hot time in the old town tonight.

Dear Family,
Another week and this time we were only confined for the flu for 2 days. It looks like everything will get back to normal—whatever that is. The natives were pretty accurate about May being very hot and dry. However, the last few days, we’ve had some rain and, oh, it has been wonderful. It does cool it down.
Finally, we are starting to feel comfortable here and we are understanding more of the spoken and written language. It is encouraging. Maybe there is hope for us. With help from others about where the chapels are, we are becoming quite brave in hailing a taxi and giving them directions in Spanish—of course we have to practice our dialogue before we go because we certainly are not spontaneous yet. Villahermosa is a BIG city and we always hope the Taxi Driver has understood what we have said and where we want to go. We do ask Heavenly Father daily for help in everything we do. I hope He doesn’t get tired of hearing us plead for His help. We are so grateful for your prayers in our behalf. When we need to call someone on the phone that doesn’t speak English, Dad usually talks me into doing the talking and so I write out a dialogue and practice it and then when they answer the phone they never follow the dialogue I practiced----of course. Somehow we get through it. It is much more difficult to talk on the phone than face to face because we can’t see their hands and their body language. Spanish has a LOT of that.
The other day, Dad came into me and showed me a little tiny dead bug in his hand and asked me if I knew what it was. I did not. He said it was a flea. Oh, great!! That is what keeps crawling and flying around. What do we do to get rid of fleas? We do not even have a dog. There is one upstairs though. Mmmmm, I wonder if the mattress is a problem. Any suggestions? A little later after discovering the flea, Dad told me to hold still I had something on my blouse which he promptly squashed. Oh, no, another flea, I thought; but on closer inspection it was a piece of chocolate----funny!! We both decided we are getting paranoid. Maybe not—I’ve decided that ignorance IS bliss. Sometimes just suspecting is much better than knowing. We have also thought there might be critters in a couple of our drawers—and have chosen not to use them—but to have it confirmed when I opened the drawer and saw a baby rat or huge mouse scamper away into the recesses of the wall was almost more than I could take. My stomach did a flip flop and I let out a scream—very unusual for me. Dad was pretty calm, but I was not!!!
We went to another ward on Sunday to train Bishop Camas about Chapter 13 in Preach My Gospel and we find the leaders in the church here are really anxious to do things right and they really appreciate the training Dad is giving them. This Bishop is another young Bishop—late 20’s or early 30’s-- with much responsibility, but willing to serve. His ward was incredibly organized and close to 100 people were in attendance. He is a returned missionary and learned a little English on his mission. Our Mission President is really stressing that the Elders and Sisters from Mexico learn English. During Sacrament meeting at the last minute they asked me to play the piano for them. Of course, I hadn’t brought my piano glasses, so I did the best I could by sitting close enough to see most of the notes. I hadn’t brought my Spanish Hymn Book where I’ve written the English names of the songs under the Spanish titles so I didn’t even know what song I was playing until I had played the first few notes. Their titles and words are very different than ours even the overall context is basically the same. Also, the A note on the piano stuck which made playing the songs an extra challenge. I wish I could start to feel more comfortable about playing in public. On the way back to our apartment I got in the back seat of the taxi, and as I sat down, the seat was all wet. My first thought was someone must have been swimming and got in the taxi with a wet suit. However, since there are no pools around here, my second thought was not quite as pleasant as to why the seat was wet. I tried to hug the door and stay on the dry part of the seat. Yuk!!
We were supposed to have a meeting this morning with Pres. Castañeda but it started to rain so they decided to wait until tomorrow. That is nice he didn’t want us to have to walk in the rain, but I wonder what they will do in the rainy season.
Dad is working hard on trying to get the 3 churches of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints working as one church. There is the Church of the Seminary and Institutes, the church that is the full time missionaries and then the third church is the Bishop and his ward. It seems they all try to do their work independent of each other instead of helping each other and working together. Does your ward have 1 church or 3 in it?
I think someone up above is trying to get the attention of the Mexican people. First, the economy has been hit harder here than even in the U.S., then there’s the swine flu, the rampant killing of the Drug Lords, and yesterday there was a jail break of 53 of the drug men right under the noses of the police, and then the earthquake in Mexico City. I think it is time the people started to pay attention. I think maybe this might be happening all over the world that the Lord is trying to get our attention because of the lack of obedience to the Gospel and other things that are going on.
Dad is ill again with a terrible cold so I walked to the church this afternoon to teach my English Class and then some of the students gave me a ride home. I was grateful I didn’t have to walk after dark. Dad is pretty miserable. Hopefully, he’ll feel better soon. While I was walking today, I could not help but observe how very Mexican every thing looked. The Spanish people—I was the only gringo for miles around, the school kids in uniforms, car horns honking, people with their little carts selling tacos, tortillas and tamales etc. up and down the streets, the streets and sidewalks un kept and littered, and the places of residence moldy and dirty. But then, I decided to look past all that and looked at the faces of the people and smiled at them and almost without fail they would smile back. I looked at the beautiful trees that are flowering with red and yellow flowers and the lovely blue sky dotted with fluffy, bilious clouds and thought that it is a beautiful place to be. Besides we have a temple here just 10 minutes away and I find being in the temple provides a place of refuge from all of the worldly woes and it is kept so clean and beautiful and is so very peaceful. I think the temple is becoming more and more a symbol of being in another spear from the world we live in. Dad and I hope you are taking time in your very BUSY schedules to visit the temple regularly.
May 24,
Dad is starting to feel better again. Thank goodness. I don’t know what I would do if he got really sick. We are training a Bishop and the High Council tomorrow and it would not be good to put it off. We have a lot of training in the 3 stakes. The church is really big here, but as in other places, the less actives are a real challenge. It is hard to believe that it is Memorial Weekend already. We hope those of you that live close to the Cemeteries of OUR loved ones will put some flowers on them for us. We do miss being able to participate in those kinds of things.
Micah we will remember you and your family in our prayers. Isn’t it wonderful to have extra help from Heavenly Father in all our challenges? When one door closes others will open.
We love you all and miss you. Keep in touch.
Dad and Mom