Baptism and Primary program

 On the way to the baptism of Carlos. We have 8 adults and 4 children in the car.

 The first ones there, we ended up with 38 people there.

 Alan took a picture of me taking pictures.

 Elder Tsosie and Carlos in the water and Elder Recio and Alan as witnesses.

Today was the primary presentation, they went through their parts and the songs for the first time last week and then we did it this Sunday. They are singing, 'Yo Trato de Ser Como Cristo'. They did a great job.

Baptism and Thanksgiving

 Saturday the 18th we had the baptism of 10 year old Madelin.

 Everyone met by the river and sang, had a talk on baptism, Alan and I sang the baptism song with Jesus going to John the baptist.

 Elder Tsosi, Cujoy, Madelin. Hernandez, and Recio.

 The water was pretty deep because of all the rain.

 Cold but happy!

 There are a lot of stickers when you walk through high grass and Alan can't bend to pick them off yet.

 Wednesday before Thanksgiving, we drove to Coban to get the staples out. One town, we call, 'the dirty little town', has shops on the side of the rode and barely enough room for 2 cars to pass by. Sometimes cars park and it gets really scary to drive within inches of oncoming trucks.

 Getting all the never-ending centipedes swept up.

 Brownies done, turkey ready for cooking.

 The elders came to eat at 7:30, they seemed to love everything, the potatos and gravy were new to some of them (they didn't know what to do with the gravy...one elder put it on his salad) . They loved it over the meat and potatos and put it over the corn too!

 Elder Recio wanted to show his appreciation by cooking a Dominican dish of plantains and chorizo and cheese. It was really good! It tasted like a sweet shepherd's pie.

 After we all stuffed ourselves we practiced a Christmas song for our Christmas party coming up.

In Primary this Sunday we have the Primary program and afterward we will make and color decorations for our Christmas party.

The primary practicing the program in our outside room.

Operation Coban

We had Elder Recio and Cuyjo help us paint the spare room and kitchen. Alan bought and spread some gravel over the mud in front and behind our house. He found that with moving our furniture and the rocks this week, he got a hernia.

 We went to Coban Saturday for a Dr's appointment and because he had been fasting 20 hours they wouldn't do the blood test and ultrasound. We came back Monday morning after fasting exactly 8 hours and waited for the tests to come back around 12:30. We headed to the Doctor with the tests and he said let's do it today and they put Alan in a bed and prepped him for surgery.

 The room was pretty cold so I borrowed Alan's socks to help keep me warm.

They took him to the basement for surgery around 5:15PM and he was back at 6:30PM. Neither one of us got much sleep because of the nurse coming in every 2 hours. Tuesday afternoon they took the bandage off and said to shower. The cut was about 5" long with mesh inside to strengthen the tear in the muscle wall.

After showering Alan put on some old PJs and crocs. He had a lot of sciatic nerve pain, due to the epidural, but finally (at almost 10pm) they gave him meds for sleep and pain, and we both got a decent nights sleep. Wednesday morning, after the doctor saw him at 10AM, we paid the bill, got some drugs for infection and pain and went to President Faundez' (the mission persident's) house.

Sister Faundez has really decorated everything up for Christmas, it was beautiful!

 We bought some things at the grocery store (Pais) in the mall,

We went shopping for a gas stove and played around on the drums. We are swapping our old electric stove out because we don't have 220v in our current house in Fray. We spent all day Thursday at Pres Faundez' home, giving Alan a little rest.

The next day, Friday, we got our car serviced by a mobile auto repair group that came to the mission home. The office was all decorated up for Christmas too, I LOVE it! We are now back home in Fray. Alan is recuperating and we are waiting for the elders to come over and help us put in our new stove.

Death and birth

 Alan and I were getting gas and waiting for our car to get washed when we heard breaks and a loud crash. A man was hit by a semi truck and killed on the road. Everyone ran to see, we don't know if the truck stopped or kept going, but what a sad experience.

 A few hours later we were celebrating Nery's 25th birthday. We were stuffed with chicken, chow mien, and cake.

 I got to hold 10 month old Adrian so his mother could eat and he fell asleep on me, oh so sweet!

 The cake

AND pinata!

Moved to Fray Bartolome

 Saturday we pulled all our things out of the 2 rooms and put them on the patio so we could clean. We left our bed and Sunday morning took it out onto the patio also.

 At the chapel waiting for everyone to get there, the only time I felt comfortable at the pulpit!

 Taking attendence and saying hello/goodbye to Juan and Maria Tomasa Reyes.

 After church we waited for the truck to come so we could load it. He came at 5 and we left at 6, we took 2 elders and their luggage to Coban for transfers and then headed for Fray and got there after midnight.

 About 5 of these huge spiders, a bunch of cockroaches, hundreds of centipedes, and thousands of ants were waiting for us. We pulled the bed off the top of our car after cleaning all the rooms. Tried to sleep but it was very hard; very musty, moldy, and humid.

I think I got bit by a spider, or a bunch of mosquitos?!

 At 10 the truck came and we pulled everything into the house. We bought a bunch of bug killers and some heavy duty powder for around the outside of the house. Alan bought a strip to go under the front and back doors, hopefully, that will keep the bug infestation down.

 The bathroom; the toilet was disgusting, we poured coke in it and then cleaned it really well. It was infested with ants underneath and in the tank lid and Alan cleaned those up.

 Our bedroom

 The kitchen and dining room.

The spare bedroom, waiting for visitors to come, Tomorrow we start painting, it will get better!!!

 Alan bought 5 gallons of beige paint and we did our bedroom, the livingroom, and the bathroom.

It looks better and smells a little better also. Now we have to get more paint to do the kitchen and spare bedroom!