Puerto Barrios Remote Site -

June 6, 2012- On the road for another 'remote site clinic' in Puerto Barrios that is about 6 hours away from Guatemala city.   Amatique Bay Resort and Marina a beautiful resort located on the Atlantic Ocean.   

Elder Johnson & the Wilcox's walking to our rooms.   Beautiful grounds and surroundings.  In the evenings you could see fire flies that sparkled in the grass.  Never seen a fire fly before our stay in Puerto Barrios - an amazing sight.   Hot and humid area, we thought we would melt.

Light house look out over the Atlantic Ocean.   Off to the right is a white sandy beach for guests at the resort.   Beautiful grounds, enjoyable pool/water park area for guests.   This is where Elder Johnson slipped on the platform due to last night's rain fall and injured his leg.  

Sunday evening Elder Johnson and the local missionaries helping to setup the clinic for Monday morning.   On Monday we saw about 14 future missionaries and completed their work plus missionaries.

David Call - son of Elder & Sister Call.   He was our technical expert for the trip.

Elder & Sister Wilcox plus one of the local missionaries.

Sister Johnson put the missionaries right to work.   Many hands made our work lighter.

These two Sisters helped us for the three days sterilizing all our instruments.  

During our three day stay, we saw 97 patients.  The first day was designated for futures.  Second and third day were set aside for members.   The second day we started at 8:00 a.m. and ended around 6:00 p.m. - long day.  

At the end of the second day, there was thunder/lighting and heavy rain fall causing the power to go out.   We finished our last patient in the dark.  

Thanks to the members below our remote site clinic was a success and well organized.  The needs of the members were completely different than our remote site in Senahu.   The members needs in the hills were far greater than members from the city.  Two extremely different clinics

The gentleman on the left is District President Morales along with one of  his counselors.   The counselor helped us everyday with crowd control, interpreter, provided lunch for us each day and all other requests.  

Los Lomas Relief Society Activity

May 26, 2012 - This is the first Relief Society Activity we've had since being in the Las Lomas Branch.   We were so excited to have Vilma (kneeling) RS Pres. plan an activity for the sisters.   They demonstrated how to make Pollo Pie.   Sister Perez, our Primary Pres. is assisting her.

Elder Garcia just had to get in the picture.   Sophie and Daniella are enjoying watching Sister Garcia roll the dough with a glass jar.

Each sister was involved some way with the activity.  Every sister who attended brought an item for the pie.   Sister Hernandez, is not a member of the church but attends regularly.   Her three children were recently baptized.  The little ones loved watching.

Guate's have more patience.   They all patiently waited for the finished product so they could have a taste.  You can see it was not just sisters, many attended.

President Vilma holding the finish product.

Mega Paca Surprise

Mega Paca - Deseret Industries of Guatemala

Dr. Barbara Paredes works in our clinic a couple of days a week and her husband is part owner of Mega Paca. Her husband buys bundles of clothing, shoes, and household items from DI and other stores, brings them to Guatemala and resells them.  They have over 40 stores.   She arranged for a bundle of clothes to be delivered to the Tio Juan girls.  It was just like Christmas for them.  Each girl picked out 5 new outfits.  Left over items were taken back to the stores.  This was a generous gesture from Dr. Paredes.   

"Let's Get Healthy" - Las Lomas Branch

Las Lomas Activity - Let's Get Healthy

May 26, 2012

Elder's  Rasmussen, Batres & Garcia gave a presentation on the Word of Wisdom.  Like all our activities, we start an hour late with a few people and mid-way more show up. 

My part was showing them how to brush and floss.   Some of the boys helps with the demonstration.   As you can see, they are to look like teeth.  While I was brushing & flossing, Elder Johnson was outside  cooking.   60 Toothbrushes were given to the members. 

Hermana Jensen, our nurse for the South Mission, gave her presentation on eating healthy and other topics.   She had the kids participate in a few games while the hot dogs were being cooked.

Another successful evening with our Branch members.   Our Chapel also becomes the cultural hall.  After the games, we feed them a healthy meal of hot dogs, chips, fruit and pop.  They love hot dogs!!! Our chefs BBQ approximately 120 hot dogs.  Too busy to take photo of the chef's cooking outside in the rain.

500 New Dental Clients

23 May 2012 - The Dental Clinic received a request from Alcalde Arzu (Mayor of Guatemala) and his wife to  include three new orphanages to our dental program.   These children are not technically orphans- they are children of single parent where the care giver has to work and the children are left 'homeless' on the streets of Guatemala.  Our first visit was to Municipalidad Los Patitos - girls ranging from 2 to 7 years old.  

First grade classroom.   They wear a uniform furnished by the city that consists of blue shorts with a lime green strip on the sides & white shirts.

 

Kindergarten Class room - 2-4 year olds.   I stepped in to the room to observe and to say 'Hola' and they ran over to greet me.   I knelt down to greet them and to my surprise below is what took place.   Hugs from everyone - it was the most amazing feeling and hard to epress the love I felt from their sincere hugs.   A tender moment for me; one I'll never forget.  

 

Dr. Call interacting with the children to put them at ease.  He jokes with them, they count their teeth, and he explains what is going to take place.

Dr. Call, LeeAnn, Jacqueline, DDS, Doc Johnson and Anna Lee

Each child was so cooperative and willing to open their mouth for a quick exam.

Jacqueline, a new graduate from dental school that works in the clinic 2 days a week.

25 May, 2012 - Municipalidad Las Rosas- children ages 7-14 - all girls escuela.  

Girls anxiously waiting their turn for the dental screening.  

You've got to love this picture; these girls were assigned to organize their library.   It looked like a hopeless job to us.   They were to organzie and place all the books scattered on the floor to the respective shelf.  Good luck girls.

After the screenings (the screening room was sooooo small, I didn't get any pictures of us screening the girls) so here's a picture of us playing dodge ball.  Oops!  I lost my picture when posting.

31 May 2012 - Los Cedros - all boy Municipalidad Escuela ages 7-15.

This young boy was intriqued with looking at his teeth through the mirror.  He stood there for the longest time watching the Doc and then decided to give it a try.

Again a group of boys facinated with watching the screenings of their friends.

Enrique from Tio Juan/Mi Casa orphanage helping us with crowd control.

Drs. Jacqueline and Barbara making an assessment on this young man.   Both of these young ladies work in our clinic a couple of days a week as Volunteers.   

13 June 2012 - Our young children from Pititos at the Clinic for their first visit to a dentist office.  They had no idea what was going to take place and neither did we.

Just like Noah, we brought them in by two's for each chair.   What we didn't expect was when the little girl on Dr. Call's lap started crying that two or three others would start too.  It was a wild morning.  The Doc's had them help them count  their teeth, raised the chair up and down, entertained them every way the could to put them at ease.   Some were much better than others and by time we finished they all left smiling.

Jacqueling took our Monkey to demonstrate how to brush their teeth.  Gloves were blown up for them to play with and a reward for being such good patients.

They are smiling now, but their next visit some will not be too happy.   Lots of work to be done on such small children.