Ned & Mary in Guatemala

 Missionary Applications Assignment In February, we were asked to help with the processing of missionary applications from Central America. Mary helps with the translations for all 7 countries and I help get the applications from Guatemala through to SLC. When we started, there were over 150 applications awaiting processing from Central America. As of this morning, there are only 37, in spite of many new ones being entered in the mean time.

Oakland II Neighborhood Park, Guatemala City, July 8, 2023 This morning, we altered our Saturday morning walk route to visit a place mentioned by other senior missionaries. Apparantly this park was started by a local resident. These pictures don't really do this park justice but they do give you a flavor. This is a welcome addition to a very large and very busy city.

Lunch with LDS Family Services in Central America Area, July 5, 2023  Today we were invited to a very nice lunch meeting by the two mental health counselors with whom we work on missionary applications.The two sisters standing behind us are those to whom we refer missionary applications when mental or emotional health questions are raised. They also help with mental health challenges with missionaries serving in Centra Americal. They are Ingrid Garcia de Perez and Nathalee Paiz de Quiñonez. To our right are the Carpenters. They deal with mental health challenges. On our left are the Turleys. They tend to deal with both physical and mental health challenges. We were invited because we handle the applications from Guatemala which can lead us to reach out to them for help.

Taxisco Branch, Sunday July 2, 2023  I was asked to baptize the 10-year-old son of a member of the branch on Sunday, after our meetings. I was pleased to be able to do this for him. This is a photo of branch members and non-member visitors who stayed after the block to witness the baptism. The woman to your left in the orangish shirt and her daughter standing at her left were the witnesses. They come to church just about every week even though other members of their family do not.   This is Angel and his father, Edgar Gomez. I´m not sure why I was asked to baptize Angel, except maybe because I was the escort of his father when he received his endowment a few weeks earlier. I also helped him in his first proxy endowment experience when the branch went a couple of weeks ago. Angel is a smart, respectful boy. Even though he lives with his non-member mother, I expect him to be a faithful member.

Flu Vaccination Clinic, Mantúfar Stake Center, June 30 & July 1  Thursday and Friday we helped organize and carry out a flu vaccine  clinic. A pharmaceutical company donated 3,500 vaccines that were going to expire in a week to the Church here. On the first day, the two soldier nurses administered most of 450 vaccines. A few hours after we started, a doctor came with her son and they doubled our capacity. On the second day, we had two more soldiers so roughly six people at a time could be vaccinated. The lady on the right is filling out her proof of vaccine card. Later, another senior missionary couple took over that responsibility. Mary and I helped people get signed in and answered any questions they might have. I apologize for the bad picture.  In any event, this is the area where those who had signed in awaited their turn to be vaccinated. They rotated through the chair so that the next in line was always in the left most chair of the first row. On the second day, we had to rou