Angels with Forceps

Among the senior missionary couples in Guatemala are three dentists and their wives, who have learned to be dental assistants to their husbands. (We are still waiting for a dentist to come along who will use her husband as her assistant!) They are such a blessing in a country with great needs for dental care. They are based out of a clinic in Guatemala City that was built with donations from a Church member but the clinic is public and is not owned by the Church. Our post back on March 17 in this blog shows some pictures of the clinic. The dentists' work includes helping young people prepare to serve missions by taking care of any dental problems they have, but most of their time is spent providing services to several orphanages in the country, so they spend a lot of time providing free services to non LDS members.

Guatemala has a socialized medicine system that provides medical services to the people at low cost but dental work is not included. It becomes a huge expense for the many Guatemalans who eke out their livings with long days of hard work.

Since it is often difficult for people from remote areas to come to Guatemala City, the dentists will pack up their portable equipment in a pair of minivans and head out to spend a few days "roughing it" in these remote areas. They set up in one of the rooms in a local Church building.

This past week they spent three days in the town of Santa Lucia, about a half hour from where we are now living, and took care of about 25 future missionaries, age 17 and up, as well as some of the members who had needs. From there they will head to Solola to do much the same thing, before heading back to home base next week.

Doc Wilcox and Deedee

Doc Johnson and Annalee

Doc Call and Leeann, assisted by a future dentist

Another satisfied customer - as you can tell from the big smile

Those long church tables get used for many things

Future clients anticipate the experience awaiting them as they  observe their friend

We paid them a visit one afternoon and marveled at how they can do such grueling work, often in an uncomfortable environment (you can see the hard plastic chairs they spend their day in), hour after hour. At this point in their careers, they could be spending their time sipping lemonade by the pool or hitting the golf course but here they are. Actually, they do get to spend an occasional day of golf, when they have time for some much-deserved R&R.