Beaches and dentists and coconuts

We found this beach just 45 minutes from our home. It is called Juan Dolio and this is what it looked like last Monday morning on the way back from the dentists. We didn't have time to do more than just stop and take a photo. Come visit us and we can schedule time to go to the beach and relax.

Poor Dad has had a tooth infection and we heard that a group of CA and UT dentists were coming the next week. With a lot of ibuprofen and antibiotic Dad waited until they came. Dad helped pick them all up from the airport. They are a wonderful group of family and friends who are dentists, hygienists, assistants and the young ones are "runners" getting supplies for the professionals. The founder is a Grandpa and many in his family have followed in his professional footsteps. They take about four trips a year, all over the world, gather donated supplies and bring a whole clinic with them to a stake building and set up practice. They were here at this time because a grandson is just finishing his mission and wanted to share his experiences with his family. His 13 year old brother got permission to spend three days with his big missionary brother. His younger sisters helped in the clinic. There are also many dental friends along.

Do you like the adjustable dentist chairs? Not too many people get their dentisty done lying on a church table but with a zip lock bag full of disposable gloves for a pillow it works just fine. The man with the gray pants in the foreground is Elder Durkovich. He and his wife are the CES couple in the building where we have our office. He was excited to help and did a lot of surgery pulling teeth. Dad did not want to join them in doing dentistry but he did end up helping later by finding the supplies they needed--except extra large gloves. Dominicans are not extra large.

They did a lot more than pull teeth though. They did root canals, fillings and cleanings along with whatever else needed doing. The word had gone out to the missionaries and the church members that there would be free dental care available. They took the missionaries first and then helped everyone who came. All were welcome and more non-members than members got free dentistry.

Dad was a bit of a puzzle. They took a lot of X-rays and decided that all he really had was gum disease. The hygienist cleaned it out well and they suggested topical application of tetracycline. He is doing much better but the problem is complicated because that tooth holds in his bridge and the dentist in Idaho had to grind a ridge for the bridge to fit into. That opened the contact which allows food to get in and caused the problem. All that is more than you wanted to know about his tooth but it is good that Grandpa didn't have to go to a local dentist who would decide to pull it out or something. He does need to get an implant when we return from our mission. It was fun to be a bit involved in this dentistry project. We got a call two days into their visit requesting an amalgamator. It is a machine that mixes the silver fillings. Their machine had broken. Dad found one, bought it and we went back to San Pedro to deliver it. They were running out of the materials to make composite fillings and were happy to have a new machine. On Saturday when we were training a stake presidency in Villa Mella we saw several of the dentist group again. There was a baptism and they were there to support the new member converted by their son/grandson.

Grandpa got the email address of one of his former missionary companions from one of the senior missionaries here. He wrote to Brother Allred and asked if he remembered his obnoxious companion. Here is his reply, "What I remember most is that while I was your companion I read the entire Book of Mormon for the first time. You bore witness to me that it was true and I could hardly put it down after I started to read it." I guess Grandpa has been promoting reading the scriptures all his life. (Actually I think his teenage years might have been an exception.) I'm sure none of our grandchildren will get to missionary age without having read the Book of Mormon several times. The more you read it the more interesting it becomes.

Another thing I am realizing more and more is how grateful we should be for our ancestors. The Perpetual Education Fund is patterned after the Perpetual Emigration Fund. That fund allowed some profound changes in lives. Without that chance to leave Europe we might have all been born in England and our ancestors would not have had the freedom of religion and opportunity available in the United States of America. There has been great economic improvement over the generations. For example, Henry and Margaret McNeil Ballard are my ancestors. Henry was born in England and Margaret in Scotland. They were in desperately humble circumstances by the time they reached Utah. Henry was ashamed of his ragged clothing and begged for clothes that covered his body sufficiently at a house in Emmigration Canyon so he could enter the Salt Lake Valley without shame. Margaret and her family were hungry and without food when they arrived. In front of a small home across a field was a pile of squash, and her mother sent her to beg for some squash for the family to eat. In her journal she wrote that the woman who opened the door said that she knew that a family was coming. She gave Margaret a loaf of freshly baked bread and said she would bring dinner to them soon. That woman must have been prepared somewhat like Amulek was. We don't know what it is like to not have a roof over our head and all the food we need and usually the kind of food that we prefer. We need to remember to be grateful for our blessings.

Here is a helpful tip for getting young boys to work in the yard. Give them a machete. They would love to weild a machete. Just kidding, I only had girls but I can see some problems with this plan. I have seen machetes used to cut sugar cane, hack off the outer covering of coconuts, weed flowerbeds and edge the grass. I'm sure there are more uses that I have not observed. When I have watched someone hold a coconut in one hand and use enough speed and pressure to cut through the tough husk on the outside of a coconut I wince. They cut off the top 1/3 all the way around an unripe coconut, poke in one of the eyes at the top of the coconut and sell it for a drink with a straw.

There are lots of carts all around the university, as well as other places. They sell fruit; pineapples, mangos, papayas, bananas, oranges (the oranges are pretty sad looking compared to CA oranges but the juice is good) as well as some fruits I don't know the names of yet. They sell sugar cane, I guess to chew on. We bought some but I didn't think it was worth the work to chew on the tough fibers. The fibers would just get jammed between my teeth. Lots of people sell candy bars and lolipops and cups of soda from 2 liter bottles. There are ice cream and popscicle carts. And there are carts or pickup trucks with cauldrons of boiling oil where they cook empanadas. They squiggle ketchup over them and sell lots. I would like to know what is inside the crust. There is a fast food place in town that sells empanadas. We need to go there. I'm not brave enought to eat off the street but I'm willing to try the chain restaurant. If they have two locations they probably know a few food safety rules.

We love you all. Be good. We will continue trying to be good for something also.