Baby Kit delivery with Sister Ochoa
The death toll from the Fuego volcano has risen to over 110 with two hundred still missing. It is the rainy season here, and the search has been hampered by heavy rains mixing with the ash and forming a hard cement-like crust. The area president, Adrian Ochoa, visited the area, and many LDS volunteers have helped prepare supplies for the many displaced people. The stake center in the nearby town of Escuintla has been turned into a shelter for some of the displaced people. No missionaries were injured, but a few members are still missing. We are also planning to volunteer in Escuintla this week if help is still needed.
We flew to San Jose, Costa Rica and met with the mission medical specialist. He is a podiatrist who is smart and dedicated, but who didn't get the usual missionary medical training before he came down. We were able to do some training with him and his wife, and will send more material down in three weeks when the new missionaries go from the MTC here to Costa Rica. Mailing things from one country to another is a problem here. So we sometimes use the elder courier technique which leaves the MTC every three weeks.
All the missionaries have been pulled from Nicaragua because of political unrest there. Initially they pulled the gringo missionaries out and left the Latin American missionaries, but then they pulled all of them out. One of the mission presidents and his wife will be staying here in Guatemala until it is safe to return to Nicaragua. They will be living in the apartment building where most of the other senior missionary couples live. We all pitched in and helped to provide some of the items they will need in their apartment when they arrive.
We were asked to escort a sister who had been having health issues from Costa Rica to Oakland California. The Church travel asked me if we wanted to stay overnight or fly back the next day. I don't want to waste the Church's money, but I'm too old to fly 24 hours on planes. We opted to stay the night and fly back the next day. They booked us on an afternoon flight back to LA, then a red eye flight from LA to Guatemala. We got back at 5:30 am, went home and went back to bed.
While we were in Oakland, we shopped for some items that senior missionaries down here had requested. Not having a car, we took a taxi to Walmart. We were trying to find a Magic Jack internet phone. Online it said they had one, but they didn't. They looked up other stores and found one ten miles away which did have one. We took another taxi there and got it. The first Walmart had patterned onsies on a closeout for $1 each. That's a little cheaper than we can have plain ones made here in Guatemala. So we bought all the right sized ones they had, about 50. Also baby caps for 50 cents. After the taxi fueled shopping spree, we went back to the motel, picked up our luggage, crammed all the onsies and caps into our suitcase and took the shuttle to the airport.
On the shuttle to the airport, we were the only passengers. We visited with the driver. Last year he was shot in the stomach by a 14 year old boy who was demanding a transfer on the bus he was driving at the time and the boy refused to pay for it. The driver needed surgery and was very angry at the boy. He said he hated him! When the case was going to trial, the driver had the feeling that if the boy were convicted it might ruin his life, so he elected not to press charges and forgave the boy. He said his wife was really angry with him, but that he felt strongly that he shouldn't do it. Even though the boy was probably still punished in some way, we were impressed that this bus driver was able to forgive.
We had a four hour layover in LA and called our son Jon to see if they could come to the airport and visit us while we waited. They are about an hour away, so it would have been a little inconvenient for them, but they agreed to come. Then the airline announced that the flight would be delayed. It ended up being two and a half hours late, and we ended up with only an hour and a half layover, so we missed seeing Ben and his parents.
Sunday at Church the power was out so Patsy couldn't play the keyboard despite having practiced the songs. The microphone was also out, but the speakers could be heard. Apparently high winds blew tree branches into the wires feeding the town and shorted them out. I wonder how much food in the town spoiled.
The Primary leaders have been complaining that the kids are bringing their toys to Primary each week and that they are distracting and causing the kids to fight over them. On Sunday during priesthood a primary worker came in and gave one of the dads a kitten that his son had brought to Primary. Not a toy, but still distracting! Patsy again did her new assignment as primary song leader. She's determined to teach them to sing on key. We took a laptop with the piano music on it, had them listen to it a few times, but when they sang, the kids drowned out the music and they drifted off key. The kids do love to sing though, whether on key or off!
A few of our Primary kids
President Cluff's apartment with all the senior missionaries in the Guatemala City Central Mission
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