Dia de los muertos Sumpango style

     Thoughts of the AMA   We are getting toward the end of the rainy season. Since I watch the rain from inside a warm, dry apartment through a large window, I will miss the incredible rainstorms we frequently see during the rainy season. I admit, if I were walking around with wet shoes and having doors slammed in my face, I might not have the same attitude.
     I had to fly to and from Texas a couple of weeks ago to help a missionary who was going home for medical reasons.  Houston has a nice airport, but the eight hour layover was a bit much.  I would have asked to come back the next day, but we had to deliver some new born baby kit components to volunteers at the American embassy who had graciously volunteered to assemble them. 

    

 It took Patsy a little while to get everything ready.  

     The next day we took the components to the embassy. We called our contact and they got permission for us to come inside the fence to the building. Security was tight. To prevent a car or truck from ramming their way in, there are tight turns that couldn't be take at speed and  reinforced hydralic ramps that must be lowered to allow access.  They even looked under our RAV4 with a dinner plate sized mirror.  We dropped off the makings of 250 kits.  Two days later I went back to pick them up.  Again I called our contact, but no one answered.  Security sent me around to the receptionist who took my passport and called our contact.  She came out, greeted me and said she'd meet me around the back.  I walked back around.  She talked to security, but instead of letting me back in, they told me to go to the exit gate.  I parked there and they said to wait.  I parked and listened to two conference talks.  Finally they brought the stuff out on a couple of wheeled carts and we loaded it into the car and I brought it back home.
     On Halloween the area legal counselor's family invited us to a dinner and a costume  party.  We dressed as Mary Poppins and Bert. Showing great ingenuity, Patsy came up with some great costumes.  I was going to smudge black shoe polish on my face to appear like an authentic chimney sweep, but Patsy came up with some brown make instead.  We tried to drive the 5 miles to the party during the mega rush hour the night before the Dia de los Muertos, but had to turn after only getting half way there after two hours and completely missing the dinner.  Honestly I could have walked to the party in that amount of time.  Fortunately we had Hermana George, the mental health nurse with us to keep us sane.

     The next day, Dia de los Muertos ( Day of the Dead) is a national holiday.  The various Mayan people have various customs to honor their ancestors.  In the fire ceremony, they arrange food, sugar, tobacco and drinks, then set them on fire so their ancestors will be fed by the smoke.  We visited Sumpango, a mountain town north and west of Guatemala City with an elevation of over 6,000 feet.  There they decorate the graves of their ancestors with flowers, food, drinks and money that their ancestors would have enjoyed.  Our guide said that the next night, kids get into the cemetary and take the money and drinks.  So the people come back and think their ancestors got the offerings.  Some reconstitute the dirt mound over the grave and paint it and decorate it with flowers.
 

     They also make kites from dinner plate size to forty feet high.  They paint them and fly kites

 up to about twelve feet in diameter.  After the festival they are all burned, then in about six months

they start over

The crowds are enormous, enterprising people relieved missionaries of

a phone and some money.  I was hoping they would steal  my mission phone

anxious to get a better one, but no one bothered.

This is not a giant satellite dish, it is the back of a kite

In the Popol Vuh, the ancient Mayan creation story, men were first made from mud,

 then wood, then successfully from maiz or corn.

Back of a kite, notice the size of the bamboo poles and the huge diameter

Boy standing on a raised grave monument flying his kite

     Sunday we taught the primary kids a new song about being thankful.  Patsy had them play a game where they would pull an object out of a sack and we would talk about why we were thankful for it.  In order to let all the kids have an opportunity, we have all their names on popsicle sticks and pull one out of the container at random.  There were only about 25 kids there and we kept pulling out names of people that weren't there.  The kids love to sing.
     Sunday afternoon we went to the CCM where Elder Ulisses Soares talked to the missionaries.  He told of serving as a branch president on his mission.  His mission president told him to consider who should be the next branch president.  He taught people and considered which of the members might be able to replace him.  He baptized a number of people including a family.   When he left the mission president called another missionary to be the branch president. Years later a fellow approached him and introduced himself as one of the children in the family he baptized.  The fellow had served as the branch president and eventually bishop of that ward and later president of that stake.  Elder Soares explained to the missionaries that the results of their work might not be apparent for many years.
     He also talked about the process of assigning missionaries. He goes fasting and prays before he starts the session. He  talked about receiving revelation in the assignment of each missionary.  He says it takes four to six hours to assign each weeks missionary candidates.
     Sunday night we went to a devotional given by Richard Hansen, who is in charge of the archeological work at the Mayan site of El Mirador.  His talk was informative and fascinating.  He discussed the Lidar radar results which show that there are hundreds of previously unknown sites.  It the area he is working in, there is a pyramid that is the biggest pyramid by volume in the entire world.  Unfortunately, El Mirador is only accessible by helicopter. 
     We are following the progress of Jenni's pregnancy.  We have received permission to come and help her for a few days, but have no clue when it will happen, so we haven't bought our airplane tickets yet.  We appreciate everyone's prayers and support on her behalf.