Matthews Mission in Guatemala: From here to maternity

Thoughts of the AMA and his wife - with our newly acquired permission, we visited the maternity hospital again and passed out some more new born baby kits. A couple of the other senior missionaries had made some kits, so we took them along. We wore the one size fits no one Mormon Helping Hands vests.
On the Fourth of July, we had lunch at the MTC. They served hamburgers and fries and chili and red and blue Jello with white whipped cream on the top. A very fun and patriotic meal for the missionaries! Guatemalan Independence Day is September 15th, so it was kind of strange to not hear fireworks at night or have any celebration activities going on in the city. That evening the senior missionaries had our own Fourth of July dinner (hamburgers again), together on the roof of one of the apartment buildings, and we sang patriotic songs. It is the rainy season here, but the weather was good for us.
Friday we organized and attended a conference for all the mission nurses in Guatemala. In most missions there is a young missionary who serves as the nurse part time and proselytes the rest of the time. In one mission we have two nurses who split the missionaries according to language. Three of the mission president's wives came plus the MTC nurse and the mental health advisor. We anticipated a fourth mission president's wife, but her husband had surgery, so she cancelled out at the last minute. The night before we had a dinner at our apartment for the nurses who had arrived from out of town. That night and also at the conference, they shared ideas and bonded. Being able to meet people who are doing the same thing decreases the isolation that they sometimes feel in their mission. We have great nurses down here, so they make my life a lot easier.
Sunday we had lunch with the same members from our branch that fed us two weeks ago. They have a nine year old boy. We wanted to get something to thank them for their hospitality. After some thought, we got a Spanish edition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for him. He read a little to us, and it's obvious that he's a pretty good reader. He kept looking at it until his mom told him to move it so he didn't spill lunch on it. The book may be the only one he owns, so it was a real treasure to him!
In Primary, we are teaching a song about family history "Family History, I am Doing It". Saturday we went to a dollar store and bought a lot of notebooks and labeled them My Family History Book and gave them out to the kids and told them to write spiritual experiences and family experiences, or if they were too young to write, to draw pictures of their family in it. They were really excited about getting them.
After lunch, we visited a couple of families that the branch president assigned us to minister to. I had visited one of the families before with the elder's quorum president. In the first house, we recognized three of the girls from primary. They all ran up to Patsy and hugged her! One of them was holding her family history notebook we'd given her in primary. We were sitting on a patio talking, and Patsy leaned back a little against a hammock that was behind us. She felt something bump her and noticed little noises. One of the boys in the family came over and pulled out his little 3 month old sister. We were thinking it was a cat or something asleep in the hammock and were surprised. The babies and kids down here are very cute.
We had a nice visit, then went to the second family's house, but they weren't there, so we went home. I was pretty tired by the time we arrived, and took a nap, but as is usually the case, drifted off into a restful sleep, then was awakened by a call from a nurse. I enjoy the work, but it is sometimes stressful.