Our favorite subject to photograph!



 

Hermanita Herrera

This is my sweet little friend, Hermana Herrera, who spends 4 days a week, every week, doing initiatory work in the temple, arriving about 9:15 and leaving about 12:30.  She also happens to be in our home ward so we took this photo today.

Random Thoughts and Observations

* We spent 835.00 for groceries this week!!  Every time I see that much money rung up on the store's cash register my heart goes pitter patter and I quickly have to do my math...it was actually only $107 with an exchange rate of 7.8 Quetzals to $1.

* Our Sunday meetings start at 8:00 am.  With only 2 wards using the chapel I don't understand why we have to start so early...I'm sure it's because WE are here now and it's just our luck.  But just to make sure I'm awake and stay awake the building is kept nice and cold.  There is actually no heat source except a little bit of sunshine coming through some of the windows (these windows are situated in the premium seating!) and everyone is bundled up with coats, neck scarves, hats, and gloves which are never taken off for the entire meeting time.  We have open-the-windows type AC with ceiling fans for the summer months!

*  Speaking of church...oh my gosh  you would not believe what these people put up with!!  Ok, so our church building is very nice, fairly new, BUT... Sunday School and then Relief Society meets in the cultural hall right behind the chapel with accordion doors as dividers.  Just about the time RS is having opening prayer etc. the next ward starts their meeting in the chapel.  So we have on one side of us the next ward singing their opening song and on the other side of the cultural hall the Priesthood singing their opening song and outside across the street the Evangelicals start their meeting with a live band playing music through loud speakers for about 45 minutes, EVERY SUNDAY!!!  It's pretty comical actually and doesn't seem to faze these people at all. 

* This week we had a little hermanita come to the temple and stayed for 3 1/2 hours doing 30 initiatory names.  She didn't stop until she had to at the end of our shift. I asked her later how old she was...86 years old!  And she does this every week, four times a week!  How's that for dedication.

* This is a Latino country but strangely no one smokes and there's very few bars, unlike Mexico.  In fact you have to look hard to find a bar.  It's awesome!

* These people who come to the temple are so warm and friendly.  I love their customary hug and brush on the cheek.  EVERYONE greets everyone with either a handshake or hug, both hello and goodbye.  I love it and think we need to adopt this custom in our temples at home.

* I know I'm repeating myself, but the driving is HORRIBLE!  So aggressive!  But we have discovered a secret...you can do just about anything you want while driving as long as you turn on the car flashers!  You can stop in the middle of an intersection with your lights flashing and it's okay...no one is bothered.  You can even park your car in one lane of a two-lane main street during rush hour, blocking traffic for about a mile, leave your car unattended, and as long as your flashers are on everyone takes it in stride (except me).  Traffic police are non-existent.  We had to make a trip to Guatemala City last Monday for Visa issues, which is a 116 mile trip, and didn't see a single speed limit sign on the highway.

* One of our gringo friends has a motto I've tried to adopt, "If you stay flexible you won't get bent out of shape."   We've discovered that a temple schedule/work assignment is only a suggestion and can and will be changed without warning!

* The speakers in Sacrament Meeting are really excellent, well prepared, and NEVER read their talks, including the youth.  We were told that 60% of our ward has joined the Church in the last few years and typically have about 150 in attendance every Sunday.  Church starting time must be a suggestion also since about half the attendees come after the Sacrament has been passed!

* I had my first experience with a non-public bathroom in an office we needed to visit.  I asked to use the bathroom and was directed to this little room with a toilet and a big bucket of water sitting next to it for "flushing" purposes.  The pipes on the sink (for washing hands after using the bucket) were not connected either...thank goodness for that bottle of hand sanitizer in our car!

For those of you who are reading some of the entries on our blog who may not be members of our Church, you may be wondering why we don't say much about our actual mission, which is working in the temple.  We consider the work done within the temple to be sacred and we don't discuss it outside of the temple. 

We spend five days a week, about 7 hours each of those days as temple missionaries and work with the people who come to participate in the sacred temple ordinances.  Sometimes they travel for hours to be here, often at great sacrifice.  The vast majority of  them do not own vehicles so they have to use buses, taxis, bikes, or just walk the distance.  But they consider temple work to be a blessing and are happy to be here.  They are so very humble it makes me realize what a blessing it is in my life to be given the opportunity to be here to serve them.  I recall one sweet little lady who I was helping...she was nearly half my height and when she looked up at me waiting for my help, she had no front teeth but was smiling and was so childlike it made me think of the Savior's teachings to be humble and teachable as our little children are and I felt an immediate love for her.

The people who come from the highlands are Mayan and have 22 different dialects.  Many do not speak nor understand Spanish.  Many do not have running water or electricity, cook their meals on fires, and live in very rough circumstances.  We are always happy when they come to the temple because we know that it's at great sacrifice on their part and they want to be here.

On Sundays when the temple is closed, we sometimes travel with the other temple missionaries to visit the members of the Church who don't live near the temple to encourage them to be faithful and attend the temple as often as their circumstances will allow.  Each Monday is our Preparation Day when we clean our apartment, shop for necessities, do laundry, or sightsee.

Ken and I consider this opportunity to be temple missionaries a great blessing.  We love the work we do within the temple, we love the Savior and are blessed to be able to serve Him and to serve with wonderful faithful people, we love each other and are very happy.

The next time you need to get something
from here to there and don't have anything to haul it in, do what the Guatemalans do...use your head!  Notice the strap around her head and in the photo below.

Everyone has stacks and stacks of firewood, both for heat and cooking.  The man carrying his load of wood down from the forrest is a very common site.

 

We watched this man carry 12 - 2 x 4's about 10 feet long up the road and then up this hill to his home...but what was amazing to me is that he was an old man!  These people have such a hard life.

NEVER, EVER complain about your state DMV.  We had to change the title on the car we purchased a couple of weeks ago and what a headache!  It took 4 1/2 hours just to do the paperwork, then add 2 hours for the round-trip drive to the town of Totoniocapan where it was supposedly faster. The whole process required us to hire an agent, a notary, a CPA, and an attorney, and go to the bank 3 different times to pay different fees, AND utilize a bishop who worked in the DMV to "expedite" our papers.  It really wasn't that fun.

But while we were waiting for the agent to do some of the paperwork for us we walked through the Mercado, which is always just fun. 

We always buy our produce from the mercados.  The fruit and veggies taste as good as they look.

 

This guy below was truly a snake-oil salesman.  He promised these people that the pills he was selling would keep their hair from falling out, cure their liver and heart problems, relieve their aching back, and strengthen weak knees.  Oh, and what a deal...it was 2 for the price of 1 today.  I had a hard time holding Ken back from making a purchase!

The last couple of Preparation Days we have been out of the city the entire day with no time to add to our blog so I will try to catch up today. 

Two weeks ago President Perez took all of the temple missionaries to Lago de Atitlan, one of the main tourist attractions in Guatemala, which is situated halfway between Xela and Guatemala City and is believed to be the Waters of Mormon.  Hundreds of feet under water ruins have been found.  There are twelve tiny pueblos surrounding the lake named after Christ's twelve apostles and which are accessible by dirt roads only except for Santiago, which we visited by taking a boat across the lake and which is surrounded by volcanoes. 

 



Our boat ride took us from this dock straight across the lake to Santiago, situated to the left of the volcano.

While on the boat ride across the lake, Ken took this photo of one of our missionary friends, the Juarez's, whose house was the one destroyed by the earthquake a year and a half ago.

Brother Juarez is also a Patriarch in his home stake besides being a temple missionary so each Sunday morning around 6:00 a.m. they walk the mile down the hill to the bus terminal and travel an hour and a half home so that he can fulfill his responsibilities in his home stake.  Ken just loves this man and loves to tease him.







While in Panaache, the town where the lake is accessed, we took a ride in one of their little tututs.



        

 

Ken has found his new retirement dream spot...apparently there are some who live in or visit Guatemala who are not poor!  This little paradise is located just as the boat was approaching the pueblo of Santiago.

 

 

The proprietor was upset with me for taking this photo and asked me not to take any more.  These are all hand-woven fabrics, custom designed, and he thought I was trying to copy his patterns.  Aren't the colors just beautiful!

 

Some of the merchants came aboard our boat just prior to us leaving Santiago to try to sell just one more blanket or trinket.  This little girl had an easy mark with Ken...after he teased her awhile he bought the little hummingbird key chains.

 



 

I gave my first talk in Church last Sunday in a little branch in San Marcos, about 1 1/2 hours from Xela and I'm telling you...I LOVE Bing Translator!  Good grief I can't imagine what I would have done without it since Spanish is coming poco a poco.  I wrote the talk (with the help of some wonderful General Conference talks), put it all into a Word Doc and then copied and pasted it into Bing Translator, and bingo, had my talk in Spanish (is that cheating???).  I read it out loud so many times that I was making Ken crazy...my accents were not quite right and for the life of me I couldn't get it right, so he came up with alternate words for me to use so I would stop reading it and go to bed!  Anyway, I have never read a talk in church before but it was the only way I could do it in Spanish and speak for ten minutes.

We had 88 people in attendance that day, which was average for the branch and they all seemed pretty attentive.  One of the men came up to Ken and I afterwards and thanked us for being there to support and encourage them.  He was really sincere and we felt that if we only affected that one man in some way, it was well worth the effort.  This city experienced a 7.4 earthquake 15 months ago with the epicenter near one of our chapels, with only minor done to it.  But I found an article in the Church News that was written at the time it happened which indicated that 10,000 structures were either damaged or destroyed, many of which belonged to members.  The following day we were visiting with one of our missionary couples here at the temple and found out that they are from San Marcos and their home and some of their children's homes were totally destroyed and haven't been rebuilt yet, but here they are on a mission!  What faith.  What commitment to the Lord.  They're not young either...75ish.

For those temple missionaries from Guatemala who are really poor but want to serve, they can live in the annex here by the temple in one of the smaller apartments and they only have to pay $100 a month for rent.  President Mortenson told us that a member of the Church in the U.S. sends to the temple about 10 Visa debit cards each month with $300 on each for those couples...$100 goes for their rent and the rest provides their food and necessities.  Pretty skimpy, but they are so grateful to be able to be here to serve.  Just really humble people. 

While we were in San Marcos Sunday, we arrived a little early and were outside the chapel just kind of visiting and noticed someone opening the steel door/gate to the house across the street...it was a young girl leading a cow out of the interior courtyard of the house!  We watched her dad then lead the cow up the street...in a residential neighborhood!  The brother who was with us explained that anyone who owns an animal of value always brings them in at night and keeps them inside the courtyard of their home so they won't be stolen, and then leads them up the hill in the morning to graze on the mountain grass while someone is standing guard!  Which is why they have a rope on their pigs and goats and cows, so they can stake them down while grazing and keep an eye on them!

This morning's walk was enjoyable as usual.  Since Ken is fluent in Spanish, he loves to stop and talk with the people as they are working in their fields or constructing a new home, washing their clothes, or selling their goods, like this woman.  She's got a basket full of fresh chicken parts (including feet) that she's selling door to door to her neighbors.  Notice the scale she rigged up to weigh the chicken...one side has rocks in it and in the other side she puts the chicken in until the scale is balanced! Pretty ingenious, don't you think? 

 

And she also rigged up a little cart to carry and push the basket of chicken up and down the street

 

 

This street is made of pavers.  Notice the house on the end and the house on the right...

 

--

 

 

This is the house on the end up close...

 

 

...and the house on the right.

 



This home had no windows, just plywood or blocks, and no door.  They were cooking in the little aluminum room on the side.

 

And this is a house down another street with a ten foot high wall and steel door at the "gate" which just happened to be open today when we walked by so we could  take a photo of it..  Most houses in this neighborhood fall in between these two extremes.

 

Here is a lady buying something from her neighbor's tienda.

 



Most days Ken and I go for a walk up the street/hill/pothole road from the temple and these are some of our favorite photos of our neighborhood.  Each day brings a renewed gratitude for the things I take for granted back home and an appreciation for these people in their humble circumstances.  We love to walk through this neighborhood exchanging buenos dias greetings with everyone we pass and to stop and visit with some.

 The first photos are of our local lavanderia where the women gather each morning to do laundry and sometimes wash their hair in a community pool.  I think the motion of mom scrubbing the clothes is rocking the baby to sleep...obviously unfazed!

 

 

And this lady just left the pool with her wet, clean clothes climbing the hill home.  Scheesh...I can't even balance myself on one leg without falling over...can you imagine balancing a heavy load of wet laundry on your head and climbing a hill???

 

And I thought doing laundry was a pain in the neck!  Pretty typical for them to not have any yard for a clothes line either since houses are jam packed together...I don't have any idea how they get up on the roof to hang clothes.

 

 

 

Many in the neighborhood are business people with tiendas in their homes selling bags of cement or hardware, tortillas, groceries, freshly-made bread, breakfast, or fruit and vegetables.  The photo below shows a home with a small grocery store...with a little window cut out in the doorway where they serve their customers.

 

 

These ladies were making corn tortillas to sell from their tienda with the baby nearby while mom was working in the family business.

 

 

Never, ever complain about how hard life is...we don't have a clue!

 This is the central plaza in downtown Quetzaltenango, or Xela (pronounced shay-la, the city's nickname) with a few vendors. 

 These are some of the friends we traveled with from left Jeanine Brown and Zoe Maes, Ken, and Patricia and Paul Mortenson, who have a car and take us shopping (he is in the Temple Presidency), all are just really enjoyable people.  We have truly been blessed.

Lunchtime!

So, the Mortenson's, who have been here since last July, took us all to El Mercado de las Americas to buy fresh fruits and vegetables and it was awesome.  Dozens and dozens of vendors line the street on either side with their produce displayed in beautiful little piles.  The street itself ends up with mostly pedestrian traffic and enough room for one car to drive down it - however often cars try to go both directions and in Guatemala the pedestrian never has the right-of-way.  It was a fun day to go see this and the produce was really tasty - straight from their own little farms.  Our favorites are the mangos and bananas...la fruta y vegetales son mucho mejor! Aren't the colors beautiful!

I'm pretty fascinated with these Guatemalan women carrying their load on their heads.  We saw one this morning on our walk and Ken stopped and asked her how much the basket weighed...40 pounds!  I don't know, it's got to be doing something to their bodies....maybe that's why they're all so short!  And half the time they're carrying a baby on either their front or back in a sling. 

This is the view of the temple from our apartment, and I haven't zoomed in!  Isn't it incredible! We live in an upstairs apartment so we always have a beautiful view of the temple, the grounds, and the city lights at night. 

Speaking of the grounds...they are beautiful, of course, with a crew of about 10 people cutting, trimming, and washing every day.  Because the wages are so low here, the Church has taken the opportunity to employ many people...the grounds crew, four security guards 24 hours a day, people working in the annex to maintain it, and three separate crews who come into the temple 3 times daily to clean and maintain the interior.  We have 4 security guards around the clock, one at the gate and 3 who walk the grounds constantly.  And I don't know how many other employees, but having the temple here has given many families employment.  We saw a man scrubbing the wrought iron fence last week (around the entire complex) and then this morning another man is cleaning the same fence again.  They scrub the exterior walls of the temple, top to bottom, they scrub the exterior walls on the planters.  Bottom line, they really don't need as many people working but it's providing a living for them and the temple is beautifully maintained.

We arrived in Guatemala City on January 16, were met at the airport by the temple president and his wife, spent the night in Guatemala City in a beautiful hotel and traveled to Quetzaltenango the next morning, which took about 4 hours to travel about 130 miles!  From the moment we left the city we were traveling the entire time in mountains and hills that were green and lush with little farms dotting the landscape on every hill.  According to President Perez, the families who farm on these hills make about 20 quetzals a month, which amounts to about $3. There are 30+ volcanoes in this area, some of which are active.  Just before our arrival one of the closest volcanoes spewed ash all over the city and the cars in the temple parking lot were covered in ash but the breeze blew it away quickly. Since the temple is situated on a hill, breeze is a mainstay. We stopped at a "scenic view" on the way, part of which was a beautiful lake and which President Perez indicated was thought to be the Waters of Mormon from the Book of Mormon.

When we arrived at the temple and our new digs for the next 18 months, Dad and I were shocked at the wonderful apartment we have been assigned to live in...literally across the parking lot is our temple.  From both the bedroom and the living area we have an incredible view of the temple.  It's hard to think that in a third world country we have been blessed with such comfortable new surroundings.  The temple sits on a hill overlooking the city and from anywhere in the city the temple and angel Moroni can been seen.  We took a taxi home from shopping and simply asked the driver to take us to the Mormon temple and he knew right where to go.  It's quite stunning, reminding me somewhat of how stunning the San Diego temple is. We live in a what is referred as the temple annex.  All of the temple missionaries, proselyting missionaries, and patrons visiting the temple live here.  The patron part of the building is separate from ours and can sleep about 60 people.  The people will sometimes travel 3 or 4 hours by bus to get here and since they cannot afford to stay in a hotel and  have no where to leave their children while attending the temple, they can stay here for free and there are people here who will tend the children.  One of the couples (the Browns) have been assigned to help with this every Saturday as well as other volunteers. They bring their own food and cook meals in a couple of kitchens provided for them.  As you can imagine, Saturday morning was just bustling with people and little children laughing and running around.  They seem to be very happy despite their humble circumstances.

We have some wonderful new friends also. We met and traveled with the Maes who are from St. George, Utah, and the Browns, who are from Prescott, Arizona, and spent our 3 training days in Salt Lake City with them and about 25 other couples who are going all around the world to serve in temples...Hawaii, Brazil, England, Dominican Republic, Korea, Germany, Sweden, Mexico, Nova Scotia, Washington DC and others. The Maes live in the next-door apartment and the Browns live downstairs.  The counselor in the temple presidency, President Mortenson, is from Kentucky and has a car here so he and his wife took us all shopping Saturday afternoon to get some food!  Gee, I forgot how much it costs to stock a kitchen!  And I wasn't prepared with any kind of shopping list, so Dad and I ventured downtown Saturday night with Ernie Maes to get the stuff we forgot the first time.  Spent $200, looked around our kitchen and tried to figure out what we bought to eat!  Food is more expensive here and it makes me wonder how the people manage to live on so little income.  President Perez said that the people who work in a government-regulated industry earn $30 per day; everyone else doesn't fare as well.

Church today was a great experience too.  What I noticed different from when we attended church in Mexico is that there were as many men as women in attendance, all in suits, lots of families.  The teenagers are especially friendly coming up to us to shake hands and welcome us, just like our experience in Chile. The people are very warm and friendly giving hugs and air kisses and big brazos to the men, and about half our size!   Apparently we will be traveling every Sunday to the different wards and stakes and have been assigned to speak every Sunday somewhere.  That should be interesting with my limited Spanish!  And the topic will always be the Savior and His Atonement and the temple, my favorite topics!  It will be a great way to see the a lot of the area in and around Quetzaltenango.  There are 15 stakes assigned to this temple district, so the people are far-flung.

Dad and I are very happy to be here and feel so blessed to be able to.