April 26 Sunday "One who does not serve others is broken"

Today we traveled to Patzicia - a town about 1.5 hours drive up in the mountains.  8500 feet.  We attended church there with one of the wards that met in the building and then afterwards distributed the humanitarian things that had been sent with us from the US. 

 Our driver, Oscar who threaded our bus through impossibly narrow streets and dodged cars, bicycles, minicarts and pedestrians.

 The bus system consists of privately owned heavily decked-out school buses that have huge engines because they were passing us all day long.

The following are just a few pictures of the country side and people.

After the Church meetings were over we opened the bags we brought and put out fleece blankets, toys for the children, quilts, clothing, soccer balls and all sorts of little household things .

 The power in the town had been out for a few days so a generator had been brought in to power the organ and the microphone in the chapel.  It was also a blessing because power was needed to run the printers we had brought to print up family pictures that we took of each family.

 Susan and our friend Sylvia sharing a quiet moment in the hallway.  You will remember Sylvia from the first post.

The people of Patzicia always dress in their best for church meetings and their tradition clothing was beautiful.   This is a little girl carrying some of the gifts - she is also wearing one of the princess outfits that were brought.

 Susan greeting families into the room where the quilts were given to each family.  Tome uno por favor. ( Select one please ).   You can see that these wonderful people are quite short due to the altitude.

We then left the church after a few hours and drove to another meetinghouse back in Guatemala City where we enjoyed a meeting with all the young men and young women in the area.  Afterwards I tried to round up some patients out of the young men  to come visit with me at the clinic.  They will be coming this week.

After that we got back on the buses and drove to a restaurant up on the mountains overlooking the city.

On the way back to the hotel ( we had been on the road for 12 hours by then ) we stopped by the temple to walk the temple grounds and get a few pictures.

It was neat to be able to see the diversity of Guatemala and we certainly appreciate their kindness and gratitude for our service.

The quote for today's post was spoken ( translated into English )  by the humble brother who drives the truck that has all the equipment for the clinic from country to country.   And he is certainly wiser than most of the world.