I MADE IT TO POTRERILLO!

I have now arrived in Potrerillos, Honduras, a small village in the north. I thought I was going to be staying with a family in the city with a private room,

tv and wireless. It turns out I am living right in the country. It is extremely

backwards and poor. I do have a private room, when i don´t have all three children piled in on top of me all starring at me slack-jawed. All of the kids moved into the room of their parents with a montage of beds and hammocks.

The shower consists of an 4x4 stall complete with a barrel of water and a small

bucket. You can imagine the rest.

The rickety old metal outhouse, 30 feet from the house truly wins the prize,

though. I have to do an out of body to just make it through. I had bad diaherra

the first night of course, and was out there in the middle of the night three

times! I believe you maybe could have heard a few wimpers coming from

someone!

I do know that I am living where I am supposed to be living ,in the right

town with the right family. I am hoping to be a blessing to them. I know

I already am because of the extra money they are earning while I am with

them. After I paid them, the dad, Henry, went out and bought himself

a new pair of shoes. He had been wearing a pair of his father´s 30 year

old squared toed shoes I am sure forever. He also bought his wife a large

heavy plastic bucket with handles. The two younger children can now bath

together in it. Also, I noticed the wife soaking the clothes in it prior to washing

them on the metal grates they use down here. Suddenly we went from one

roll of toilet paper to a nice big roll of 4, plus they were able to buy soap for

the clothes and several other necessities.

I love this family. They are stellar. They are humble. They have family

prayer twice a day and we had family night on Monday with two missionaries.

one from El Salvador and one from Bolivia. There is a brand new mormon

church that has just been built but not dedicated. It seems large and impressive

for such a small, poor town.

This morning I pumped the 6 year old girl on my bike and the dad had the

boy with him. Off to school we went and then on to the office. Yesterday Gladys

the wife and I cleaned and scrubbed the office in preparation for the board

of directors coming on Thursday from Salt Lake. This afternoon I will arrange

some flowers to put in the office and pray that they will stay alive for 24 hours.

It is hot and humid here!! I have been plannning out my arrangement for days

as I walk around and while on the bike. They won´t let me go anywhere alone

and I am grateful because there are no street signs, just little lanes and funky

little paths and I feel often like we are going in circles. So what else is new?

I can barely get around in Provo and Orem!

Yesterday had to be my dream day. It may be all down hill from here. Two

tiny little Honduren farmers, a man and his wife, came it to get a second

micro loan from Mentors. I am not sure what they needed the money for

but i know they want to grow corn and watermellon. As fate had it Julie and

I had picked up about 50-60 packets of seeds at True Value hardware on sale, ç

4 for $1.00. They were so thrilled to be given some packets of seeds to grow.

They loved it when I took a picture of them holding their seeds! Also, I am

working with the lady next door who is a mentor´s customer. She has a

boutique of sorts and it looks like she could use a lot of help. That should be

fun and right down my alley. Also two other women came in yesterday, also

for a second loan. They made jewelry. We had a good talk about their business.

I am not so sure this situation is best for my Spanish, because nobody can

help me with one work and so I am speaking survival spanish. It sort of works

but I don´t feel I am getting better at speaking it, only understanding

cleaned