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.
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