Brudda Kennitt

I love the Santa Elena LDS branch so much! Today I spoke in sacrament meeting and subbed for Mama Kay in Sunday School. The Branch President usually calls the HELP International volunteers by "Brother" or "Sister" followed by our first name, always with the classic Belizean accent, so I was announced in sacrament as follows: "An' nah ah concludin' speakuh will be Brudda Kennitt." The "th" becomes either a "t" or a "d" and other letters get similarly substituted or flat-out dropped. Most people speak English just fine (albeit with the accent just mentioned) though they often speak Kriol or Spanish. I can generally understand both of those languages pretty well, though I have a hard time saying my own words in return, especially with the Kriol.

Anyway, my talk was on resisting temptation. To sum it up briefly, I mentioned that the most common temptation defense mechanism Christ gave in His lifetime was prayer (Christ recommends prayer against temptation 8 times in his personal ministries--6 times in the New Testament and twice in 3 Nephi). Furthermore, Christ exemplified resisting temptation with his own experience recorded in Matthew 4, wherein he draws upon the scriptures for protection against Satan's temptations. Every time Satan tempts Him, He responds, "As it is written..." and then quotes a scripture. These things are the absolute basics we've all learned since primary or since we first met missionaries: Scriptures and Prayer! Yet, clearly they are vital to righteous living since the Savior's teachings and example point to these two things as the greatest methods of defense against temptation. And doesn't that make sense? Surely if we are communing with the Lord daily through these divine appointed methods, we will be endowed with greater strength to withstand temptation. Paul taught us that "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man..." Isn't is comforting to know that temptation is normal? We are not sinners because we are tempted, but rather only if we act on that temptation. He continues, "but God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape that ye may be able to bear it." May we all choose to take that escape given us through the power of God to resist temptation which He imparts as we come to Him in prayer and through the scriptures.

Anyway, Church was great overall and the rest of the day has been pretty laid back. The evening had a brief moment of excitement while I was video chatting my family wherein Ashley came in needing "male assistance" to take care of a "creepy, possessed bat-moth thing." Sure enough, the creature perched on a drying swim suit was just about the creepiest looking insect I've ever seen in my life. It had red eyes and looked like something straight out of Satan's nightmares. I took some pictures:

This bad boy is has about a 3-inch wingspan. So, he's definitely not the largest insect I've seen in Belize (remember Frank the moth?), but he's pretty big.

Captured!

Anyway, that's just one more exciting creature to add to my list of bizarre Belizean sightings. So, I really don't have much else to say about today, but I do have some random pictures from throughout this last week, especially the last few days, including some that are from other cameras and others from my own but which simply didn't fit in earlier posts. So, get ready for a photo potpourri! 

These are actual Mayan artifacts that were on display at a resort I was doing research at on Tuesday (the one I had to drive a minivan through the jungle to get to). The two big ones on the left were probably ritual axe heads used for killing sacrificial victims. The one on the right was probably a gardening tool.

A beautiful garden from that same resort.

This picture would be much cooler if you could see the MUCH bigger frog that the one pictured is sitting on top of the nose of! Unfortunately, he didn't really show up, but he's definitely the largest frog I've ever seen. By the way, can you find the Katie?

Can you find the basilisk (aka "Jesus Lizard")?

Jake is on the right and on the left is Nathaniel, wearing the flower one of the girls picked for him. Nathaniel is our driver we hired. He's also the Young Men's president in the San Ignacio branch of the Church and also hangs out with us when we play. For example, this is right before our Friday river tubing excursion, which he joined us for. 

Can you find the 9-inch tarantula? These are relatively harmless, but more than relatively awesome.

 "When you look under the rocks and plants and take a look at the fancy ants..."

"...and maybe try a few!" (Click to see them up close. And by the way, these are not actually ants, they are termites. They taste like carrots with a slight hint of mint.)

 This is the first cave we tubed into.

Same cave, from the inside.

 Maren and I are tubing buddies.

 Getting deeper into the cave.

 

We explored a side cave full of bats! These pictures do absolutely no justice for this enormous cave. There were literally hundreds of them flying around sending their little echolocation clicks. Does this remind anyone else of Batman Begins? That's what it felt like in there!

 The end of the cave...

 ...is a great place for cliff jumping!

 Heading out of the cave.

Cave exit from other side.

Adventure is out there!

Thatched roofs: Outside

Thatched roofs: Inside

Saturday and Sunday are our “days off” to sight-see, explore, and rest, and today I did a little bit of all of the above. As you’ll see in the pictures below, I suited up in my classic orange adventure pants (which I always wear before embarking on orange adventures) and saw some fantastic things! I have LOTS of pictures today and probably fewer words, but since each picture is in fact worth 1000 words, this just may be my wordiest post yet! :) Besides pictures of my experiences today, I also have a few additional pictures of events from the last few days that I got from some cameras other than my own (I am thus actually SEEN in some of the pictures today, rather than merely the photographer!). So… here goes!

This first group of pictures is from Xunantunich—one of the largest Mayan ruin sites in Belize. This is the number one tourist attraction I hoped to see here, so I was pretty stoked!

10 of our group (the 8 pictured here plus Kyle and Lindsey) decided to come on the trip, accompanied by our trusty tour guide Edgar. (far left)

Edgar explains the significance of some of the artistic motifs to us.

Here we are sitting at the base of the largest temple in Xunantunich, the temple of the High Priest, probably constructed around 200 AD.

In its original splendor, there were originally 3 additional higher stories made of wood, but they were damaged during the Spanish conquest and eventually decayed away. Some of the wood support scaffolding could still be seen in the entrance ways around the back where the wood had been more protected from the elements.

Here we are at the place where the High Priest would make his announcements to the people. The acoustics are amazing--you can hear at the bottom all the from the top and vice versa because of the way the arrangement of buildings in the complex reinforce each other.

Megan and I know what color proper adventure pants should be. :)

Can you find the iguana?
(I KNOW that it isn't a Wish Willy this time because our tour guide pointed this one out and specifically labeled him as a specific kind of iguana. Don't remember what that kind was, but to you it is probably just the really sneaky kind, like most iguanas featured in this continuing series) Good Luck! :)

View from the top of the main temple. Do you see that white line in the distance? That's the border between Belize and Guatemala.

Some areas of the temple have Olmec motifs. Some theories are that the Mayas borrowed these earlier stones and incorporated them into their architecture. Others believe very late Olmecs enslaved very early Mayas and forced them to integrate their symbols. He still looks funny whichever story is true.

One of the interior chambers.

At the gift shops near the temple we met these two adorable children named Danny David and Diane Josephine (they both offered their first and middle names when asked). Some of our dialogue with them:
Ashley: How old are you, Diane?
Diane: Seven
Me: How old are you, Danny?
Danny: Six
Diane: No, he's three. He just says he's six because three plus three equals six.
Ashley: Wow, you're so smart! Where'd you learn that?
Diane: I guess I'm just one of those smart girls.

:)

Okay, so these next couple pictures feature some of the exciting fresh produce I'm experiencing:

Eating coconut straight from the coconut! Absolute pain to scrape out of that blasted shell! But very rewarding and tasty in the end.

This is called a starfruit and I've sliced a piece off the end to show you why. Absolutely delicious! I intend to have many more of these while I'm here! You also see a banana in the picture; I've eaten many of these since I've been here--they are 10 cents pretty much everywhere and always locally grown. I've also been told that around the corner from where we live there is a man who sells frozen chocolate dipped bananas, like the ones you can buy at Disneyland for $5. The difference: apparently this man (who I have yet to meet but eagerly await the opportunity) sells them for only a shilling (that's about 12 cents in American money)!!! [At a future date I'll give a more full description and commentary on the money system here. It's rather interesting and I'm getting quite used to speaking in "shillings," etc.]

Finally, these last pictures are actually NOT from today (except the very last one) but show a few pictures of things I talked about the last few days.

The Team! Most of these people have been here for 6 weeks to 3 months already and sadly, half of them are going home next week! :( They are all fantastic and I love every one of them. This is one of the most caring, compassionate, and intelligent groups of people you'll ever meet and they all came here to help eliminate poverty in Belize!

A few more chicken coop pictures.

This picture is from the business consultation I did the other evening. Lindsey (far right) and I pitch the marketing strategy we developed to Jorge and Shamira. They loved it! (See my Thursday night post, "Jumping In" for more details on this one, as well as future posts as we subsequently meet with them)

This 6-inch wingspan moth came swooping through our hallway this evening. At first it looked like a bat, but it is actually just a bat-sized moth! The girls thought it was gross; I named it Frank.