Fathers' Day in Guatemala

In Guatemala, el Dia de las Padres is on June 17th (Tuesday this year). Of course in the US it was on Sunday the 15th. So the sister missionaries planned a great lunch to celebrate it on Monday the 16th. The Latin sisters prepared the food and the American sisters paid for it. The meal was amazing and the men all seemed to enjoy it. After the meal--which the women served to the men, we were in charge of the activity. Each sister named one attribute that attracted her to her husband. Some were funny and some were serious. We started with Sister Perez and she just looked at her husband and President Perez said, "Just tell them how handsome I was Mama!" Following that activity we had sets of pictures upside down on the table and we went around playing the game of Memory to try to find matches. It was a lot of fun--and great mental exercise for all of us "ancianos". We told the men they should return the favor next Mayu and President Mortenson said "Great idea!" but of course he won't be here! Then Brother Maes suggested McDonald's take out. It was a very fun day. After that about 5-6 people stuck around and played Dominoes--I played and Spencer didn't. Is anyone surprised by that?!

More earthquake info

We forgot to tell you that after the earthquake we had last Tuesday, we talked to one of the gardeners and he reported that the Angel Moroni was swaying back and forth for a while. Now that would have been a sight to see! We forgot that in our training they told us the first thing we should do is open a door, because the first damage is usually the doors become jammed. Oh well, it turned out Okay. This morning at 4:05 we had another shock. It wasn't as violent, but it made our heavy curtains sway clear to the top where they are hung. This is a very different experience for us!

Sunday, June 15, 2014 (earthquake report)

This post will be a blend of thoughts from Spencer and Jeanine since it is too hard to separate them. Last Tuesday morning we were awake and sitting on the couch and chair in the LR when suddenly it felt like a piece of heavy equipment had driven into the side of the apartment building--but in reality at 6:26 AM there was a 5 pt on the Richter Scale earthquake about 30 miles away. The epicenter was in Coatepeque. We have felt the tremors before that cause things to sway, but this one shook all of the furniture, moved the TV and a heavy center piece. Spencer described it as feeling like a power driven hammer on concrete. It was very short and didn't hurt anything, but it was intense! Sorry, no pictures of the earthquake! We will add pictures when we receive them by email to show you some of yesterday's activities. We only knew about one Primary coming at 9:00 AM. Suddenly at 8:30 when I started setting things up, Spencer had to go teach a group of 18 investigators from Barrio Libertal, Malacatan Stake. He was still with them over at the temple when a bus pulled up with a HUGE Primary. The staff had helped me set up lots of extra chairs and they even had a photographer (who says she will email us pictures). Our normal kids joined with them and we had about 75 kids along with many adults. I had to start by myself and was surely happy when Spencer arrived so we could do our normal team-tag teaching. When he left to take them to the temple, I packed everything back to the apartment and prepared the pictures and colored pencils for their coloring activity. The staff informed me that they will be coloring in the dining room from now on--great idea--I like the tables. I asked about putting the chairs away when they said that the Primary from Totonicapan El Centro Barrio was NOT there yet. We had just taught the Primary from Las Rosas Barrio, Bosque Stake! We didn't even know they had planned to come. It was a good thing it took extra long for the bus from Totonicapan. I grabbed one of the staff members and said, "Roberto, quick, help me get everything back out of the apartment!" I was finishing setting up when they arrived on ANOTHER BIG BUS. This time there 30 kids and about 6 adults--including the Bishop. They had an agenda. An 11 year old boy conducted the meeting following an agenda and an 11 year old girl lead the singing. All of the children had on name tags that said "future missionary of..." It was really great. They had their own opening song "I Love to See the Temple". Our prepared lesson was "Heavenly Father and Jesus Love Me." So-o-o-o, I had to start out with material I remembered from a previous lesson about the temple and I segued into our prepared lesson. I had just completed that when Spencer brought the first big group back from the temple. It was really crazy--but everyone seemed to love all of the lessons. I had to make two trips to the temple to make more copies of pictures for kids to color. We were exhausted by the time everyone left about 11:30 or 12. We have only a couple of poor quality photos of the kids conducting in the second group. This morning we left at 6:45 AM, went to a local stake center and dispersed to different wards. We spoke at El Prado Barrio in Bosque Stake. This time we had more than ample time. Jeanine spoke 15 minutes and Spencer spoke 20 minutes. With visited with three different families who needed encouragement in attending church and/or the temple. Two families were endowed. We hope our visits helped animate them. The last family we taught we caught by surprise. There were the two of us and two priesthood leaders. Spencer asked them to share their conversion stories and they responded well. He felt there hints of conflicts with other ward members. Spencer says "I felt like asking how long it had been since they had received priesthood blessings. They responded that they hadn't, so we, the brothers, gave them blessings." It was special to have visits set up for us and to feel the boldness or confidence to speak directly to them about their needs. It was great. Before bringing us back to the temple the brothers asked if we would like to drive to the top of mountain that overlooks the city. It was so amazing and beautiful. We took pictures with the iPad, so we have some to share. On the way home we passed a procession. The women had on their beautiful tipico clothes and the WOMEN were carrying in sort of decorated casket thing. It is representative of carrying the body of Christ and in this manner you can receive forgiveness for your sins. I asked the brothers we were with if that meant the women needed more forgiveness than the men. I couldn't get a good shot of the women carrying the casket. We are definitely into the rainy season. Spencer tried to catch some clouds behind the temple. And just one last thing to share. I thought it was pretty cool this past week when one of the names for temple work was for a woman named Moshumba from South Africa. Pretty cool. I'd say about 75% of our names in this temple are from Hungary. Someone has done a lot of indexing on Hungarian records! We love all of you and enjoy news from home and visits by telephone. Happy Fathers' Day to all of our sons and sons-in-law. We love you all.

Spencer's aboriginal queen

I wear a lot of "tipico" (native) clothes because I love them. The great side benefit is that the people love me for it. They are always commenting about it and I tell them that my heart is "chapina" (Guatemalan). Last week when I arrived in the dressing room at the temple, three sisters were telling me I was "chula", "linda" and "bonita" (different ways to say beautiful). I laughed and told them they only tell me that when I wear "tipico" clothes, so I think it is actually the clothes they are commenting about. They laughed and contradicted me--they are so loving and complimentary here. It touches my heart.

"I'm well!"

From Jeanine: Last Sunday we headed back to Guatemala. I went to the lab Monday and the doctor Wednesday. I have no infection for the first time since February! Yeah! I have to take two different medications for 3 months, and have a culture done monthly--but that can be done here and we will consult by phone. Cesar and Tuli were once again our wonderful life savers, chauffeurs, hosts, cook, etc. We took a few pictures in the streets of the capitol--a typical huge tree, a round about with a statue in the middle and a police woman, trees over the street, old buildings, new buildings, etc. While we were gone there were some huge rain storms that created lots of flooding. Monday it rained super hard and Tuesday a huge wind was added to the rain. It toppled about 30 trees around town. In many parts of town the power is still out because of power lines that were snapped. Two missionary apartments and many "huespedes" (guest) apartments here in the annex were flooded by rain that came in under the windows during the storm. I guess it was pretty crazy. According to the news, in Huehuetenango, one river overflowed its banks and swept a house away with a family of five inside. I don't think there were other deaths, but lots of damage to roads and stuff. Last night after we finished our shift all of the North American couples went out to eat. It was a beautiful restaurant--lots of atmosphere. The grandkids would have loved the suits of armor flanking the curved staircase up to the restaurant. Too bad I didn't have the camera. The meal was divine and it cost me $12. Can't beat that! Today we spoke in a ward here in the Quetzaltenango Stake. It was fun to see some of our temple workers and youth that attend regularly in the congregation. It was in the oldest part of Xela and the streets were made of stones with cement in between. They may have been cobblestones once upon a time. But they are flat, but still very bumpy now. We met in the 2nd oldest building. Here there is generally just one ward to a building--I think because so many members have to walk to church, so they build more of them--and because the construction costs are a lot less here. Our talks went great. We were able to stay for classes since we weren't traveling from out of town, With all of the rain, our daytime temperatures have been in the mid 60's. It is definitely the coolest June and the greenest June I have experienced in my entire life. It is beautiful! Even if the dampness cause arthritic pain and the greeness causes allergies. :) I'll take it! Wish you were here to enjoy it with us!

June 8, 2014

From Spencer: Hi family and friends, Writing does not come easy for me, but it does help recap experiences and it helps me to realize blessings that I may not, otherwise, have focused on. NOT to nauseate anyone but I will tell some emotional things. We prepared our usual Saturday lesson for the children visiting us while their parents are in the temple. It was about Jesus and Heavenly Father love each one of us. It included evidences of that love. I thought it would be a ho-hum lesson. As we proceeded with our team teaching, I began to be the one who felt emotional and instructed. It helped me reconcile many things that had heretofore made me feel sad. I truly did feel His love and as I guided the children around the gardens and into the temple lobby I felt His love and His appreciation for what we are trying to do; including, of course, our daily shift as temple workers. #2 If you feel "gaggy", just skip this paragraph. I feel drawn to people who are so unfortunate. Look at the old man in our pictures. He is totally deaf. He has ragged clothes, and is sort of homely. His ward did a charitable thing to put him on the bus and take him along. [Note from Jeanine: He watched our lesson and enjoyed seeing the kids. When we played a spin the bottle activity, he sat on the floor and took a turn spinning the bottle. It was awesome. He had ragged shoes, no socks and pants that were "hemmed" by just cutting them off.] #3 Yesterday I ended up in the baptismal font and baptized youth until I was ragged. There are a couple of handicapped youth and one who is deaf. My heart bleeds for them and I always give them a hug in the font. I easily performed 200 baptisms. #4. You'll get sick of this, but I can't help myself and my feelings of love and emotion for the children who walk over to be sealed to their parents. I seems to open up my vision of the hereafter and the eternities. Hey, both Jeanine and I are growing in our ability to speak Spanish. She is saying most anything and is not afraid to get in and communicate. I feel so encouraged to able to stand with anyone or groups and talk, even if it is not totally without flaws. I keep a little electric translator in my pocket and try to absorb words wherever I am. Its such an exhilarating hobby. The down side is, its a life time effort to become completely fluent, plus the fact the words change regionally.

May 31, 2014

This has been a month of birthdays so we have had the opportunity to talk to quite a few families as we acknowledged the following birthdays: Ben, Carter, Brigham Alexander, Sierra, Cassie, Jason, Nathan, Jon, Melody and Cody. We love getting to visit with you on any occasion--you don't have to wait for birthdays. We haven't had any outstanding events this week. However, this morning while Spencer was in the shower we had a knock on our door to inform us that there were a group of less active members here. So Spencer hurried and dressed and went out to teach them. He got them laughing about themselves and their inactivity and reviewed the essential questions for a temple recommend. Then they walked around the outside of the temple. It was well received. While he was doing that I made the copies for the coloring activity with the kids, set up the easel and posters and all of the other stuff we use for our class. While Spencer tried to gather the children he invited three little boys to join us. They informed him they didn't need to come to our class because Jesus watches out for little boys and they would be OK if they just kept playing. When we were in Guatemala City the last time our mission picture was taken. They needed to do it then because Sister Perez (the president's wife) is receiving chemo therapy and wanted a picture before she lost her hair. It was good timing because it was only four more days before she lost so much hair that they shaved her head. They saved a spot for us in the photo and this week the photographer took our picture and photo shopped us into the picture. We were grateful for their thoughtfulness in making it possible for us to be in the official photo. We leave tomorrow for another trip to Guatemala. This time I'm not sick and anticipate that the doctor will give me a clean bill of health (finally!). He may put me on a low dose antibiotic for a while--at least that was the plan before. We missed being home for the Memorial Day week-end. We would have loved to have been at the cabin and helped with all of the work of opening it up, cleaning things, setting up the playground, working on the play set, etc. We were happy to learn that kids slept in the homestead cabin. We are so glad they liked it!

5/25/2014

On our trip to San Pedro this morning to give our talks in church, we were privileged to make a visit to a home of a member. Behind a tin gate you enter their yard and you can immediately see the pila where they wash clothes. And you can see the hen with her baby chicks in the yard. There was a small one room cinder block building next to their house. The door was open (undoubtedly for ventilation) and you could see the two missionaries on their knees having prayer before they left for the day. It was very touching. When we went into the house we met the family. As we talked, we discovered that the wife/mother was having severe abdominal pain and had a very difficult night last night. She had been in and out of the hospital. We inquired if she had had a blessing and she hadn't. I asked the husband if he had oil and he said yes and ran over to the missionaries next door and came back with the oil. Her husband is the Elders' Quorum president. I don't know why it hadn't occurred to him to do that--probably because they are converts of only three years. In retrospect, maybe it was a good teaching/learning experience that we were guided to provide. I hope it helps her because it didn't look like they had a lot of money. He drives big trucks for a living. Their family was sealed in the temple last December. It was fun to ask the girls what they thought about it. The wife is the Primary President, so they have really become involved in the church programs. All of the family came to church and he also spoke in Sacrament Meeting before we did. After that home visit we went to the church. You can see a lot of pictures of us there, in the street in front of the chapel and looking at the house next door. On our way walking to the park where we were meeting our ride we met a man selling milk. How would you like to have milk delivered to you front door this way? :) San Antonio Sacatepequez is only a small town in the mountains, but it still has a central park that is right in front of the Catholic Church. It was drizzling when we got there, so we were happy for a pavilion to stand under. It was warm in the morning, so Jeanine left her jacket in the Mortenson's car. She really wished she had when the cold drizzle started.

Earthquakes, volcanos and tremors

We have truly come to a different part of the world. During our training for emergencies in the temple, the majority of the time was spent on earthquakes or severe tremors. Now I bet in the Manhattan Temple, Carl and Linda learned about attempted invasions or terrorists or something. But in reality, the temple is built to withstand even severe earthquakes, so that is where I'd want to be if a big one hit. One day when we were in the temple there was a pretty strong tremor and the power was on reduced power (lights) from the emergency for quite some time. Today while I was studying we had another strong tremor that moved my chair and made the light over the table sway for about 12 seconds. We read in the paper that the southern and western part (we actually live in the western highlands--the northern part is considered to be Peten which is in the eastern part where Tikal is) of Guatemala has had 2031 tremors in the last 16 months. We are definitely part of the "Ring of Fire" that circles the Pacific Rim. In addition our many tremors (most in the 4-5 range on the Richter Scale) we have lots of volcanoes. Some are extinct, but many are still active. About 5 weeks ago, one that normally spews only steam was sending lava down the mountainside near Antigua. It was threatening homes and caused evacuations, but then I didn't hear anymore about it. We got some of the ash here and the air quality was zilch for a few days. Then last week, both Spencer and I kept waking up in the morning with horrible sinus headaches. When I mentioned it to another temple worker, she said a volcano just outside of our city that normally only has smoke was spewing out ash and sulfur gases--no wonder our sinuses were messed up! All parts of the world have challenges, don't they? I pray daily for protection from forest fires in Arizona.

The Xela Temple after a rain storm

The rains have started and my friend, Chrys Meadows took this picture after a rain storm. You can see the water in front of the temple at night. A beautiful picture.