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...

 

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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!