Desafios y Bendiciones (challenges and blessings)

 The middle of the week our normally "clear' city water turned to this, affecting both the water in our house and water tank. Alan waited a few hours, and it changed back to "clear". (Sometimes it takes a couple days to clear up, so this was quick.) Then he shut off the water valve, emptied our water tank, added clorox, and let the clearer water fill it up. It was still green but much better than before. The clorox helped to kill the smell of the stream water, and also make it a bit cleaner to use. (The city water runs about 2-5 hours each day, and is normal mostly filtered. But every couple of months they have issues.)
He had just sat down from fixing that problem when our lights went out. Last week our electricity was out for more than 2 days and we were worried it might be the same, but 3 hours later the fans kicked on and we were able to go to bed with the fans running. We were blessed that both water and electricity problems didn't occur at the same time.

We had our multi-zone conference in Coban Tuesday. Elder Martir Chavez goes home this transfer. We worked with him in Rabinal for 6 months and we love him and will miss him.

 After our 4 hour meeting we all ate meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and veggies, very good! Alan and I were having stomach troubles, so we gave our meat to other elders.

We left Coban and drove to the capital and stayed with the Normans. John has been buying used huipiles (colorful native blouses) and they have been making pillows, table runners, and have plans to make vests. They have quite a production going. Alan bought some medicine to fight infection for my stomach problem and it cleared it up for our outting the next day.

Thursday the Normans took the Jensens, Holmans, and us to a little town 45 minutes away that had market day, called San Pedro Sacatepequez. They were just beginning their fair and had a parade that night with 40 men carrying Jesus and the saints on this beautifully carved wooden base.

 They were so sweet and gave all of us women flowers and answered all our questions.

 This is the Catholic church and some of the indigenous women.

These dancers went to the church to get a blessing before going to a house down the street to get the statue of Saint Pedro.

They danced around in front of people and then held a box out asking for money. Chris Norman, and the Jensens and Holmans (temple missionary couples who came with us) followed the dancers to get the statue and Alan and I followed President Norman to look for used huipiles.

A lady selling toilet paper at the two city toilets near the town square told John that her cousin had lots of used huipiles and led us down the street. Her cousin wasn't home yet, so she led us further away to another cousin's house and we got to watch John dicker. He bought 5 from Rosa and Trinidad.

Once the cousin came home we went to another house and he bought 8 more from Emma and another cousin. They were so cute and it was so fun to watch!

 John counting how many he got.

 Looking at all the different colors and patterns.

We even got to eat Panda Express and see the movie, The Incredibles 2. It was a wonderful day, no more diarrhea and spending time with the Normans and other adult missionaries.

Wake and funeral of Florentin Garrido (warning: graphic photo)

The oldest son of Alan's counselor, Florentin Garrido, and 3 of his friends that he works with, died in a car crash on Father's Day.

A drunk semi-truck driver and second semi crashed and one of the two slid over the top of this pickup, killing all 4 instantly.

The father, Florentin, had to go to Peten to pick up the body and bring it home Monday. They have a wake in the house for 24 hours and then bury the dead. We took 3 pans of spaghetti over for the family to eat during the day.

The relief Society helped make ham sandwiches and horchata to pass out to all the visitors Monday night. They had hundreds of people come to pay their respect. We went home at 11:30pm but some of the family were awake most of the night.

The next morning we took over tamarind drink, ice, cooking utensils, a table, and vegetables to make chicken soup. Others were there making tortillas all morning. We helped cook, make drinks, and hand out lunch.

 Some of the members of the branch that helped cook and serve food.

 We sang and had a prayer and then took the casket out to the truck.

Everyone walked to the other side of town to the catholic church for mass. Of the 4 men killed in the accident, Florentin and his best friend had both their funerals together at the catholic church here. Because they were hardly apart in life, they were not separated in death either. After mass both coffins were carried on shoulders side-by-side, half-way through town to the cemetary.

 Coming into the cemetary. Florentin,the father is in the white shirt and ball cap.

Alan dedicated the grave and Florentin gave a blessing. He has been so strong and full of faith this whole time. We have so much love and respect for him. We love this family and hope this tragedy brings them closer to each other and God!

future missionaries, Kak'ik, father's day dinner

Dalia, Karolina, and Saydel checking out how it feels to wear placks. Karolina has all her papers in at the area office and we are all waiting for her call packet. She will be the branches' first missionary!

 Eating kak'ik at Lucrecia's house, with her family and the 4 elders.

 Trying some blood sausage that Luci made, not bad, better than liver.

 We had Rebeca, Cristy, and Karolina at the house helping to cut, coat with parmesan, and fry the chicken breasts. Rebeca and I had already made the cakes and icing when the leaders came. We had costco hot dogs with sauted onions, macaroni salad, rice, tortillas, salsa, and spiced veggies. There were between 60-70 people!

 Now the servers in the kitchen get to eat.

Serving up the last of the 75 pieces of cake. None was left.

Tamales and making cheese at Hna Esther's house

Hna Esther's oldest son, Noe,  who lives in SLC is at the border of Mexico and Guatemala coming for a visit. He got held up there with some cars they are bringing down to sell. We are celebrating without him by eating tamales.

 Elder Jimenez wanted to learn how to make cheese.

I did too, so we got to squeeze the milk out.

 Massaging the cheese to make it smooth, adding a little salt, and rolling it into balls.

Primary activity and teaching the Castros

 We had the primary over to make chocolate chip cookies and brownies. They wanted to eat them all, but I old them they could eat 2 and take a bag home for their families.

We found out that some of their families didn't get any, so we took some over to their house Sunday.

 Gregorio and Rosita turn 12 this year, Kurt is autistic and turns 9 in July.

 Jr is a 7 yr old investigator, his 2 older siblings got baptized last week. After Alan pulled out his guitar, a couple of the kids wanted to strum it.

 We went to Michelle Castro's house to teach her family how to make lasagna. They were excited to learn and also want us to show them how to make cupcakes.

Madison, Mallerly, Karla. Michelle, and Uri, Yuly is in the background.