A Day in the Life

 This has been a rough couple of weeks.  One elder had to have surgery and gratefully they could stay at our home during recovery.  But then Dad had to run out to an area late one night to deal with two missionaries with some problems.  The patient and his companion had left to go back to their area that day.  Dad had to bring these two other missionaries to our home to stay for a couple of nights until it is decided what to do with them.  The afternoon that that situation got figured out, we were on our way to take one of them and his new companion to their area when Dad got a phone call from another missionary who said that he couldn't find his companion.  So after we dropped off two elders we headed out to Villa Cuauhtemoc to look for Elder Gutierrez.  This is a picture of Dad going to the door of the woman who was supposed to feed them comida today.  This house is an old wood shack.  I would have liked to get out of the car and take some movies of where these good people live. 

 While still trying to locate him, we decided to go back to their house see if he might have returned there.  The companion was embarrassed for me to go inside.  I had just give a talk in the zone conference about cleanliness in their houses and about the connection of that with the Spirit of the Holy Ghost.  We showed good and bad pictures in the conference (didn't show any faces or names) but many of the houses the missionaries recognized as they had served there previously.  In this particular house a dozen pictures would not have told the story.  I'm showing only two.  Let's just say that when Elder Gutierrez was located, and Dad had a long talk with them, that cleaning their house was on the top of the list.

One of the reasons their companionship is not working is the deplorable living conditions they have chosen to live in.  Honestly, who knows how long these dishes have been in the sink. These are not the worst of the pictures.  Just a little 'taste'.  They are not having study time together, not praying together and don't have any desire to compromise on decisions.  Their pride seems to have pushed the spirit right out of the picture. They haven't had any success in this area for quite some time.  Dad told them that he would be coming some morning to study with them and that their house better be clean when he come. 

This is just one of many sweet people that are out on the streets everyday near our home selling gum, candy and whatever.  This woman is 82 years old and let us take her picture.  We try to buy something from them often.  It's possible that this is the work they did as children with their own mothers and that they've been doing this for all their lives.  Notice that Dad is still smiling.  He is amazing.  He has pressures I'm not even aware of concerning the Districts and still he smile.  The Lord has been so good to us.  And we just want to do  this right.