Can you believe that another week has come and gone. Wow, where does the time go?
On Thursday we went with the Roberts to buy a few groceries and then to the hospital to pick up Hermana Gardner. We stopped at the Ihop for dinner as a group to get Hermana Gardner some time with us to relax and laugh a bit. We had never been to the Ihop here before and it is right on the way home from the hospital so it worked well. We pulled into the parking lot and the attendant told us that they had "reserved" parking for us. "Please follow me". We immediately realized that we were "Senior" missionaries and must look quite feeble when he had us park here.
Hna. Gardner, Hna Thompson, Los Roberts.
Hna Roberts and I were surprised that he could tell that we each had a bad leg even before we got out of the car.
That started our dinner out with smiles and we enjoyed having breakfast at 5 in the afternoon. The food was very much like in the States and it was fun to be together.
Elder Gardner continues to improve slowly. He is still in ICU but yesterday began to eat soft foods and he tries to talk in sentences, though most of the time it is hard to understand him. He seems to be able to recognize people and answer yes or no questions correctly. He tires easily and sleeps a lot. He will have a new CT scan this week so hopefully it will be more positive news.
We have 6 men who are our Temple Security and keep watch over the temple day and night from their guard house just inside the temple grounds. We also have a security company that provides another 2 or 3 men daily to protect us and the temple on the streets around the temple grounds. Whenever we leave the temple, one of the guards follows us home and makes sure that we get inside our gates safely. When we leave our apartments, one of them follows us until we are off the temple property. They are protective of us and we are enjoying getting to know them. However, we don't know all of their names yet. This is one of our favorites. He just told us that he joined the church 3 months ago. He has a wonderful sense of humor.
He loves to tease President Thompson and vice versa.
Well, that is about all for this week. We had a busy week in the temple. It is so fun when the temple is filled. We have moved all of the missionaries to the afternoon/evening shift, except for Hna. Caballeros who functions better in the mornings. The mornings have enough workers to be self supporting, but they have never in 30 years been without North American missionaries on the shifts. The coordinators were very nervous at first, but we are teaching and training the workers to handle every circumstance, even English when needed (and it is needed every Tuesday and Wednesday when the CCM comes to the temple). It is so fun to see the growth of the obreros and the confidence that they are gaining. The afternoon/evening shifts continue to struggle for enough obreros because of transportation issues. Some evenings we only have the missionaries to serve the people so it will be a while before we can completely be without missionaries. However, we have a bunch going home in the next three months and we know of no replacements so the locals will have to step up or the temple will have to close on a couple of evenings, Friday and Saturday especially. We pray that we (North American Missionaries) can eventually not be needed here and that the people will become self-supporting and run this temple only with Guatemalans. There are enough Stakes in this temple district to accomplish this.
We send our love to all. We pray that you have had a wonderful week and that the next week will be even better. Lon and Nancy, Dad and Mom, Grandpa and Grandma
No comments:
Post a Comment