Cha'bil Culonic, Bienvenidos, Welcome

    This was probably the busiest week that we have had here since our arrival.  We put in longer days than usual but loved every minute.  The stake from Senahu arrived with 2 buses on Tuesday afternoon and stayed till Thursday morning with 80 people and the second group came on Thursday afternoon and stayed till Saturday morning with another 30 people. 

Senahu is about 8 hours from Guatemala City and these are the buses that they traveled in.  It is a town were the indigenous Mayan people live.  ' These people are small, most men are about 4'8'' to 5' and the women are 3 1/2 ' to 41/2' tall.  They wear beautiful hand made skirts and blouses and are so loving.

  The only problem is that they don't speak Spanish!  They speak Q'eqchi', or Quechi' as the Guatemalans call it, or Kekchi as the internet describes it.  It is an old Mayan language that is nothing at all like Spanish.  We were blessed to have 4 women and 7 men come the week before to learn how to best help this week.  They are temple workers who speak both languages. 
     Here is a few examples of their language:
Thank you --  Gracias --  Bantiox herman  (the x is pronounced as sh)
What is your last name? --  Cual es su apellido? -- Ani 'LixVuelt la' aca'ba?
My name is -- Mi nombre es -- Lain in ca'ba
And to make it even harder, the vowels and consenents have different sounds than in Spanish. All we could do was give lots of smiles and hugs and use a lot of sign language to communicate.
     The first group had 27 children to be sealed to their parents.  These children were in the temple nursery Wednesday morning, and of course they don't speak Spanish, so one of our Quechi' speakers had to be in the nursery.
     We asked a group of them if we could take a picture and that led to the following pictures.  These are very poor, humble people.  Not one of them had a camera and none of them have internet so we will develop the pictures and send them to the mission president in that area so that he can get them to these families. 

                                                             Jacinto Rax family

                               Ignacio Che and his wife, they wanted the traffic in the picture

                             Carlos Sacul and Manuela Maquin with Ignacio Che and his wife
     By noon on Saturday, we had completed over 300 endowments and the temple was still filled to overflowing. We had sessions every half hour.   The laundry was piling up faster than the workers could get it washed and ready to be used again.  I am sure that our Father in Heaven was smiling this day.  We had English, Spanish, and Quechi' patrons in the temple all day.  We love this work, service that we are able to give.
     As we were walking one day this week, we spotted this ahead of us.  We know that this soil is rich volcanic soil and that the rains are coming daily but a tree growing out of a man hole cover right in the middle of the street?

As we got closer we found out the answer to this puzzle.

 There is new cement around the man hole cover and the tree keeps the cars from driving over it until it is cured.  It has been there now for a week and is starting to look pretty wilted.

     Today is garbage pick up day.  The garbage is put into the big white bags and hauled off in the trucks.  This is the driver taking a break.  There is usually 4 or 5 young men running from door to door to collect the garbage and bring it to the trucks. 
     It started raining last night around 6:30 and has not stopped yet.  The skies are gray and it looks like it could rain for the rest of the day.  We have been lucky all week and got a walk in either before the rain or after a storm.  Today may end our luck and we may not get to walk. 
     We are enjoying our time here in Guatemala City and love serving in the temple.  You are all in our prayers daily and we love and miss you.  May our Heavenly Father's blessings be with you this week.  We send our love to all: Dad and Mom, Grandma and Grandpa, Lon and Nancy