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.

What's in a name?

If you saw yesterday's post, then you probably noticed that none of the streets in Succotz village have names! This is a hindrance to the creation of a map for tourists, so today in our meeting with the Succotz village council we discussed naming the streets. They had a few streets they had names in mind for already, and then told me to pick the other names according to my best judgment. So, I've been naming streets in Succotz after notable figures in Belizean history, Mayan gods, Belizean animals, and a couple other surprises. I'll show you an updated map with the names in a few days after they are ratified by the village council.

So, my day involved a lot more research for the Succotz project including a fantastic meeting with the village council that Kyle, Lindsay, Megan, and I attended. We finalized some plans for a crucial meeting with some government agencies taking place this Saturday. I'll be attending that meeting along with the village council in Belmopan in connection with a national conference for village councils. I'm quite excited as it sounds like a fascinating and rare opportunity to observe the workings of the Belizean government.

Later on in the day I went to the Cornerstone foundation with Katie and Jake to practice a skit on self-esteem we're presenting at a summer camp for children tomorrow morning. It's interesting stepping into some of the other projects for just brief snippets of time, such as working with some of the youth summer camps. These are fantastic programs focused on helping children learn about peaceful conflict resolution in order to combat the unbelievably high domestic abuse rates that always seem to be disgustingly high in high-poverty settings. The results of these camps have been very positive, introducing many children to ideas of peaceful conflict resolution for the very first time!

This is just one example of a project that has been going on that I haven't yet been particularly involved in. So far, since I've been in Belize, I've helped with the Micro-farm (Chicken coop) project, the orphanage project, the computer class project, and the Francisco wheelchair project. Furthermore, I've been a team leader on the Rainforest Haven consulting project and my personal favorite, the Succotz Village Revenue Generation project. However, that's not even all the projects our little team is working on here! We are also helping construct a diabetes lab at the Loma Luz hospital, constructing adobe stoves to make a cleaner cooking environment, creative writing classes, music classes, ESL classes, the aforementioned youth peaceful resolution camps, a business-consulting project with an organization helping provide support for widows, a rural health campaign project, and a "Soilet" construction project. I might be forgetting a few. The point is, HELP International is making an incredible impact on Belize this summer! (Not to mention the projects additional teams are working on in El Salvador, Fiji, Uganda, Tanzania, India, Peru, and Thailand.) It is humbling to think about being a part of it all! Such a blessing!

Anyway, thanks for allowing the tangent! Anyway, after skit rehearsal I came back for dinner, followed by a meeting with Jorge and Shamira about the Rainforest Haven consulting project. They LOVED the home page I designed and we made additional plans to be able to open the business soon. It may involve me and some other team members spending the night on the resort property some time next week. I'm okay with that. :)

It wasn't a very picture heavy day. Sorry, I know that makes 2 days in a row without very many pictures, but I do have a few for you. I should note that tomorrow already promises to be a particularly picture-friendly day! Meanwhile, here's a few from today:

This run-down building in Succotz made for some fantastic artistic shots. People in Succotz often live in buildings much worse than this.

Megan eats a Wia (sp?) fruit. Of all the local exotic fruits I've tried, this is so far the only one that I haven't particularly been a fan of. The inside is just way too gooey for my taste!

Night shot of our home sweet home! We occupy the upper floors of this building on the hills in the more well-to-do area of San Ignacio. I love this place! Sometime I should make a video tour of the interior for y'all.

Can you find the iguana?

NO! YOU CAN'T! Why? Because there isn't one in this picture. However, there IS a reptile. Hiding somewhere in this picture is a basilisk--no, not the kind from Harry Potter. These little lizards are super fast and can literally disappear faster than the time it takes you to blink! They can be scared away by the click of your camera button, so I was really fortunate to grab a picture. These are the little guys that are so fast that they can run on water, causing some locals to nickname them "Jesus Lizards."