I love the way the women wrap their babie in a shawl and carry them on their backs. This baby was young, so she kept her completely covered. They were right outside the church when we were heading to class.

Spencer wrote a letter!

January 24, 2009

Hi everybody,
We just returned this evening from Guatemala City where we attended two temple sessions and I was a witness to the sealing of a couple and then the sealing of their three teenage daughts to them. They are a family who has struggled a long time to make this happen. It was special. Both Jeanine and I are trying to master the words at the veil. This was Jeanine's first time to do her part in Spanish at the veil. We are getting close to knowing all the responses.

It was very moving to see the bus loads of people there from El Salvador. There were also many from northern Guatemala too. We saw lots of women in their native dress (pictures on the blog). We stayed at the housing designed for long those making long trips to come to the temple. We visited with some of them there at the "Casa de Huespedes."

It is about a 3 hour trip at best (traffic permitting) for us and then about an hour through that huge city with all its traffic problems, something like Phoenix without freeways.

We are about to get into some long teaching days at the medical school at CUNORI (Centro Universitario de Oriente), or the eastern campus of Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala. When we add in the English classes at the church it will be teaching six hours of classes with several different preparations on Tuesday-Thursday. Jeanine has her's and I have mine. We have lots of prosyliting in progress. We hope we can keep it going on Mondays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays with some time to take care of ourselves and do our lesson preparations. We have had some great missionary discussions and exceptional reactivation experiences. Day by day it is a struggle, but looking back it is a wonderful experience. Sometimes the lessons are "moving experiences."

We pray for you always. As we serve people it is plain to see what the "keeping of commandments" does for people. We hope that everything is going well in all your homes.

We are happy here and hope you are in happy in your station of life.

Love,
Dad/Spencer

I LOVE the native clothing. It is beautiful. I'm sorry that it was a little windy and the sisters all had sweaters over their blouses. They had just left the Distribution Center and were headed to wait in line at the temple so they could attend a session.

This is a "little" couple waiting to enter the temple.

The line was finally getting shorter to enter the temple. At the recommend desk you get a little number telling you which session. It is necessary because the rooms are small and the crowds are large. They don't really follow the schedule. The sessions just keep going back to back for as long as there are workers. Instead of every hour, they are every 20-30 minutes when there are excursions there. The foyer of the temple was completely packed and people were still waiting to go in.

It was a beautiful day at the temple. We love going to the Lord's House.

The view out our side patio--do you love all the wires that keep us from going out there!?

The view from our front patio upstairs

We are in Guatemala--notice Spencer's favorite house colors! Also, notice the "El horno" an oven for baking bread.