EL TEMPLO

Good bye Schroder

We got a call about a week ago.   The man said in Spanish that we have a new car for you.  We have needed a new car since we got here.   Schroder ( our old car) tries her best and has gotten us to places we should not have gone, but the kind of roads we travel just were not ment for Schroder.  And, she was in a real sense, falling a part.  We were not to excited because we have been told of a new car in the past and it never happened.  Well, we got in the car and drove to Guetemala city, a hard 5 hour drive.  We were worried about having to come back in the dark, which is very dangerous.  We got to the city and immediately got lost.  We could see the place we were supposed to pick up the car but we could not get there because of the divided roads.  We were very frustrated.  We take our frustrations out in different ways.  Gary gets mad, and Kathy cries.  Well, we finally got control of ourselves, said a prayer, and got on a road that took us to the place.   At the church area office, a guard directed us to to a ramp that went under the building.   And, they took Schroder, we signed a paper, and, got in the new car and drove out!!   All in about 15 minutes!  There we were in a brand new car, it had about 40 mikes on it, and, we were in shock.  We got a Toyota Rav4 four wheel drive.  The car is high off the ground and has big wheels.  Perfect for gigantic holes and bumps.   The ride home was lovely.  Here is the car.

EL TEMPLO (the Temple)

We have not been to the Temple since arriving here.  The is a new Temple about 1.5 hours a way in a town called, Xela (Quetzaltenango).   Well, the current mission president has implemented a new plan.   For those missionaries that are finished with their mission and are going home, they get to attend the temple.  (In the past, temple attendance was limited to those zones that achieved a very hard baptism goal).  We have two missionaries leaving.  In order for them to get to the 8am session they would have to catch a very early, and, miserable bus.  We stepped up and offered a ride,  We have mentioned before about spiritual highs, well here we are at the highest so far.  It is hard to describe how wonderful attending the temple was.  It was all in Spanish with a new presentation.   We had interpreter devices for part of the session, but, Gary's broke immediately.   For some reason, we found the Spanish presentation to be very uplifting and inspiring.  We were just amazed and felt blessed to be able to attend the temple.  We drove home, and got a call, that one of our zones had reached the goal, and, we went to the temple again the next day!!   We prayed in the temple for increased help with the language and we are being helped.

SANTA MARATHON

Miracle of conversion

We might have mentioned some time ago that we went with the missionaries to visit a family.  We were invited to talk to the couple about marriage.  They were having marital problems.   We gave our testimonies about how our membership in our church has helped our marriage and family.   The young wife is not a member and seemed very disinterested.  The husband is an inactive member.  They have a one year old son.   So, we did our part and went home.  We thought about this little family often with sadness.   Well a month our so later, the missionaries asked us to join them with this family for a family home evening.   We were not expecting much out of this meeting.  When we entered the house we could actually feel a radiance of happiness.  The wife came in to the room, and, we were shocked by the change in this women.  She radiated with the light of the Savior. She had prepared a family home evening with hymns, prayers, handouts, scriptures and Desert!  We had a wonderful experience with this family and we literally floated home on a cloud amazement and joy.   We had witnessed a total change and a spiritual birth of a daughter of God.  A week later she was baptized.  And on Sunday she was confirmed and received the Holy Ghost.  She was crying when the blessing finished.  She really was overcome by the spirit and was born again.  Here is a picture of this family.

Miracle of the keys.

We keep a copy of the keys to all the missionary apartments.  We have 14.  The missionaries in San Antonio area changed apartments and we had missed getting a copy from another apartment.  So, we had two keys to get copies.  We had lots of things to do this day.  We made a stop at a church to give some items to missionaries that were having a zone conference, then we went several other places and finally to the key copy place.  Kathy realized that she did not have the keys!!  We panicked.   These missionaries would not be able to get into their houses, and, it is near impossible to find the owners to get more keys.  For a while we just sat in misery wondering what to do.  So, we turned to fervent prayer.  Kathy thought she had them on her lap when we arrived at the church.  She forgot they were there when she got out of the car.  So, they fell into the street!  Now we were mortified.  We called the zone leader at the church we visited and asked if he would check the street for two keys.  We got a call back in just a few minutes, they had the keys.  The other zone leader happened to be by road and saw two keys.  He felt impressed to pick them up!   Saved by prayer again.

Marathon Santa.

We have a zone that is having a really hard time.   No baptisms for many months.  Gary talked to them in their zone conference to encourage them and Kathy suggested they do an activity to get contacts.  She told about a New York zone that in Central Park shined shoes and gave out hot chocolate in trade for a name and address.  We said we would helped them in any way we could.   A day later we get a call.  The zone leaders had an idea.   They wanted to set up Santa in the town center and take photos of Santa with families.  The missionaries would deliver the photos later if they would give them their contact information.   And, they wanted us to be Mr. And Mrs. Santa Clause!!  They had to find a Santa suit.  Oh how we hopped they would not find a suit.  A few days later we got a call, they found a suit!!  So, Saturday about 3pm, we let a competent missionary drive us to the Central Park.  The missionaries, with the help of members, set up a wonderful setting.  A seat for Santa, a decorated tree, a beautiful back drop, it was great.   Now, the kids here believe in Santa and they have little or no chance to see him.  We brought a big bag of candy and Santa, Gary, took his place.  Six hours later, at 8:30p, we finally finished.  The missionaries got 250 contact addresses.   The line to sign up was never empty.  Gary had to be a jovial loving Santa, with kids on his lap.  There is no place for him to conveniently go to the bathroom.  The only decent place to go is at a dominos down the block.  Santa can not just walk down to dominos with a heard of kids following him.  His beard covers his mouth making it impossible to drink or eat without raising his beard.  How could he remove his beard with 40 or 50 people looking at him intensely.  The crowd never went away.  His only choice was prayer.  He told Heavenly Father that this activity was so important for the missionaries to save souls.  Gary got a response!  "Focus on the children, they are very close to God.  So he did, and he loved and enjoyed the children. And, the time went by fast and Gary never weakened.  Kathy was on her feet the whole time ushering people, handing out pamphlets.

We only had three drunks, two men and a really old lady. 

The whole event was a blessing to all of us, but, we are still dealing with the physical effects. 

Here is a photo of the scene.

KATHY THE MOUNTAIN CLIMBER

Our weekly schedule includes rotating through the zones attending their meetings, attending a different ward or branch each Sunday, and visiting a different missionary house twice a week.   We have recently started going out with the missionaries after we check there house.  We go to work with them for an hour or two.   This work has become the highlight of our week.  And, believe it or not the missionaries love it. 

We went out contacting with one pair of our sister missionaries.   Sister Lopez and Sister Beckstrand (the Latinos can't say her name so they call her sister Becky).   It is hard to put into words how impressed we were with their work.   We knocked on two doors and the sisters talked their way in.   The family consisted of a middle aged lady and her mother.   The mother was in a wheel chair and here age is 94.   She can't here very well so her daughter has to yell in here ear.  The missionaries immediately showed their love to the elderly lady hugging her and trying to talk to her.  She likes singing, and as the missionaries always do they start with a hymn. The love and concern of these sisters filled the air, it was a wonderful experience.   And, as allways they got contact information and closed with prayer.  They knocked on another door, and this time it was a daughter taking care of here aged and invalid parents.   The pattern was the same with the same wonderful spirit.  However, We need to tell you about the old man.  He was sitting outside and then wanted to come in to visit with us.  He had a walker and it took him about 15 minutes to go 5 feet to another chair.  And with each step he let out a groan,  needless to say Gary did some reflective thinking about what we would be doing at that age, he is only 10 years older than us!

We will tell you about another visit after a few more comments.   

Thanksgiving was interesting.  One district of about 10 missionioneries talked a member into killing one his turkeys.  Of couse they videoed the kill, or muderer it, and then got the feathers and other things off and out and sent two missionaries to our house with the turkey in a bag.  The next morning we started to cook the turkey.  It had no breast what so ever!  We got a call from the leader missionary pleading for mashed potatoes.  Some how or another we bought potatoes, peeled, cooked and mashed two pans of potatoes in about two hours.   We feed about 30 missionaries.  It probably was a miricle.

Schroder, our car, had an incident.  We checked traffic and turned right onto a road and immediately got side swiped.  The guy was traveling so fast that we didn't see him approaching.  We we have no idea what happens when you get in a wreck here.  So, Gary got out and we checked his very nice car.  It was only a scrape.  I checked Schroder, just another scrape of many.  So, Gary said to the driver "está bien" which means "it's good".  He agreed and drove off (we found out later that's what you do here if it is no fault).  We went to drive off and a man signaled to us that a part came off Schroder.   We took the part home.  When we got home, Gary placed the part in the front and it snapped in!  Schroder is amazing.

Ok, now, we went out with a pair of elders.  Elder Lopez and Elder Wilkes.  We drove the car up a road that went up a mountain.  When the road ran out, we got out of the car and we started to walk up a tiny trail through the jungle straight up a mountain!  The total climb was less than a hundred yards and it took us one hour to climb it.   We finally got to this house literally built right on the edge of the mountain.   Concrete walls, dirt floor, corrugated steel ceiling.  We taught two inactive women.  A middle aged women and a 16 year old pregnant girl that planned on getting married in a few days.  As before, we sang, prayed, read scriptures, gave blessings, and the spirit was wonderful!   After lots of hugs and goodbuys, we started down the trail.  After a terrifying hour we reached the car.  What a great experience.

Here is a picture of Kathy on the trail.

Here are the elders

Here is the primary of a small branch just after they finished their sacrament meeting primary presentation