THE BLACK MOLD MIRACLE

It is cold here and Gary needs a sweater.   We shopped and shopped but we surprisingly found out that Gary is too big.   We walk to a place that sells used clothing.  Gary asks for a sweater and the guy starts laughing!!   I assume we are known here as the giant white people.  We were driving several blocks from our house and stopped to talk to the men in the water bottle truck.  We asked them if they would deliver and begin trying to tell them where are house is.  But, of course they knew. ( there are no addresses here).   We are going to call for take out pizza and just say, bring it to the house of the white giants.

Gary has parasites again.   We had to take in a sample to get tested.  Gary didn't think he had them again.  Kathy did and she won the bet.  So, Gary brought two samples in.  The real one in a little bag.  And, another fake black bag with three, one pound bags of beans in it.  (See picture)  We entered the lab, told them we needed a lab test for parasites.  The lady asked for a sample, and, Gary brought out the fake bag!!  After an aukward pause of silence, we thought the lady was going to pass out, we brought out the real one, and, we had a great big laugh!

A few days ago, we got a call from a missionary.  He said that his companion had passed out from excruciating chest pain.  They gave him a blessing and he woke up, but, with terrible pain and he could hardly breath.  We all thought "heart attack"!   They got him to the hospital and the doctor did all kinds of tests, and they came back normal!!    He did not have a heart attack and the doctor had no idea what was wrong.  Well, he got better.  So, after a night in the hospital, we took him home.  After a few hours the pain came back worse than ever.  Back to the hospital, more tests, every thing was normal but he was in horrible pain.  It was unbearable to watch him go through this.  We said a very fervent prayer that The Lord would show us what was wrong so that we could help him.  After a few hours he got better again.   An elder that was with us said "he gets better in the hospital and worse at home.  When we took him home, his room smelled musty like mold".  We told the elder that if mold was the cause we would buy him dinner (he loves to eat).   We researched black mold on the Internet and found that the symptoms were exactly as our sick missionary had.  In fact, black mold is very dangerous (it emits spores into the air).  We have to say again that prayers are answered!  However, the answer may come by means you may not expect.

LECHE DE CABRA

Every day a lady with two goats comes by our house.   We had no idea where she was going, but, then we found out.  She has plastic drinking cups on a string, and, if someone wants a hit, she milks a goat into a cup!   Yuk, a little to close to "nature" for us.

Included is a picture of a statue in our town.  If you look close, he is tilting.  We wondered why they made him that way.  Maybe the thing he is carrying in his left hand is very heavy, or, his left leg is short, or, maybe when whatever he did that made him famous, his left foot was in a hole.   After some thought, we decided that the earthquake of last November did it.

A missionary from the USA called us and said that his companion from Nicaragua was having problems.  He was fasting every few days, and, not eating much in between, and, continually out of money.   We visited them and talked to the one with problems.  He said he as not feeling well and he would start eating.  We gave him some meds and checked back in a few days to see how he was.  He was getting worse.  After a few more talks with him we decided to call our mission nurse to tell her the situation.  She said that they would have to get him therapy and so on.  This would end up probably ruining his mission.  We were really concerned.  This situation was going on for several weeks, and, all this time his companion never gave up on him.   By the way, the companion with the problem is a great missionary!  Finally, we get a call from the USA companion.   He had at long last gotten the real problem out of his companion.   IT turns out that in Nicaragua, you have to sign a contract with the church to pay the monthly mission cost, and recently, his non member parents told him they were not going to pay anymore.  So, this young man was starving himself to pay the debt.  We thought there were a few lessons from this event:   First, the courage of the USA companion to not give up on his partner is amazing.   He could of easily told us that he needed a new companion now!  Or, he could have said bad things about him to get him out, but no!  Second, the love that missionaries have for each other is something we would never have believed.   And, third, the determination of the missionary with the problem to "pay the church" was tipical of a great missionary.  The mission president will handle his problem.

By the way, the USA missionary is really prepared for marriage!

We have been here for several weeks and have had no communication with the president.  Kathy thought this was not right, and Gary said that we were doing our job and it was ok.  So, a few days ago Kathy woke up from her nights sleep and told Gary he had to email the president.  Gary, knowing that very often, Kathy gets the insperation to guide us through our problems, he wrote an email telling the president what we have been doing.   Well, the president came up here to conference with our missionaries and told them all kind of great things about us and that they could trust us!

We need to always remember to listen to our spouse!

Gary with our friends

PARALLELS

We have stayed in our house all day to day.   We have a little flue, called gripa here,  so, we stayed home.  We think the terrifying events of this past week ( high centered car by the edge of a cliff, and, the earthquake) has lowed our immunity.  Also, the water to the house has been on for just a few minutes then off.   The shower water heater is a device on the shower head.  It only heats up when there is a fairly good flow.  So, we wait around for the water to build up, run for the shower, scrub real fast, and get out.  We always end up getting the cold water, and here in the mountains, it is really cold.  But, we get along ok and just say to our selves like all the missionaries do, "that's Guatemala".

We had our 50th anniversary a few days ago.  We worked in the morning then we shopped and shopped around town.  We wanted to get something to remember this anniversary, so, we found a little on man that makes rings, and got a little gold ring for Kathy, the man in graves on the inside with our names and the date, here is the ring:

Gary got a gift also:

The most interesting gift of the day was the earthquake.   Last year, they had a bad one here that did lots of damage, so, that gave a lot of meaning to this one,  we had such a great day, we got our gifts, and, Gary got a hand made sweater ( he is too big for any pre-made sweaters we could find ) that cost about $20.  We had take-out Chinese food and we were sitting at the table eating and complimenting ourselves for such a great day, and then, the house started to shake.  Now, we lived in California for many years and experienced lots of earthquakes, one rocked us so bad that we could not get out of our water bed because it was waving back and forth.  But, all these earthquakes lasted for only a few seconds.  This one went on and on a started to worsen.  The fact that we are in a total concrete and cinder block house begin to worry us.  It finally ended, and, we spent most the night tracking Down missionaries.   Everyone was OK, a wonderful blessing.   That was our anniversary.  We reflected on this event, and thought that this is a graphic lesson about our total dependence on our Heavenly Father.   We were thinking how we had mastered the day, and, God showed us who was in charge.

After our scary situation in the mountains, we were hesitant to go back up, but, what do you do when you get bucked off a horse..  So, up we went.  This time we prayed at every split in the road, and, every near vertical hill, and we made it back and forth.  A major blessing.  At the top, there is a little town with 4 missionaries.  The town and the surrounding views are breath taking!  We thought that it was a little like reaching heaven.  Then,  we carried this theme a little further:  Our fear of beginning the trip must be similar to our feelings just before we come to this world, knowing it is the right thing to do, but, also, understanding the great risk to our salvation.  Our trip through life is dangerous similar to this trip.  There are many "Y's" in the trip that require correct decisions.  The wrong choice could be disastrous.  And, the trip does not get easier it is hard all the way, in fact, it gets harder just before the end.  However, when we safely arrive, it is all worth it.

This horse delivers its load all by itself.  We felt a little like this horse:  doing our job all a lone with a gigantic load, but stopping now and then for a little snack.

THE MENNONITE MIRACLE

Well, here we are I'm the mountains.  We have been living in a hotel for six days.  The house we are supposed to rent is a new house, small, but we like it, but, no electricity and no kitchen.  The electricity  is supposed to be ready by tomorrow, then, maybe we can move in.  A sink is also supposed to be installed.    However, we are kind of having an ok time in the hotel.  We are friends with the maids and there is a fairly good restaurant downstairs.  The only slight problem is that being senior missionaries we pay for almost everything our selves, so, we have to move real soon!

Our responsibility is sort of gone up really a lot.   We never thought our mission would be like this.  We had dreams of showing people through a visiter center that gets one or two visitors a day.   Now, we have been cast into the mountains, it is freezing, we have no warm clothes, there are no normal markets, and, we have 50 missionaries we are responsible for!  We keep buying blankets for ourselves, but, we have been interviewing missionaries in there houses, and, some are so cold, we give our blankets away!  And, every church event we attend,  they ask us to talk!  We get another time to make fools of our selves with our really bad Spanish!

In our old place, where is was really warm, we made friends with this little family next door.  The little two year old girl really liked us.   We would give her little treats now and then.  So, we moved and some missionaries moved into our house.  We got a call from the mom of this little girl.  The girl ran to the mom and said.  "Gringos have moved into their house"   I guess we got beyond the gringo barrier.  

Gary got into big trouble again.   For some reason Kathy's hair is thinning a bit on top.  It may be because of the Guatemalan hair dye she used.  Anyway, Gary thought she would feel better if he called her "captain Picard" from star freak.   It did not go over well.   Especially when he would not move the car until she pointed her hand forward the front and said "engage".

Ok, so, we have missionaries even higher on the mountains in a little place called Rio Blanco.  These missionaries have been sort of ignored since the ride up is a dirt scary roads.  Of course, we are going to do our job right, so, we took off in our Toyota corolla to Rio Blanco. The road is terrible, big holes, washed out in many places, seemingly straight up or straight down.  We finally got there In about an hour.   We had a wonderful experience there.  Two branches, really run well, and what a wonderful spirit.  Of course, we had to give a short talk.  Well, on our way to the car, there was a little mentally challenged boy.  Kathy stopped and played with him for a while, then got into the car and started to cry!  We took of, and after about 20 minutes of driving, we realized we took the Wrong road. The road was terrifying.  We tried to turn around and got the car high centered. Cliffs up on one side and down on the other.  We were really scarred and said a fervent prayer.  Well, down the road came three cars, SUV's, full of Mennonite families.  They pulled us out and helped us out of there.  There are some important principles we learned.   We always say a prayer before we take off in the car, this time we did not because Kathy was so upset.  After we got back to the hotel, we realized that missionaries are always under attack by the adversary, and prayer is our main defense.  By our praying before we drive, we have experienced miracles, saving our lives.  We missed this time and almost lost it.  However, our prayer for help was immediately answered.  We were taught a big lesson.   

Please read 2 Nephi 32:8-9.

Some mountain pictures: