Sorry, the squirrel hides tacked up to dry got away

We celebrated our 41st wedding anniversary yesterday.  We are grateful to  be together and to be here.  We are loving it that we get pictures and videos from family members.  We appreciate all of you who share.  Even though we are busy, we check the computer every morning and when we return to see if there is a message from family or friends.  

Yesterday was our branch conference.  We were back up to the 64  people attending (counting the district people).  The new building isn't adequate for this many, but we didn't notice much.  Four of our students played.  Rod says we could have had 5 and set a record if I'd played my hand right.  We had another student ready, and the meeting closed early.  We counted for the district president, and it is about 15 students here in Aguadulce.  

I do love this work. 

Abdiel is one of our most diligent students.  I think he can play about 20 hymns.  He is quiet and modest.  His grandmother sits there through each lesson.  It reminds me of how much I liked it when my Daddy would stand behind me and sing while I practiced hymns.

I was teaching the other son of this family while Rod worked on English with the father.  He is our branch president.  They're reading Blueberries for Sal together.  Rod has him read the books to the children in Spanish and then they work through it in English.  Rod speaking: This time, his wife, a piano student wanted to participate in having her English pronunciation corrected.  So we read each passage twice.  I always have to peer at things, the amount I can focus on is getting narrower and narrower.

When we visited a family this bird was eating his neatly peeled mango outside their house.  I love the colors.

This is a student's mom.  We made bread together.  It doesn't turn out as well here as at home.  It's still fun to do.

These students are throwing mangoes into the tree to make more mangoes fall down.  They are just letting this tree go by because they have others they like better.  These are sweet and wonderful to me.                                                                                                                                                                                                        We visited a town about 20 K. away with a student on Saturday.  Rod loves just to go visit new country, so it was fun for him.  This was where we saw old (60 years) adobe homes still in use and squirrels tacked up on the side of the wall to dry.  And me without my camera.  The grandmother told us that this was the first time her home had been blessed with a visit from North Americans.  She was very gracious.  They shared "Bastante" mangoes with us, and we shared "odd or even", my mother's game, and a hymn and a prayer with them.                                                                                                                                                                                                                        We visited a woman who is slowly slipping into activity without realizing it.  She had much to criticize in the branch, legitimately so, except that criticism isn't legitimate in the eyes of the Lord, I expect, and it appears that she is on the "High Road".  I am so sorry as she is a fine person with lots of good traits.  Enduring to the end starts taking on new meaning as we watch members here.  We visited a widow who needs much help.  I have been thinking about the talks about welfare in the last conference and trying to figure out what we should do.  There is a lot to do.     Hope all of you have a great week.                                                                          

 

 

 

Variety is the spice of life

I wish I had taken a photo of my favorite part of this week. It was a time when, as President Eyring teaches "There are few things sweeter in life than knowing that you were an instrument in the Hand of the Lord.

We have an English student, Carlos, in Penonome who is a returned missionary of a few years and who was slipping away. We asked him if he would consider teaching a missionary prep class partly in English. He said yes, so we asked the Branch President if he would support this. He also said yes, so we got Preach My Gospel in both languages for each student. When we taught piano to Jaan and Angel last Thursday they were excitedly asking for help in English pronunciation. Their text was "My purpose as a missionary is to invite others to come unto Christ..." It turns out a retired couple from Arizona have agreed to help as well, so it should really be worthwhile. Sweet!!!

We volunteered to sing in a school for handicapped children that we walk by each morning. We sang to three different groups but our camera battery died after this group.

Some children had to participate in a different manner than others. The teachers were helpful in giving them the opportunity.

Rod is losing his inhibitions. He dances with people, and helps me all he can. I can't thank him enough for his support and patience. This mission is more my comfort zone than his, but he never complains.

Antonio, in the blue, greeted us at the mini-super on the corner one day. Afterwards we met him at the school and made the connection to sing.

Karyme is a piano student in the Las Tablas branch. They gave us these marinon(cashew) fruit. I love the beauty of the plate of fruit (to say nothing of the beauty of Karyme). I saw a plate of these at a students house several months ago and was sorry I hadn't taken a photo. Then here was my opportunity, and Rod indulged me in it even though it was raining and he had to pick them. Like I said, "He's awfully good to me".

We are amazed that the half starved dogs don't eat chickens. This family told us that sometimes they do, but these two seemed contented together.

The parents of our branch president's wife are not members. They visited while we were teaching one night, and as I met them I misunderstood and thought they were inactive members. I shook his hand and said "It's about time you came. When can we come to visit you?" Luckily he didn't take offense (I think). However, when we came, the next week, he was already in bed. He works construction in the sun all day and goes to bed early. We'll try again. It was a great night with the family.

Oriel Jordan and Rod made a stomp rocket. We had a lot of fun. Some of the excitement at this house was to make sure the rocket didn't come down in the open sewer. It really is nasty. When we park I have to hold on to the side of the car to avoid falling in. Yuck!!! When we got home we took it to the mini-super where we bought the supplies and showed them. Then we played with the kids in the street. After we'd had enough they continued with our landlady and her daughter as audience. It was a lot of fun for everyone.

We read the book Cookies with these kids a few times so I suggested we make cookies. They were jumping up and down and laughing in delight as they took turns beating the eggs and sugar with my hand mixer. We did have a good time. They recently lost their father. Life can be hard.

More of the cookies. They were raisin cookies but they didn't turn out wonderfully. I realized that they have to have the walnuts for me.

Unfortunately Rod isn't reading cookies but Where the Wild Things Are with them as we wait for the cookies to bake. We are so grateful to have good books.

The gospel is still true. Blythe gave birth to a baby girl, Taylia Joy on Wednesday, May 17. Deryk's new baby boy, Adam Deryk, was born April 28. I tell you this to let you know that being here and missing that wouldn't be worth it otherwise. We love the work.

The Rainy Season is Coming

I wonder how Joseph Smith kept on keeping on in the early days of the church.  There must have been many days of discouragement.  I would be dishonest if I said that there were not days here like that, but I am grateful to be serving.  I want to follow the prophet and to make my life count for something each day.  Today at church four of our students played, one hymn each in the Sacrament service.  They are progressing, and the church will be blessed for their service.  Two of their siblings also played when I brought the keyboard to primary. 

While returning from Las Tablas on Friday, it was dark and raining.  We ran over a piece of metal that made a loud bang and flew off in the darkness.  We continued on and in front of a well-lit mini supermarket, Rod heard noise and stopped to check.  We had a flat tire.  Unfortunately we couldn't loosen the lug nuts with our cheapy little tool that came with the car.  I tried hammering while Rod stood on it and we got one, but couldn't get the others.  The owner of the mini sent a child to get her uncle.  He came and really stomped the tool and got them loose and changed the tire.  We continued on safely to our next two appointments, and then on home about 10 p.m.  The next morning we took our tire in.  It had a hole about 2 inches long in it.  I don't know how we traveled to a safe place on it.   We felt like we had a bit of "Hand of the Lord" that night.  I don't know how we could have done it out on the road.  We now have a pipe to help the length of our tool.  We tried to buy the tool like a cross with more length, but of the 4 different types of sockets none fits our car.

This man is a friend from our morning walk.  He was mending his nets.  He fishes for large shrimp, and manta rays break into the nets. He offered to sell us large shrimp for $4  a pound, but when we ordered them they weren't there and we haven't seen him since.  We'll see.

I can now hear people speaking sometimes and the other day I heard a woman say "every day in the same clothes they come".  This is my walking outfit.

Edilsa was our first student to play in Las Tablas.  She works ironing clothes in a store next to the church there.  We come, bring lunch, and give her a lesson.  She loves to work with Rod on English, too, and has a good mind.

This is the bag of mangoes we received from the Trejos family last week.  They are all gone now.  We eat them for breakfast diced with raw oatmeal and milk.  They are delicious.

This frog had the misfortune to be in the street at the wrong time.  He is flat as a pancake, but nothing seems to be eating him.  He's just there drying out as best he can in this rainy season.  It is interesting to see how many frogs of different sizes just go jumping across the road. 

The gospel is still true, and it's still fun to be here together.  We hope everyone gets the opportunity to be so blessed.

Gruel and Unusual Punishment

We met in our new location today.  We had a bout 35 or 40 people.  The chapel we have now is no larger than before, but we have more teaching stations and we are told they have plans to enclose this outside area where the primary met today, add air conditioning, and make a large chapel.  We'll see (at this point, we did have water, but no electricity, so we used the keyboards with batteries -- and no fans).  My job as I see it, is not to become discouraged, but to do my part the best I can so that I am clean before the Lord.  We went yesterday and cleaned to get it ready.  A single sister and a recent convert helped us (interestingly, they didn't come for the inaugural event). I was really glad when we got there today, because it was very disorganized (branch president had to work and 1st and only counselor is sick -- Elder's quorum president came through and did fine), and at least 'clean' helped.   I had to go home for sacrament bread, and I discovered that I could use the keys for the house.  I'd never had to  before as Rod is always with me.

 One of our students in Chitre, Javi, gave us this "hand" of bananas.  They are called guineos manzanas, I think.  Apple bananas.  They have a very thin peel and a sweet, not starchy texture.  I thought there was no way we could eat them all, but we only wasted a couple.

 Aida gave us guaba.  This is the cockroach in a cocoon returning.  It still isn't my favorite.  I thought her use as a pistol was a pretty good one. 

 This is Aida's landlady.  She has a mango tree that they claim is the best anywhere.  I don't agree, but I thought it would be fun for them if I tried eating one like the natives.  It's a good thing they have an outside sink near.  This lady makes drinks for us each week.  The last one she made was a thin, tepid, sweet oatmeal drink.  I told Rod I never would have thought anyone would have thought gruel was a treat.  He quipped back "Gruel and unusual punishment".  I love his desire to make me laugh.  My life is much lighter because of it.

 Everyone got a kick out of Rod's pretended juggling with the mangoes.

 These are almonds, I think.  My landlady says she doesn't eat them.  I opened them to this stage of pink and she says people eat the pink part.  I can't get it more open yet as my hammer can't crack it because it isn't dry.  We'll see.

 Gladys has her own home smoke house but she only had just this one small piece of meat.  She gets it dry and the smoke changes the flavor.  She cooks for the missionaries for lunch each day.  She is the first member of the branch in Las Tablas and had church in her home for about 5 years.  Her husband was the branch president.  The church has fluctuated in this area for many years.  Our job is to try to take some part from fluctuation to steady growth.  I think we'd better start praying more.