Today was our second Sunday in Guatemala.  We have been assigned along with another couple to a small branch close to the temple area.  The people there are quite poor.  The speakers were 2 high councilmen and they did a great job.  One talked about using the Book of Mormon more in our lives and the other one talked about how our testimonies fluctuate.  He used a candle as a prop and lit it to show how our testimonies can fluctuate with the different things that we do such as reading or not choosing to read the BOM, pray, gossip etc.  I guess they have a problem with people talking poorly of one another and being offended.  The people participated very well in the classes.  There is an Elder Walker there from Utah and his companion is Elder Garcia from Nicaragua.  They usually pair a North American missionary with a Latino.  The Johnsons who are there with us will be gone next Sunday so we may have to drive ourselves there.  HOPE WE CAN REMEMBER HOW TO GET THERE.
     A couple of days ago, Dale let the office elder take the truck to the area office for an errand.  It is only a couple of blocks away.  They returned after a long time and somehow had run into the side of the building on the way up and out of the parking lot.  We had just had the lecture from the Pres. about how it was dangerous for the elders to drive such a targeted truck.  The Hilux is the most stolen truck in the mission.  Now we have a truck with a large scrape all down the passenger side.  It is a 2011 with not very many miles.  Oh well, I guess it's broken in now.
      We spent part of the day Thursday and Friday visiting and inspecting the apartments of the missionaries.  I must say that I was impressed with most of the apartments and how organized and orderly they were.  Here and there we ran across something that needed to be addressed but overall they are doing a good job.  We surely would like to help them have the very best conditions they can to make it easier for them to do their job of teaching the gospel.  Dale is very conscious of safety and has done a great job.  We have many more apartments to visit and we hope to be on top of getting them the things they need.  A great concern to him is the calentadors in the showers which are hooked to electricity to heat the shower water.  If they are installed wrong, the person showering could be shocked.  We hope to make some improvements there.  We would also like to improve the White House where the AP's take the new missionaries for their first night.  They didn't have water for part of the day and they are a storage area for some of the mission things.  We hope to help them get their area cleaned up and organized. Elder Shippley and Elder Castro have been with us for inspections and are doing a great job.
     My Spanish seems to get better every day but I find myself making mistakes quite often.  At least I am starting to recognize them now.  Dale and I need to do our language study but it seems that is the time when the sick missionaries call.  We have had about 20 calls so far.  Some are serious and some are not so serious.  An elder called tonight to say that his companion had what they thought was the chicken pox.  The American missionaries get a vaccination but the Latinos don't.  He was exposed at an investigators home.  He had an itchy red rash all over with weakness and headache.  That means that they will get to stay in their apartment until this elder's scabs are not crusty for 2 days.  I think the hardest part was when I told the elder that he would not be able to go the hour and a half on the bus to e-mail.  He was very conscientious about caring for his compaion and was willing to stay with him for the duration.  I will call daily to see how they are doing.  The first thing they are told that they should do is have a blessing and they do have district leaders  and ward members who can be of help to them.
     Most of the missionaries eat at a comedor which is a person, sometimes a member who charges them a set amount and feeds them usually 2 meals a day.  They get cleaner, more healthy food and they don't have to spend time making it.  The sisters usually do their own cooking.  They have a hotplate, a small fridge, and a microwave in most of the places.  Because they are eating with someone else, the food they have on hand is minimal.  I think the most food any of them had was one shelf full and most of them just have frosted flakes.  We are encouraging them to have a weeks worth of food on hand.  I think it might be easier to teach that principle since we have the elders with chicken pox as an example.
     We had a fun P-day on Saturday.  First of all we went for a walk in the morning around the embassy homes.  There is an area very close where many of the embassies are located.  They are beautiful and have flags of their countries in the yards.  This is a safe place for us to walk and it is very close. We then headed to a place called Megapaca which is like Savers in the US.  We found a fun rug for our living room area that just matches for not too much.  We went with the Murrays and the Bowers.  There is a relief map of Guatemala next to the dental clinic where some of our missionaries do dental repair work.  The map was interesting and was surveyed in the 1800s and is supposed to be 99.99% correct.
     The dental clinic was very nice.  It is next to an orphanage.  The girls there were very cute and hungry for attention.  The older girls were making bread for dinner.  The younger ones had painted the dog green for St. Patricks Day.  We took lots of pictures and laughed a lot with the girls.  There are about 80 or so girls and over 300 boys in another area.  They are supported by donations and most have some family member here but they are unable to care for the children so they put them in an orphanage.  Most do go home for a short while at Christmas.  The dental clinic does all their dental work, the dental work for future missionaries and work for the Seniors with no compensation.  They used Church provided funds for the building and they work off a large donation by individuals.
       We spent some time at the Mercado Central and that was fun, also. It is like most Latin American markets.  There is a great variety of crafts and the flowers are gorgeous and not much.  There are so many new fruits and veggies you would never imagine.I got a new purse that can hold the phone and my reference materials for helping the sick missionaries since I carry that all the time.  Enough for now.  It's just that there is so much new and I don't want to miss recording it.