District chicken plan

!7 families, 171 chickens all pooping on our patio after traveling from Guatemala City to Salama and then to Rabinal. They are thirsty and hungry.

Our patio and rooms smelled like a barn yard for a few days.

Mini Soy for the youth

Here is our group from Rabinal and Cubulco at San Juan Chemelco, near Coban, to camp and get together with kids from the district.

 We learned about the creation and how we should treat the earth and the animals with respect. Here, in Guatemala, the kids are taught from birth to throw their trash on the ground and floor and maybe later someone else will clean it up.

We went swimming in the river, the youth teacher, Juana, who is to my right, cannot swim so later we went on a hike through the shallow water and to a little fountain swimming pool.

 Here I am with Carla, a non-member who attended with us. We went under at the same time.

 Submerged!

 Cold waterfall, but it felt great on a hot sunny day!

 The kids went boating.

 We had chicken, rice, and tortillas for a late lunch.

 The little fountain pool, they filled it to the top for us but it was cold.

We played some games and after dinner Alan talked about the atonement and they asked me to bear my testimony.

 The next day after a cool, damp night, we ate cereal and read scriptures. The kids were divided into 4 teams and they had a race, iron man style. If anyone on the team faulted, the whole team had to go back to the beginning. A few of the games were pretty hard to do.

 One of the games to learn to work together.

 Army crawl through water.

 Snake sit through the mud.

 A horse that kept coming around. Alan fed her some cookies and when he didn't immediatly give her the next bite she kicked him and he fell down and hurt his wrist and thumb. Stupid pretty horse!

On the way home in the bus this 12 year old had motion sickness. I held her head on my shoulder for almost 2 hours-OUCH!

After sleeping most of the way home and taking a motion sickness pill she felt better. It was a great way to get to know the kids better and we're glad we went!

Easter week

 We helped the Osorio family dig the ground out so their new fence gate would open and close.

 It felt like old times back working on our house in Cedar. Oh, and it was almost 100 degrees.

 We had egg salad sandwiches for our Easter dinner.

We took some names I had to the temple and got to do everything on them, it was a great experience! We spent the night in the rooms by the temple and some teens played the organ until after 10 and were up at 3AM doing it again. (Where were their parents!)

We had family home evening at Linda's house and she had some new puppies!

Mosquitos, District Conference and fires

 

Every morning Alan and I get up and have 2 zappers to kill bugs, we go around killing mosquitos for about 30 minutes and in the afternoon and evening also. I HATE MOSQUITOS!

 We had district conference in Salama the week after general conference.

 Pres Norman from the temple, Pres Faundez and his counselors, Pres Vela and Poou, from the mission Coban.

 The Osorio family after conference with sister Norman.

 Nico and Ofelia Camo Cortez with sister Norman, they are our neighbors and the strongest members of the branch. They go to every week activity and attend every Sunday. Nico brings the sacrament bread and blesses it !

 We've been having fires because people go smoke out the bees to get their honey and drop ash that starts fire. It was coming up the side of the mountain.

It was crossing the road in front of us but we went through it and made it home.

Wake and funeral for Louis Fernando Osorio, age 26

It's blurry, but we are scalding, plucking, and cleaning more than 20 chickens to feed people tomorrow.

Inside the kitchen 6-8 neighbor women are patting corn tortillas to cook for everyone to eat tomorrow. Large kettles of corn are boiling to make atol and chilate in the morning. They had over 100 people that they fed rolls and horchata during the wake in the evening. They did another feeding of 100 at about midnight, then more at 5am. They were awake all night.

The next morning we went over and helped cook chicken, roast veggies, clean dishes, and anything else they asked us to do. They fed us chilate.

 Julisse is 4,very cute and contrary at times. Her mouth is full of chilate.

 Eating chicken pinol with the corn tortillas.

They carried the coffin to his house, then to the main catholic church (for a funeral mass), and then to the opposite end of town, where there is another catholic church (the calvario) and the catholic cemetary. One of the elders helped carry the coffin a bit at the beginning. The men were switching out with others quite a bit because it was heavy and they carried it a long way. There was also a brass band playing the whole time. (Sort of like a New Orleans funeral, but no jazz.)

 At the cemetary they lowered the coffin into the ground.

 The men and elders took turns filling in the hole.

 Panarama of the cemetary after most people had left.

All the flowers on top of the grave. In the background you can see a man selling snow cones. Another man was selling oranges cut in half with cinnamon and sugar on top. They are very interprising and know where they can sell their wares.

General Conf and Zone P-day

We watched Saturday conference in Salama on our Ipad so we could hear it in English. Sunday morning we tried to show it to the branch in Rabinal with our modem but it kept stopping. It was hard to keep the train of thought going while you waited for the talk to begin again. Sunday afternoon we went to Salama again and listened to it in English. What a wonderful meeting!

Monday we changed our P-day so we could hike to the chorros, (or pool and waterfalls), with the zone. 10 of the 12 missionaries hiked.

It was very hot, almost 100, and when a local pick-up came by the 10 of us jumped in with about 12 locals. We were packed like sardines but it was fun!

 The pool and waterfalls.

One of the missionaries was on a rock jumping and his name tag fell into the water. They can't swim but Alan and I can. I started in and saw it was over my head so Alan took his shirt off and looked for the tag for about 30 minutes.

 No luck finding it.

We jogged and walked back to our house and I made Philly cheese sandwiches and hamburger stroganoff on rice and pasta. They said it was Tan Rico y bueno, very rich and good.

Zone meeting in Salama

It rained and the frogs/toads came out. We were told they are poisonous and not to touch them, he was bigger than my fist.

We memorize different scriptures and our purpose as missionaries to begin each district and zone meeting. They do it in English, Spanish, and Q'eqchi.

                                 Missionaries at zone meeting.

 2 sisters we love, sister Gomez from DR is the nurse for Coban until she goes home in September. Sister Ball goes home in 2 weeks to Orem. She went to Cherry Hill Elementary.

Walking home at the end of the day. In about a minute the sun was gone completely.