. We had a plan and all the reservations made when we learned last Tuesday that Guatemala immigration still has our passports!The temple recorder was picking them up when he was at the Area Office for a meeting. In theory all of the passports are kept in a safe in the Area Office--but ours never made it there. All of the other missionaries' passports were returned to the Area Office, but ours. So we still don't have a resident visa, I guess. The church will pay the fine of $1.30/day for each of us until it is resolved. In the meantime, they are issuing us a visa simple so we can cross the border into El Salvador. We had to cancel all of our previous reservations. We can't reserve the bus until we have the visa in hand. So our new plan is to go to Antigua and then Chiquimula and Esquipulas this week and El Salvador the 2nd week. I guess we'll celebrate our anniversary a week late at a nice resort with a private beach in El Salvador. We were able to Skype with our old mission president on Saturday and we are excited to be able to see them in a week. We will be out of phone touch and the email will be sketchy--only when we can find wi-fi. We hope everyone is safe and happy while we are gone! So see you again in two weeks. Love, Los Brown (Spencer/Jeanine or Mom/Dad, whatever)

The moon over Xelaju (pronounced Shayla-hu)

Sunday, July 13, 2014 Dear loved ones, Last evening was noteworthy. It was the last night the temple was open before the two week closure for cleaning and maintenance. The last session scheduled on Saturday starts at 4 PM. I had been baptizing and had changed clothes, when just before 4 PM a bus came from out of town. While the youth were changing into baptismal clothes I went up and helped move 18 additional chairs into two endowment rooms. Jeanine was serving in the session. There were 42 women and 17 men. Then I dressed again to perform baptisms. I performed baptisms for about 25 people (10 names for each of them, so about 250 baptisms). There were three elderly people (usually they are converts of less than a year) who also came for baptisms. I helped one sweet, very old lady down each step into the font. She did five temple names before being baptized for a family name. She was getting pretty panicky and it was all I could do to reassure her. It was hard by the time we got to her family name. Then I helped her step by step to the edge of the font, where she sat in chair with a towel around her shoulders to be confirmed for her family name. After the confirmation, she was visibly moved to tears with what she had accomplished. I wonder if the family name was her mother or a daughter or someone very close to her. My back was tired and I was hoping there were enough other brothers for the receivers at the final veil—but, nope, I had to help there as well. After the patrons had dressed and left, all of the missionaries (men and women) stayed to help remove all of the veils in the temple for cleaning. It seemed really strange to have things so wide open in the initiatory and new name area. We also opened all of the lockers, placed keys in envelopes for the different locker rooms, emptied things out that had been left behind. They have to be empty and open for fumigating. When we left the temple we noticed a beautiful moon shining over the city. There were clouds in front of it. I took some pictures, but we are having trouble with the blog posting pictures tonight. There’s a national song (very popular) about the moon over Xelaju (the full Mayan name used for Quetzaltenango. I think it is “La Luna de Xelaju”. I heard later that the moon was unusually close to the earth last night. Hope you get to see the pictures. Love, Spencer (Dad, Grandpa or whatever I am to you)

Holy terrmoto! (earthquake)

This morning as I was lying in bed, minding my own business, we had a REALLY SIGNIFICANT EARTHQUAKE! It was 6.9 in the epicenter and 6.4 here in Quetzaltenango. As the crow flies it is about 45 miles to the Mexican border and that is the where it hit. There was another one off the coast of Mexico at about the same latitude. Unfortunately, San Marcos received a lot of damage (again). That is the town that had 2000 structures damaged or destroyed in 2012. This is the strongest one since then, but it wasn't nearly as bad. In watching the news, which is in Spanish, there is one death reported in San Marcos, one couple trapped in a house and the highway is blocked between us and them. [One of our missionary couples live there and goes home on the weekends, so I guess they won't be making it back today to start their shift tomorrow] There was some damage here as well, but not in our zone. It was in the older part of the city. I woke Spencer and looked at my watch. The really hard shaking lasted over 30 seconds and the tremors continued for six minutes. It was a rock and roll type of shaking this time. Even the scientists are saying this activity was a different type than we have had in the past. The mirror, which is attached to the wall, was moving up and down and sideways, so I guess the wall was too. I did remember to go open the apartment door this time, as we have been instructed to do. But we were fine. I think the Annex is built to withstand earthquakes just like the temple is. It is weird, while it is happening, you just observe and do what you are supposed to do and you don't even have time to think about being scared.

Sunday, July 6, 2014

Friday we got a surprise when someone tapped on our apartment door to tell us the Primary children were already for our charla! We were in casual clothes and knew nothing about a charla! Fortunately I had put on my make-up and combed my hair, we dressed fast and set everything up! It was a nice group and a big surprise. Then again on Saturday morning we finished with our big group at 9 AM and were doing a guided activity when a Primary showed up unannounced. We pulled everything out of the apartment and taught a second big group. I had to rush to the temple to make more copies of our temple pictures for this group. During the lesson I talk about wearing white clothes in the temple and speaking in soft voices. When Spencer took them on tour and went to the waiting room with the children, my friend Vilma happened to be by the recommend desk, so he asked her to come in and greet the children. Of course she was dressed in white. She loved it. She told me that when the children saw her all dressed in white they probably thought she was an "angelita gorda" (a little fat angel). Just as a reminder, here is a picture of Vilma and Freddy with us. I wish I had a patriotic picture to include. I am definitely feeling the spirit of patriotism this weekend where we remembered our Independence Day. I already shared this with some of you but I will include it anyway: My heart is filled with gratitude for our founding fathers that established this great country. Did you know that in D&C 101:80 the Lord tells us that he reserved “wise men” and raised them up for the purpose of establishing the Constitution? I think that is unique to the United States. My heart is filled with gratitude to them for their willingness to put their lives, their fortunes, their reputations and everything else on the line to fight off oppression and establish a country with freedom. It was all part of the Lord’s plan, because without this freedom, the gospel could not have come forth thru the restoration of the Lord’s true church. Remember the lesson from Psalms 4:5 and trust in the Lord. I love all of you.

July 6, 2014

From Spencer: We went on a nice ride with the Meadows this afternoon after we finished our block at church. Thus far, our visits out in the country have been solely limited to our speaking assignments; however, this afternoon was an extra treat. You'll see some of the breathtaking countryside as well as the people we passed. There were lots of houses with pretty colors along the way: The people are always fascinating. There were girls arranging flowers to be sold in the mercado. One interesting situation occurred as we were entering a little town. The road was blocked off and the men had a board with huge spikes. They would only slide it out of the way if you paid the Q10 which is about $1.25. Look at spikes on the board and you can see why we stopped! It's called a "mordida" or a bribe. I don't think you'd want to argue with them about it. There was a street market and a carnival in town. People were dressed up a little. It was fun to see. There are interesting animals along the way. I don't know why the horses are so skinny with all the grass there is to eat. That last photo shows corn shocks stored for feeding animals during the winter. It was a nice ride. By the way, I would resent it if you start to think we are here as sight seers or tourists. Our focus is on our work assignments. We've been putting in some long hours with our assignments and we ave associated with lots of nice people., There is a real love between temple patrons and workers. I love our associations with the Guatemalan saints. They are a friendly and loving people.