Our "Pressured" Ceiling

I didn't think to take a picture before we cleaned--somehow I guess I just wasn't thinking. But here is what it looked like when we finished. Note the cracks in the texturing. Glad that wasn't anyone's skin!

Special dome of protection we receive as missionaries

I have been thinking recently about the protecting hand of the Savior for His servants. Everyday we are blessed and protected.

All of the buses here have signs painted on them with messages like “Jesus Lives” “I love Jesus” “Jesus Saves” etc. Inside the buses are frequently signs that have messages like “Jesus protects this bus. I drive the bus.” The dichotomy is that they drive like the devil is sitting beside them. So it is a good thing that they know who Jesus Christ is and that He saves! Everyday I feel like we are protected as we ride in the buses.

Sometimes when we travel to or from Esquipulas we are lucky enough to sit right behind the driver. This is good in that there aren’t as many seats across, so, with luck, you might not be so crowded. But it is disconcerting to sit where you can see how many chances the driver actually takes—passing on curves, crossing over center and/or double lines, driving too fast, etc. When you are cramped in the back, you aren’t as aware when your life is hanging in the balance! 

Now, onto a completely different, but related thought. I have mentioned before that there are many guards with shot guns—everywhere. I make a point of always greeting them with a smile because if something ever happened I want the guys with the guns to be on my side. They usually greet me very pleasantly and seem to enjoy the token of friendship. They are generally located where businesses have transactions with larger amounts of money and they are always at banks, supermercados and farmacias.

Last week we had an odd experience. On Thursday about 5:30 PM I walked out our gate to catch a bus to our class. Across the street was a truck with a large enclosed back. No big deal. They are everywhere all the time. Two men were in the cab, as if they had just pulled up to the curb to park. But what really surprised me was that right next to our gate was a man dressed in black with a bullet proof vest like all the security guards everywhere--with the typical shotgun in hand. I was surprised to see him here. But I followed my normal procedure and greeted him with “Hola. Buenas tardes.” He turned and was obviously as startled to see me as I was to see him. About then Spencer was arriving at the gate. Suddenly without saying a word, the “guard” bolted across the street and jumped into the cab with the other two guys and they sped off. I have no idea what it was about, but it gave me a creepy feeling—like they were up to no good and my sudden appearance and full eye contact with the guy with the gun interrupted their plan. I was glad to see them leave and I was glad a bus arrived immediately and we could hop on and leave too. Nothing happened, but I just felt that overpowering feeling that the Lord was protecting us and His angels were on our right hand and our left (see D&C 84:88).

One more story of protecting care. It seems like I am falling more than ever. I know my kids are thinking “More than ever!? Mom was always a klutz! How could this be” But anyway, for having been born into a family of athletes, I really got the short end of the stick. Besides not being fast or coordinated, I always had really small ankles (still do) and turned them all the time. Now that we walk on these crazy paving stones, cobble roads and crooked, slanted sidewalks, I seem to be turning my ankle and/or falling more than normal. [Just an aside note that I remembered last week, I remember once when our Risk Management officer from state government came to Prescott and laughingly told me that I—who was in administration—was one of his biggest risks because I had three industrial injuries from falls at work in one year—and with my crazy back, it took longer than normal to get healed up. Sigh. We laughed about it as he asked, “What can I do to help you walk better?”] Well, anyway, you guessed it, I fell in Esquipulas again last week. No big deal, but the skin tears always get infected. It took me almost four weeks to heal the last skin tear from a previous fall in Esquipulas. Then at the temple three days later, my foot caught on a rug in the annex when there was a change in elevation and I fell on the same stupid knee, breaking the skin tear open again. I jumped right up—more embarrassed than injured. When I was walking to school this morning and watching very carefully where I put my feet, I suddenly had a little teaching experience from the Holy Ghost. It is true I fall a lot, but I have amazingly strong bones. No one ever believes the screening tests because my bones are like those of someone half my age. What a special blessing it is to have strong bones! It sort of compensates for being a klutz.

It made me think of Pollyanna. In recent months I told both Aly and Sierra that Pollyanna was one of my favorite movies when I was young and I read all of the books. Playing the “Glad Game” is a lifetime habit of mine. Without even thinking about it, I am always noticing something good about even really tough situations. So, right now I am really “glad” (and thankful) that Heavenly Father has protected me from serious harm by blessing me with really strong bones!

Just thought you might want to know that I know we are protected. There is an additional protection as we are obedient and committed to serving Heavenly Father’s children. I know Heavenly Father loves me and is pleased that I am here—how else could I have survived?

Love,
Mom/Jeanine

P.S. One more amazing evidence of having a dome of protection: in my fatigue last night I forgot one of our most serious near misses. As you may have guessed we eat a lot of beans and rice. I typically make a big pot of chili beans once a week. Occasionally I use the pressure cooker for the beans because it is faster. The Limburgs left a cooker here. There isn’t an indicator for the #’s of pressure—just the petcock. A couple of weeks ago, I had the pressure cooker started and I was cutting all the yummy little vegetables I put in the chili. Spencer was going to start the dishes and I suggested he wait until I finished chopping all of the veggies. So he left the kitchen to take a nap on the couch. I was happily working away when the steam came to a head. I immediately went over and turned the heat down, just like normal. Then, I decided to go to bathroom as long as I had interrupted my work. I walked from the kitchen to the bathroom and was there for less than a minute when I heard an explosion. Apparently the safety valve was old, cracked, defective or something. When I returned to the kitchen, the valve (not the petcock) had been blown out and there was hot steam and bean juice (virtually all the liquid all over the kitchen. It was so hot it literally burned and cracked the texturing on the ceiling. There was dark juice on every wall, the cupboards, the counters, the window panes, the floor, refrigerator, etc. We had a major clean up chore and we have to repaint the kitchen and the ceiling. An inconvenience, certainly, but what a blessing. If either one of us had remained in the kitchen we would have (minimally) been severely burned/maimed, if not killed. It was really pretty much of a miracle that we both left the kitchen. Just one more evidence of the Lord’s protecting care. See why I have a testimony that we are being protected?

Temple Trip on June 30th

June 30th was a holiday and the ward had its 2nd temple excursion for the month. We took two buses and one couple went in a car. There were about 50 of us there. Spencer helped in the baptistry and I did a session. I had time in the Celestial Room to remember having been married June 30, 1967. It was a good day.

President & Sister Alas and President & Sister Alvarado

June 28, 2009

Hi family,
This weekend at the Esquipulas Branch Conference, I helped teach the leadership training for the sisters on the church pamphlet "All is Safely Gathered In". I did the financial part and Sister Alvarado (the mission president's wife) did the "El Almacenamiento Familiar en el Hogar". It went well. Spencer helped me with translating my parts that weren't direct quotes. He is a good resource.

Then in the Saturday night adult session of conference I was assigned a talk. The theme was to be on Welfare, but the mission president said I could focus on any part of it I felt inspired to speak on. I chose to focus on tithing and used Elder Hales' last conference talk to introduce it. Sister Alvarado also chose to speak about Elder Hales' address. We used several of the same quotes. The people must have needed the message about tithing since we had the same inspiration. I'm glad I spoke first! So then she was repeating me instead of vice versa.

As you can see, I prepared for both things in English first. So I decided to print it as a spreadsheet so that if I got panicky I could glance at the English and keep going, knowing just where I was and what I was talking about. Since most of this talk was direct quotes, I put it together by myself. It was sort of scary, but I'm trying to be more independent. I'll never get to the level of speaking I do in English and that is frustrating. I'd like to talk from my heart and not be so dependent on the written word. But at least I can prepare and write from my heart. Spencer didn't even know what I was going to talk about--But that is OK because he was busy working on his own presentation for the Priesthood Leadership session on Home Teaching. Apparently his went well too. He is writng about the past week.

I was happy about my talk. I got a "two thumbs up" from one of the anglo missionaries and President Alvarado commented on my clarity and pronunciation. Of course I had been praying all week long for help with pronunciation and the ability to communicate with the members.

Prayers are answered.

Sitting in our hotel before leaving for Branch Conference. All of the art work in Esquipulas is of the Basillica. Great background for a picture with our mission president (center couple)!

Esquipulas (see Spencer's report below)

The elders helped us find more members to invite to Branch Conference. Elder Mendez and Elder Blazchek. Guess which one is which? :)

A Great FHE experience!

Wish you could have been with us. Gladys looks much happier now that her pain is a little better. Porfirio is holding the picture of Christ. Now if only he could follow all of the footsteps toward Christ in his life. Sigh.. But I guess all of us sometimes have challenges with which direction we are traveling. We pray that all of you are progressing toward the Savior everyday in your lives.

Noche de Hogar (FHE) with Gladys & family

Enjoy this collage. Click to make it larger. Gladys is the lady that is heavier, sitting with all the family gathered around her. Do you love the clothesline? The 3 generation picture is a sister in law. The group pictures include cousins, in-laws etc. who all live here or across the street in an additional house. Notice the "extensions" on the house made with corrugated tin and blue plastic tarps on pole frames. Also notice the cooking fire that is on a raised platform. The big round pan is a tortilla pan. Everything is cooked on it or in a pot over the fire. We had a great FHE on the steps to increase our faith in Christ and the steps that lead us away from Christ.

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

Fathers' Day

Spencer celebrated two Fathers' Days -- June 17th with the papas here (he only received a candy bar from me on that day). A couple of students brought him sandwiches and apples. Then on Sunday we celebrated with the USA. He got a clock shaped like Guatemala with Tikal, volcanoes, a quetzal bird and tipico carvings on it. He also had flowers -- I think I liked them more than he did.

June 21, 2009

June 21, 2009

Hi everyone,

Life as senior missionaries is continuing. It is all good. Today is Father’s Day. I have thought about all of our sons and in-laws and what great fathers they are. We feel very blessed. Spencer appreciates the phone calls and emails and ecards. I gave him breakfast in bed this morning. I also found a great hand-crafted clock in the shape of Guatemala with an image of the ruins in Tikal and volcanoes in the background. I had been saving it for Fathers’ Day. We also had a great dinner with flautas after church today. It has been a good day.

Last Sunday night we had our FHE with the Ramirez family. The baby that Spencer had given a blessing to was remarkably better. He only had about four spots left. Also, the Aleve seems to be relieving most of the pain Gladys was having. She still has limited range of motion and inflammation, but at least the pain has decreased. The family had promised to be at church today. But we went by yesterday and Anderson (the 3 year old) was really sick. Gladys said if he wasn’t better this morning, she would take him to the hospital. With the family living so far from the church, the kids didn’t come without their mom. Sigh.

The flu epidemic has hit Guatemala. The government closed all grade schools and high schools for two weeks. Last week will have to be made up at the end of the school year in November. This week would have been a normal, middle of the year, one week break. CUNORI still had classes last week—the directive didn’t affect universities or other public gatherings (like church). We will still have our English classes with the faculty this week, but no students. We do have our night classes, as well. There haven’t been any cases of type A flu in Chiquimula, but we have had some in Zacapa (about 20 minutes north of here). We are being really, really compulsive about hand washing and hand sanitizing. There is a lot of illness here—but it is mostly the families that live right down on the river and drink the river water. Since the rains have started, more contaminants have been in the water.

Yes—you read right! The rains have finally started! It is amazing how much nicer it is when we have a refreshing rain. It is even cool at night. Some days it feels sultry, but usually by evening we have a shower and it is great again. They were a month late getting here this year, so we are really happy for the moisture.

Tuesday, we have Zone Conference. They are now being held here in Chiquimula instead of Zacapa. This works much better for us, since we have classes until 9 AM. Now we are only a few minutes late. Previously, we were about an hour late after catching a bus to Zacapa.

Next week-end we are having Branch Conference in Esquipulas. Miraculously, I took my cell phone to the church meetings today. The mission president called us. Spencer went out to take the call. He became the link to let the Branch President know the mission president would be there for conference next week. The Branch President didn’t know anything about it (a counselor in the mission presidency was supposed to tell him). So at least with the phone calls back and forth this morning, President Lajpop could tell people (who had stayed for RS and Priesthood) about the Saturday meetings. We will make phone calls and spend an extra day there this week so that we can rally some of the members (we hope).

Tere’s little girl Sofi (picture about two weeks ago) sat down hard about 10 days ago when Tere was cleaning at another house. She couldn’t walk and Tere had to carry her to our house that Thursday. Friday she took her to the doctor. She had a fracture on the back side of her knee, so now she is in a cast. Tere carried her to the bus and came to church with her today. That is impressive and great dedication. It has been a blessing that the boys are out of school, so Sofi can stay home with them and Tere doesn’t have to carry her to every house she cleans.

Thanks, Tim for getting the new pump ordered and installed into the well at the cabin. We feel reassured having you there to keep an eye on things. The new propane tank will be delivered on Thursday the 25th, so everything should be in working order again. Thank goodness.

I wish I could be there when Janae’s family comes to Arizona. And I wish I could be there for Gibson’s baptism. I really miss the family events and gatherings.

However, I’m here following the call of the prophet and I love being here. I have been anxious to serve missions to the Lamanites since I was 12 years old and I received my Patriarchal Blessing. This is a dream come true. I love the people here and the opportunity to be of service.

We love all of you. We pray for those of you who have extra challenges in your lives. I pray that you will be guided to the solutions. These are tough economic times. My heart hurts for you. Love and nurture each other for us. It is hard to express our concern when we are so far away.

Love,
Mom/Dad/Jeanine/Spencer