1st 2 weeks of August

 Drinking coconut juice at hermana Luqui and Harry's house.

 We taught Michelle and her daughters, Mallerly and Karla, how to make cupcakes from scratch.

 We're finished, now we just have to frost the second batch.

 Everytime we leave and come back to our house with the car I open and shut the gates.

 Getting cooled off after making some visits.

 We took the Garrido family and Ines out to eat burritos after institute one night.

 Florentin and Sonia invited us over for pizza they made for Pablo's birthday. He's a neighbor taking the discussions and turned 14 on aug 5.

 Very good pineapple and pepperoni pizza and I brought cococrispies for dessert.

This is the first place we lived when we came into Coban. We lived in a room with a bathroom for a month. We mostly ate pbj sandwiches, cereal with boxed milk, and fruit.

We had our last multi-zone conference in Coban where we discussed principles outlined in the Donaldson papers concerning missionary work. Since it is customary for all missionaries who will be going home before the next conference, to bear their testimonies, we both got to share ours at this conference.

 Lunch of lasagna and cucumbers and onions.

 We drove on to the capital and stayed with the Normans, the temple president and matron. They taught us how to make chinese dry fried green beans. MMM!

 We did 2 sessions at the temple and got to see the movie, Mission Impossible, at the Oakland mall. We ate Panda express and went to bed.

 The next day John and Chris took us to San Lucas Toliman and we saw the church and the went through the market. We love the huipils with birds embroidered on them.

 The market.

 Over looking Lake Atitlan, very beautiful!

 We ate breakfast at the Posada hotel in Santiago Atitlan.

The view of the lake outside the restaurant.

Chris Norman gave us 2 puzzles and we finished the first one and I will start the next one on our next p-day.

They have started demolition for the church behind our house. They brought a tractor in to tear down a few trees today. They had already torn down the out buildings last week. Sunday the primary met under one of those trees and the youth lined chairs in the shade of the church building so it wasn't SO hot, but it was by the bathroom, so the smell was not great.

Last week of July

Carolina's new job doing census counting is driving her nuts. She goes house to house from 7am to 8pm and then has to do paper work until midnight, 7 days a week for a month.

 This is our favorite place to eat in Fray Bartolome, Taqueria La Bendicion, we love their burritos. Q15 or $2 each!

 Yasen turned 6 years old today so we took a bag of candy over for him and his brother Carlos.

We are waiting for our institute students to show up, they are usually 30 minutes late.

Fray Branch member happenings

 Esther the oldest woman in the branch holding the youngest, Alfredo.

 Brandon is very proud of his new suit coat.

 Hey, they have yard sales here too!

 Look what we found at the Mega Paca in Coban!

 Ashly had her 9th birthday party, all 6 missionaries ate soup and then a yummy carrot cake.

 Birthday cake face, after we sang to her.

 Rebeca is taking beauty classes and wanted to practice on me.

The finished product.

Marriage, Baptisms, and cooking activities

 Danilo Herrera and Odilma asked for our help to get married. We helped get the paper work and then were the witnesses for their marriage at the municipality of Fray.

 All done, signed, and leaving the building.

 We taught Michelle, Madelin, and Yuly how to make pizza and parmasean chicken. Elder Jiminez and Merida happened by and got to eat some hot pizza too.

We had mutual to teach the youth how to make brownies and Madison and Karla were the only ones who came.

The elders showed up in time to wait for them to come out of the oven and to eat them. We also fed them some pizza I made the day before.

Saturday we had 2 baptisms, Alan was wearing "no grip" sandals and slipped into the river before everything started.

 Odilma and Danilo are ready to be baptized.

 The group at the river.

 Odilma Garrido first.

 Danilo Herrera next.

Afterwards we passed out brownies that the girls had helped to make that morning, as well as some soda pop.

Pizza, birthdays, and a mission call

 Dalia and her pet parrot they found on their land in the country.

 We came over to teach her how to make pizza dough, she did a really good job.

 Her mom, Glenda helped put the toppings on and we all enjoyed pepperoni pizza.

 We went to Cristina's house for Angel's 9th birthday party. Helping to set up the pinata.

 Angel watching his sister, Melanye, hit the pinata.

 Singing and then blowing out the trick candles.

 The custom of shoving the birthday person's face into the cake as they take the first bite.

 Eating kak'ik at the Caal's home to celebrate Rodolfo's 17th birthday. He's the 4th one back, on the right.

Carolina got her mission call, we've been waiting 3 days to open it. All the missionaries, her sister, and nieces and nephew were there.

She leaves Nov 13th for Pachuca, Mexico. She thought she'd stay in Guatemala and was hoping to leave in Sept, but she said she'll go when and where the Lord wants her to go.
Here is a link to her opening the letter.

Carolina's mission call