Temple trip to Guatemala City

We had a temple trip with the youth and young adults this weekend. 

It is a long ways to the temple. We had to plan it all for Friday and Saturday so no one would miss school or work.

 Starting out with 19 people in the van at 10PM Friday.

 We encountered 3 accidents en route to the temple.

 Waiting at one of the accidents. It took us 10 1/2 hours to get to the temple from Fray.

We got to the temple at 8:30AM Saturday, the youth changed into Sunday clothes and then waited an hour to get started with another group of youth to do baptisms. We finished at 12:30 and ate lunch.

We all ate across the street from the temple and then took some pictures. (Two people are missing from the photo.) Then we got back in the van and drove 9 hours back to Fray.

We stopped for a bathroom break in El Rancho. When we pulled in there was a missionary in fromt of the car, eating ice cream. It was Elder Alvarado heading to the capitol to fly home! It was a tender mercy that we saw each other again and that the branch was able to say goodbye to him. Several of the members were in tears to see him again.

Juan's baptism, Soyla's birthday, and Justin's book

 Last Saturday we had the baptism of 27 year old Juan Lopez.

Elder Short, Juan, E. Dixon, E. Moldenhauer, and E. Merida at the baptismal site.

 Elder Dixon baptiszed Juan.

 All done. Sunday elder Dixon confirmed him and Alan ordained him to the office of priest.

Soyla invited all the missionaries to her birthday dinner and party. She's a sweet widow who takes care of 1 year old Adrian, while his parents, Nery and Gabriella work.

We all said something about her, sang happy birthday, and ate tostadas and tres leche cake, mmm!

Our son, Justin, just finished his first of a four book series. It's on to the translators now and should be out next year.

The line will be, Master of Sorrows: Every Master Was Once An Apprentice. We can't wait to read it!

Water, Baptism, and visits with the Garrido family

Our water tank usually looks fairly clear like it is above. Last week we had some problems with getting water for a couple of days and then when we did get it, it was like they were pumping it straight out of a dirty river, as in the picture of our tank below. It smelled as bad as it looked.

We were spitz bathing with our drinking water and washing our hands and dishes with our bottled water. Fortunately, the second day it started coming in clearer and smelling better.

Saturday we had a baptism of 23 year old Ines. She has been taking the discussions since September and would have been baptized in December, but her father doesn't want any of his family leaving the Catholic church. Her 18 year old sister came to be with her, we have hopes that this may open the door for other members of her family to join as well.

 Elder Moldenhauer and Ines.

 Everyone eating after the baptism.

 That evening, Luki invited the missionaries over for fried chicken at Heidy and Carmen's house.

 MMM, it was like KFC, with corn on the cob and garlic mashed potatoes.

After Ines was confirmed Sunday afternoon, we were invited to Esther's house for lunch. Yummy rice with beans, veggie salad, and tepezcuintle or paca.

We didn't know what we were eating until we got home and looked it up, here it is. It is about the size of a large rabbit and supposed to be a delicacy.

We then went to the hospital to visit Jennifer, she needs her gall bladder taken out this week.

Zone conf, Rebeca's birthday, weevils

Multi-zone conference in Coban. It's so nice seeing elders we have worked with before, Elder Chavez was in Rabinal the first 4 months we were there. We talked a lot about the plan of salvation.

 Rebeca turned 14, her mom invited all the missionaries over for meatloaf and cake.

It's tradition that the birthday person take a bite out of the cake, elder Sanchez pushed her face into it, that's a tradition too!

 It was yummy tres leche cake.

I went to make lasagne yesterday and found most of our lasagne noodles had weevils. We killed the weevils and threw away most of the boxes. All the rest of my noodles are in the fridge now.