First week and the work begins

  It's hard to believe that we've been in Guatemala now for a little over a week.  The time has gone by so fast! We are quickly adjusting to life here with the help of the Curtises.  Many things are different than I'm used to like not being able to get a drink out of the faucet. We have a 5-gallon purified water bottle that is delivered to us each week.  We also soak our fresh fruits and vegetables in clorox water for several minutes before eating them. I'm learning and also becoming very creative in solving problems that are not an issue back home.
  Morris and I have a big office at the Central America Area Headquarters with individual well-supplied desks and new computers.  We feel very spoiled!  It has taken us some time to sort through old files, do some shredding of past medical files, and get organized, but we are finally getting settled in our office.  Morris has been receiving many medical calls during this past week and has been advising nurses and mission presidents' wives on many medical problems - gall bladder issues, kidney problems, ankle, knee and back problems, seizures, Dengue fever, Chikungua, a lump under an elder's armpit, a missionary hit by a motorcycle, high fevers, a tumor discovered in a sister who is still in the CCM (MTC), P Day broken arm, and various anxiety and mental health issues.
  Last week, Honduras had a presidential election and the losing candidate alledged wide-spread voter fraud.  There were riots in the country, shots fired, and 14 people have been killed so far (and we all thought the US elections were scary!)  The missionaries in the CCM who were supposed to go to Honduras last week were delayed until things settled down.
 While Morris is working, I have tried to be his support system and listening ear. I have also used my free time to start learning Spanish which I can see is a necessity! We have a cute cleaning lady who comes into our office every day while we are working and even though she knows I don't speak Spanish, she tries to carry on a conversation with me.  I told her she should be my teacher and she was quite pleased!  I'm finding that I can understand more than I can speak, but hopefully I can pick up enough Spanish to get by.  At the first of the year, the mental health adviser wants me to help her with some of her clerical duties which will also keep me busy.  There are many opportunities for service here which I hope to become involved.
  We have our own car now and have been brave in driving to the office and to different stores.  I always say a little prayer before we leave because the drivers here are CRAZY!!!  There are many motorcycles on the road which dart in and out of traffic.  There are colorful chicken buses that are crammed with people and have all the peoples' stuff piled on top of the bus. These buses and motorcycles pretty much rule the road.  There are traffic rules but few of them are followed.  Morris thinks the only real rule is to not hit another vehicle, or anyone, or anything!  The food chain on the street is as follows:
1. buses rule!
2. trucks
3. motorcycles
4. cars
5. dogs
6. cats
7. goats
8. pedestrians (an endangered species)
9. rats (Morris wanted to add this)
  Overall, we feel very safe and are enjoying our time here so far!  We are enjoying our assignment to help keep the missionaries well and able to work, and we're excited for any other opportunities we may have to serve.  Comments are welcome!

Watch out for chicken buses

                                        Our office at the Central America Area headquarters   
                                 

                                                                      Hard at work!



 
 

Send off and arrival in Guatemala

  Hola mi familia y amigos!  We had a great send off to our mission at the airport by our family.  We sure love them and appreciate their support! We then flew to Los Angeles and took a 4 hour middle of the night flight to Guatemala City.  We were pretty tired when we arrived, but our friends Mark and LaFaunda Curtis who are also serving here, met us at the airport and brought us to our temporary apartment which they had prepared for us.  Our assigned apartment won't be ready until the first of the year, but in the meantime we are very comfortable. Our next apartment will be by the CCM (MTC) and the temple which is a beautiful area. 

  We spent our first day here touring the city with the Curtises and going to the places where we will do some of our shopping.  We had lunch at a restaurant with some of the other senior missionary couples and were invited to dinner at the apartment of another couple.  There are several senior couples who live in our apartment building and they are very fun and helpful.  Many of them have delivered Christmas goodies to our apartment and we have more than we can eat. The couples have been sharing with us the dos and don'ts of living in Guatemala and it has been kind of intimidating but also reassuring that we will be fine.  We do have an armed guard outside our apartment 24 hours a day, so we feel quite safe! 

  Today we attended Sacrament Meeting at the CCM .  The meeting was in Spanish and even though I didn't understand most of it, I was surprised to find I did actually comprehend a little of what was being said.  It was fun to see the wonderful missionaries and to meet the CCM presidency.  We ate lunch at the CCM with the missionaries, the Presidency, the mission nurse, and the mental health nurse.  

  After lunch we were able to see one of the apartments in the building where we will live and were impressed by how nice it is.  We're excited to eventually move to our apartment in that building.

   We had a wonderful dinner at the Curtises this evening where we were able to meet some other senior couples.  I am impressed by all the different assignments these couples have been given -- nurses, humanitarian aid, public relations, 4 dentists (who sometimes treat missionaries who have never been to a dentist and also remove wisdom teeth if needed), lawyers, office and apartment management, MTC presidency. and us and the Curtises who are AMA's or area medical advisors.

The church is very well organized in every area!  We learned last week at our medical training that in the 1980's about  40-50% of the missionaries at any given time could not go out and work because of medical issues.   Now there are nurses, mental health specialists, doctors, and great medical teams at church headquarters who have helped decrease that percentage down to 8%.  Plus the church has placed great importance on training the missionaries about how to care for themselves and practice better health habits. 

  Tomorrow we will go to the area office where we will learn about our responsibilities and the real work will begin! We feel we have an important job to do here to keep the missionaries healthy!

  We're excited for this opportunity to serve and know this is where we need to be right now.  Thank you for your love and support!

                                   Christmas tree at the CCM with a missionary tie tree skirt

                                              Great send off by our family at the airport

Provo MTC

  We just completed an intense and wonderful week at the Provo MTC (Dec 4- 8).   Our training was centered on the Preach My Gospel manual and teaching techniques, with sensitivity to and teaching by the spirit being especially important.  The curriculum is based on the doctrines of Christ and our purpose as missionaries. Although senior couples are called to serve in many different capacities, the emphasis was that we are all missionaries first. As part of our training we practiced teaching another couple and finally a BYU student volunteer.  The importance of getting to know the people, then teaching to their particular situation was emphasized. Our teachers were returned BYU students who did a wonderful job. 

   Monday night at Family Home Evening we saw a video of a devotional that Elder Bednar gave for missionaries on Christmas Day a few years ago.  He discussed how Christ was constantly reaching out to people rather than selfishly turning inward, and emphasized that we need to learn to follow Him and turn outward to help others.  Tuesday night at a missionary devotional Elder Hugo Martinez of the Seventy talked about his conversion story and how friendly members of the ward were when they first began attending.
   We were able to tour the newer MTC buildings which are used for training the young missionaries. One building has a dozen impressive wall murals about nine feet tall and thirty feet wide.  They are back lit, so the sunsets, fires and candles look incredibly real.  The effect is to create a feeling of a sacred space, almost like being in a temple.
   We were also instructed in using smart phones and tablets to facilitate giving lessons. The ability to show short videos on a phone or tablet often adds an effective new dimension to the teaching.
    We were there with about 60 senior missionaries, mostly couples but some single sisters.  We stayed in a very nice dorm room with a view of Timpanogos. We received a great spiritual boost at the Provo MTC and are looking forward to the medical training we'll receive this week in Salt Lake before leaving Friday afternoon for Guatemala.

                                    The view of Timpanogos from our dorm room window.

                   

                         The classic pictures at the map and in front of the main MTC building.