December 5, 2010

Last Sunday evening a young 17-year-old member from Corozal named Jerry Flowers received severe head injuries in a hit-and-run accident.  He had been walking with two girls at the side of the road.  Fortunately the girls were not hurt.  Jerry was taken in an ambulance 2 hours south to a hospital here in Belize City.  His mother came with him.  The missionaries from Corozal, Sister Stout and Sister Aqueta, came down by bus the next morning.  They stayed with Jerry's mother all day and then stayed at our house that night.  Jerry had often gone with them to do missionary work.  The first night we met Jerry he was studying his scriptures by candlelight. 

We went to the hospital Monday morning and saw Jerry's mother.  The doctors had given her son a 50/50 chance of making it.  While we were there, a doctor took her aside and said that his chances had now fallen.  He had only a 7% chance.  Elder Pattee and Elder Choc were able to go into the ICU and give him a blessing.  Jerry died on Tuesday.  He was his mother's oldest child and only son.  He has 3 younger sisters.  We are all very saddened at his untimely death.  Even though he had been a member of the Church only 5 months, he was hoping to go on going on a mission.  His area of service will be diffierent that the one he had planned. 

On a happier note, we got several Perpetual Education Fund checks for our students this week.  Now they can all start school as planned. 

Also, we took Alwayne Cherrington and his family to the airport Wednesday.  Alwayne is the third missionary to leave from Belize City Branch since we came.  He is going to Guatemala and will need to learn Spanish.

Alwayne with his mother (trying not to cry) and sister, Nikita

It was a very rainy day.  After Alwayne's plane had left, and we went out to the van in the parking lot, we found that the back tire was flatter than a pancake.  It was one of the ones we had to have fixed before.  (We've had 3 flat tires on the mission van since we came arrived in September.)

The rain was coming down in sheets, so Alwayne's mom, Nikita, and I climbed into the van to stay dry. 
Elder Pattee and President Gordon got the spare out from underneath the van.  Then some Chinese guys insisted on helping.  They acted like they knew what they were doing, and told we 3 women  that we’d have to get out of the van.  When it started raining even harder, they sort of disappeared.  Elder Pattee thought they had left, so he and President Gordon went ahead and changed the tire getting very wet in the process.  After they were done, they opened up the back of the van and found the Chinese men inside nice and dry.   In the meantime, Nikita, her mom, and myself, were standing outside soaking wet. It was cold!

When we finally got in the van to go home, we found there were no heater, and no defroster.  (There were just dummy switches where the real ones should have been.)  We had to keep wiping off the windshield all the way home.  Elder Pattee had 2 new tires put on the van the next day. 

Well, the rain is gone, and we're back to sun and warm temperatures.  We know it is supposed to be the Christmas season, but do these photos make make you think of Christmas?

With temperatures in the 80's most days and flowers and greenery all around, somehow it just doesn't seem quite like the holiday season. 

So we turned on some Christmas music and watched a DVD of Sissel and the Tabernacle choir in a Christmas concert.  Luckily Elder Pattee found a few Christmas decorations hiding up in a closet.  

Now things are a bit more as the Christmas should be. 

We've been reading the Christmas story in Luke 2, and today at church in the Belize City branch, we heard many testimonies of Christ.  The relief society lesson was all about giving good gifts to Christ on his birthday, and we also planned the branch Christmas dinner.  Then we watched the First Presidency Christmas Devotional via satellite Sunday evening.  It seems that you can feel Christmas is in the air no matter where you live.

Feliz Navidad!