Dedication in Tierra Blanca

Another chapel dedication in Momostenango....this time in Tierra Blanca.  This photo is the old building which has become far too small for the current membership.  When we arrived Sunday morning we started in this building for our regular sacrament meeting, then headed a quarter of a mile down the hill to the new building, ready to be dedicated by Pres. Bautista.  

We were surprised to have the meeting end in the old chapel and to see everyone packing chairs on their backs and heading off on foot to move them to the new building.

Guatemalans are used to hefting all kinds of things, so this wasn't a big deal to them at all.

In tourist areas of the country children are leery of photographs, but these kids are absolute posers!  They love to have you take their photos and then, of course, you have to show them how cute they are.

We discovered why everyone hustled to get to the new building.  By the time we meandered down in our vehicles the chapel was full.  They wanted to make certain they had good seats for the dedication!

LDS chapels dot the mountaintops in Guatemala and they are beautiful, well groomed buildings that really  add to the beauty of the countryside.  this building is hard to get to, with many, many stairs and only room for three cars to park.

This photo shows just a portion of the stairs heading from the roadway to the chapel.

This is my favorite room in the building-the Primary nursery!!  These chairs are just adorable.

This little cutie sat by us in the dedication and made sure she had a few photos taken while we were waiting for the meeting to begin.   She is quite a little giggler around gringos.

Here is Elder Hales, missionary in Tierra Blanca, playing his beautiful violin for the prelude music and later for the dedication.  The music folders the choir members have represent a HUGE effort on the part of this little congregation.  Such things are not readily available in Momostenango.

By the time both meetings were over, everyone was ready to relax on the grass and get their wiggles out.  Guatemalan children can entertain themselves with next to nothing.  I watched one little two year-old  boy during both meetings playing with a nearly deflated blue balloon and he was happy as a clam with it for about three hours.  He thought he had exhausted all the possibilities of play with it when his grandpa, sitting in the back of the chapel, gave the little boy his dress hat and an entirely new game unfolded as he figured out he could drop the balloon into the hat.

The mountains in the background were unbelievably beautiful, but hard to photograph without special filters on your camera.  These are the Chuchumatanes mountains.

Here is our little friend again as she followed us to the car hoping to get one more photo before we left.

Sunday evening Mike gave a special presentation at the Garibaldi chapel in Xela on the cosmos and man's relationship to God, given the enormity of His creations.  The Powerpoint presentation was amazingly beautiful and it's one we hope he can give again in other areas.  Our dear friend and taxi driver, Jaime, attended with his wife Rosy and their four daughters, so we took a quick snapshot with them.