Guatemala Day 2

This morning we got up at the crack of dawn to get ready for the long day ahead of us.  We got ready and had breakfast at the hotel.  And just as a side note, this hotel we are staying at makes a mean omelet.  It was one of the best omelets I have ever had.  But that is besides the point.  At 7:30 we had a little orientation meeting where we met a lot of the people in charge of this group and some area seventies.  There are so many people that have put so much time and effort into making this trip happen.  It is amazing how many little blessing they shared with us that were really at the hand of our Lord to make this trip possible.  We broke off into our groups where we were going to be working in the clinics and such.  I was assigned to the x-ray area.  I have never previously taken x-rays so I was very nervous about this.  After our orientation meeting we loaded onto our buses and drove for about a half hour until we reached the chapel where we were going to be working for the next week.  It is very different here in Guatemala.  The church we are working at is in a gated community and had guards with guns around the perimeters. 
We were really just thrown into a work station and told to just do our best and fix what we needed to.  It was nuts and I was a little panicked, but I caught on pretty quickly.  I still need to improve on some of the angles of the x-rays, but I have four more days to do that.  I am working at a station with a guy named Jared.  He runs the sensor thing that you place in the patients mouth and I run the x-ray gun.  We got into a groove and we were able to get patients in and out pretty quickly.
Seeing the dedication of these people to go and serve and get all of this dental work done in one day amazes me.  It make me so grateful for my healthy set of teeth.  Some patients come in with teeth missing, an extra tooth, teeth that need to be pulled, root canals that failed, and so on.  My Dad is assigned to the recovery room and man are these people troopers.  Their mouths were just beaten on today and they were still smiling through the numbing and continued to make us laugh.  Marin, a patient my Dad was tending to, wouldn't stop bleeding after being worked on, but they finally got it calmed down after about an hour and a half.  About an hour after that he pops his head in the room and showed us his ice cream he was eating.  These people are just so genuine and funny.  I wish that there wasn't a language barrier between us.  Jared knows spanish pretty well so he is able to carry on a conversation with the patient as we are setting up the equipment which is nice.
There is so much more I want to say but I can't seem to put it all down.  I am truly enjoying my time here so far.  Guatemala is a beautiful place and I am already loving the city.

 This was my work station for the day.

 My Mom was placed in charge of registering everyone who came through.

 The x-ray gun machine I used.

A group of pre-missionaries getting trained on good teeth hygiene.

 Dad in his area of the clinic, the recovery room

 The patient in the chair, Henry, was a trooper.  He had six teeth taken out and his mouth wouldn't stop bleeding.  Every now and then he would gag on the gauze in his mouth and it would have to be replaced and he would just gag again.  Good news though, he was able to go home and the bleeding calmed down.

 View from the church building we are working in.