Proverbs 28:25

Well, we were studying Preach My Gospel, and, we ran into a scripture that pretty much describes our mission, 

He that is of a proud heart stirreth up strife: but he that putteth his trust in the LORD shall be made fat.

We have really had to put our trust in The Lord , and, yes we are fat.

We are almost constantly sick with stomach pains and other related issues.   We blamed it on parasites.   But, we have concluded our problem is not parasites.   We are just suffering from food poisoning!   We decided that we will probably have food poisoning two or three times a week and we just need to endure it.   We think the culprit is mayonnaise.   Here, mayo is not refrigerated.  Big vats of it are on shelves in every eating place.  If you order French fries, they will come smothered with ketchup and mayo, and with a toothpick to pick up the fries.  We now just order our fries with ketchup and a side of salmonella.

We found a jar of pickles in another town at a walmart.   Now, the nortes ( North American missionaries) really miss pickles because generally they are not to be found anywheres (by the way there was only one bottle at the store).  We keep this bottle in reserve because we can barter it for almost anything including indentured servitude!

We drove to another town to attend a meeting hosted by the area 70, president Morales.  All of the stake presidencies were invited and us, the mission presidency.  It was a priesthood meeting so Kathy had to wait in another room of the Church.  (We obey the missionary manual all except for emailing once a week.  We have to communicate with our kids more that once a week because of all the normal issues of a family, but we are almost always are in site of each other and we do almost everything together.  So, we went to this meeting together.)  the area 70 "blasted" the stake president about lost sheep.  For example, one stake has 1200 names of people baptized but have no idea where they are.  With all of that, the spirit the area 70 brought was wonderful.  He is a leader close to a God.  In one minute he is reproving the Stake presidents and the next minute he is reading a scripture and crying.  It was a great experince.  We had a break and gary asked him if we could leave early because we do not drive great in the dark.  It is a three hour very hard drive home.  He said no problem and gave gary a Big hug.  Thanking him for his Service.   It is nice to be appreciated.

We asked our president if we could leave for home About 3 weeks early.  We want to be home for our 51st anniversary since we were here in Guatemala for our supposedly very important 50th anniversary. Then, we got to feeling guilty.  Maybe we were pushing our will and not the Lords will.  So, Kathy said, get word to the president that going home early was just our request,  but, we want to do the lords will even if it ment extending,   This happened in the morning.   In the afternoon Gary noticed that Kathy was really disturbed.  He finally got her to tell him her feelings.   She was un-repenting from our repentance earlier in the day.   She was fighting the conflict between doing the lords will and wanting to go home, and never to extend our mission.  We decided that we would trust in The Lord that he would realize all the hard work we have done and send us home for a reward.