Semana Santo Celebration in Guatemala

Small Miracles and Promised Blessings

Today our daughter, Jenny had her operation. The operation was a great success and when the doctor went in to operate, he found that the tumor was not attached to the nerve he thought it was attached to but a much smaller nerve and he was able to remove the tumor easily. Instead of the expected 3 hour operation, the operation took one hour. It looks like our beautiful musical daughter will not lose her voice. We are grateful for whatever blessings and miracles we receive for our family while we are far away in Guatemala and we want to thank all of you for your thoughts and prayers. In the MTC we were promised blessing for our families while we were serving and if this is the kind of blessings our family can receive, we just won't come home. Sometimes we are so busy with life that we fail to notice the small miracles and blessings that come our way or instead of giving credit where credit is due, we say, oh, I guess there really wasn't a problem, we didn't need to worry. Hmmm . . . We are grateful to Our Father-in-Heaven for countless blessings.

Semana Santa

This week things were pretty much shut down in Guatemala for the Semana Santa Holiday. We only worked Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday we went with the Tillys, Tomkinsons, Graffs, and McArthurs to participate in the building of an Alfombra. They are closing streets all over the city for families and friends and neighborhoods to make Alfombras. They are colorful carpets of brightly colored sawdust and sand for the huge floats with scenes of Christ's life to be carried over. They are supposed to represent the palm branches carpeting the street for the Savior's entrance into the city. The floats are enormous and some of them take hundred of men to carry them. They can only carry them for a short distance and then they change with another group that is waiting along the way.
One of the interesting things was to watch the float of Mary that the women all in black, with lace scarves, and some with long black gloves were carrying. It was very hot that day. I got a sunburn.

It was fun to actually be down in the streets with everyone. Making the alfombras is a real family affair. They work really hard on them and then they are trampled on by these hundreds of men carrying these huge floats and then they just sweep them all away. The best most intricate one we saw was the one we helped on (not much). It is designed and directed every year by a young man who is a member of the ward. Some are very simple This is the colored sand and sawdust that they used.

There were people selling everything everywhere, from hats, to parasoles, to scones, and Pizza Hut pizza. The last picture is one of the huge floats they were carrying while it was still in the cathedral.