This evening while we were walking to visit Gmo at the cave and this cute little 5 year old boy named Jorge comes running up to us and gives us each a kiss on the cheek. He was so excited to see us! Kass even offered to buy him a taco and he declined! It proved that he wasn’t just talking to us because he wanted something! It felt really nice. We asked him if he knew where we could buy a bottle of water. He told us that his dad had a store a couple houses down! We went with him and met his dad and mom. They are awesome! The dad is a brother of the branch presidents wife, Anna. We love her! She is an amazing lady! We hit it off really well with them and took some fun pictures. They gave us some tortillas with beans and we talked for a long time. After a while, this man came over and talked to us too! His name is Chico. He helped us carry the pila today so he came up to say hi to us! He is an older man and he has some mental problems. I am not quite sure what they are, but when he talks nothing makes sense. He speaks in jumbles. We think he was part drunk too. We had a fun little dance party with him. He kept asking for pictures, and we are so glad he did! He was so hilarious! Totally made our night. They invited us over for dinner tomorrow night. We are excited to go. People are so friendly!
Dance lessons!
We told Chico to do a sexy pose. This is what he came up with! :)
Little kids that we teach English to! We love them!
We love Lorena! She is such an awesome lady. I have been looking for these specific aprons ALL over the place here. Everyone has them, but they seem to be so complicated and hard to find! Everyone says you can get them in Coban, but they don’t have designated stores for them and I didn’t happen to see a lady walking around selling them while we were there. Lorena called me when we were in Teleman and said that she was in Teleman at the market and that she found some really beautiful aprons! She helped me haggle them on the prices a little bit. I am so excited for them!
The next night we went over to her mom’s house because she was sick. We visited them for a while and they gave us some delicious avocados! People are so giving here. We went back the next day to bring some medicine for her mom and to take pictures. They asked if we wanted to wear cortes for the pictures, so we did! It was really interesting and they were fun to wear!
Kassara's boyfriend! He was the cutest thing ever!
They tie the cortes SO tight! I was suffocating.
They came up with a few different poses for us!
When we showed this picture to the family they all started laughing hysterically! We will print a copy off to give to them :) Autographed.
We delivered another pila today! It was so awesome because the family didn’t know that the pila was coming so it was a total surprise! When we were coming up the hill with the pila the grandpa came down to see what was going on. We told him we were bringing this pila for his family but that we needed some strong men to help us lift it. He asked what he needed to pay for it and we told him nothing! He was so excited and brought a few others to help us carry the pila. The family was really shy while there were a bunch of people there, but when there were only a couple of us left they told us thank you from the bottom of their hearts and they said that they hope god gives us all of the blessings that we are in need of. It was so sweet.
Kassara drinking the lovely corn drink that they so kindly served us! As you can tell, she is thrilled! It was actually an accident, but it was so applicable to the situation that we had to get a picture!
Us with Angela, the girl who works at Lorena's comedor. We love her! These are Paca outfits :)
Kassara's cute grandma shorts.
This week we have been helping at a dental clinic in Teleman. Four senior couple missionaries were called on dental missions and have traveled all over guat setting up dental clinics. They are all former dentists and their wives work as their assistants. Ashley and I cleaned instruments and painted fluoride on teeth (felt pretty weird after being the big shots in Ecuador). Teeth here are very bad and the dentists spent most of their time pulling teeth. One lady had 27 teeth pulled. It has been so hard telling people they need to get teeth pulled, especially the little kids.
We LOVE all of the senior couples we have met during the Dental Clinic! They are all so fun. One night ash and I decided to stay in a hotel in Teleman instead of waking up at 6 to drive here. We went swimming and to dinner with the Elders and had such a great time! We learned a lot of cool things about them and their families and even had a little dance party.
Elder and Sister Call. We called him, Jimmy Neutron, and Sister Call looks a lot like what we presume Kassara will look like when she is older!
The Harris couple.
The Johnsons!
The Wilcox.
Elder and Sister Kirk were actually called on a security mission and cover seven countries in South America. Elder Kirk is a retired FBI agent and is such a cool guy! We loved hearing all of his crazy stories about his work and just talking with him. He told us of a time he was stranded in the middle of the ocean by Haiti on top of a capsized boat for three days. We had no food or water and was surrounded by sharks the entire time. We are so intrigued by his life.
On the first day brother Call set Ashley and I down and taught us all about fluoride and how to handle the really little kids. (He taught dental work at a college before his mission). He taught us to have the mother hold the child and lay their head in your lap, if the child cries his mouth is open and it is easier to get to all of their teeth. Well while I was working on a little two year old this way, elder Spradlin ran over and insisted that I stop. He said “We have a policy here where we don’t force anyone to do something that they don’t want to do,” and ripped the child away. I was furious. I wasn’t hurting the child, it was a little paint brush and I was protecting the child from real pain later on in his life. Yet he was codling the child making me look like the bad guy. Dr. Call came over and told Dr. Spradlin to leave me with the children and let me do my job. I knew what I was doing and had been instructed by the dentists. He compared it to immunizations asking Elder Spradlin if he didn’t immunize his children just because he thought they would cry. After that there was quite a bit of tension in the room but it all calmed down. I was glad to have the support of the dentists.
Elder Spradlin, hard at work.
Sorry if you have a weak stomach, I think this stuff is fascinating, but Kassara wants to throw up! This poor lady had to get 27 teeth pulled. She doesn't have any left :(
Our awesome hotel room! It felt like a suite! There was an air conditioner!
Painting nails in between painting teeth!
Cute little branch president! He always has the funniest inappropriate shirts from the states but has NO idea what any of them are saying. The day before this he had a shirt that said, "Bad A** Coffee. Coffee with Attitude." Pretty hilarious to see the president of your church wearing something like that IN the church! haha.
Painting flouride on teeth! Kass and Elder Cheeny.
3 Ket outfit from the pacas! 36 Cents total. It was actually really cute!
Precious little baby I found!
Sterilizing instruments!
These pictures really capture our personalities!
Nat making sure I am doing it correctly! She is the sterilization queen!
Dr. Johnson lives in Spanish Fork so I (Kass) started questioning him to see if he knew any of my family. Trying to remember who still lived in Spanish Fork, I asked him if he knew Harold, or Carolyn. He told me he knew Carolyn and Russell and that he had been camping with them. He went on to say that he knew and loved the whole family, but that his favorite was Quay. I almost started jumping in the air when I told him Quay was my Grandpa. SMALL WORLD! My grandpa and him were good friends growing up. I called my grandpa right after that and let them talk to each other, it was so fun. After that I showed Richard Johnson pictures of my Grandpa, his kids, and his grandkids. He was really excited to see pictures of an old fun.
Elder Johnson’s wife Anna Lee is hilarious! She reminds me of what my mom Michelle will be like at her age, so spunky and full of life. When we were cleaning up on Tuesday she started dancing around the clinic, Elder Call told her that her dancing wasn’t missionary approved so she quickly covered her name tag with her hand and kept on dancing; she didn’t skip a beat. We love that Lady!
Paca shirts!!! 12 Cents YO! This was gangster day.
On Sunday we took a truck to yalitux with Guillermo and his brother in law. It was a two hour ride in the back of a truck. Such a beautiful ride! On the way I (Kass) wore on of the nasty 80’s jacket we bought. We bought it for 5 kets (60 cents) and Guillermo said we got ripped off. He is not a fan of our ugly clothes. But after being in the rain for a few minutes he stooped to our level and borrowed one of the cute 80’s jackets. So cute!
These were our Paca outfits for the day! Kassara's jacket actually ended up being cute-ish! I think if she took the shoulder pads out it could be tolerable! Maybe my fashion sense is a little off since being here! I love my gross Mumu! It was quite comfy. I think it is the sickest thing in the whole world but I literally had 6 people come up to me today and tell me how beautiful my dress is. It's fun to be a trend setter for once! :)
Us with our favorite Ice cream queen, Aura! She is so sweet.
Today we went to deliver coats and sweaters to some of the families that live up on the mountain behind our house. We made 3 stops!
These are the cutest boys! Jaime and Otto!
Our favorite family!
The really sad family with the neglectful mom :( We love these kids.
