Adventures in the truck & Charley’s silent role!

Well, I finally got a few minutes to sit down and write an update. It’s been a really busy week.

Tuesday, as you saw in the photograph of the last post, we went and picked up the truck. We tried to get the plates for it, but you need about 100 pieces of paper so Cesar (the truck’s owner’s brother) said we’d have to wait a day or two. Good thing is you can drive it for 72 hours before you have to have the paperwork sorted out. So we drove it home, went and did some grocery shopping, gave the truck a good cleaning, and then got ready for the meeting.

It’s the Circuit Overseer’s visit this week so there was a meeting Tuesday night. We arranged to pick up Milena and her son Moises who live on the road between where we live and the main highway. So I managed to get behind the passenger seat, which technically isn’t a seat, but it works! And the sister got in the front, and her son sat in the bed of the truck. So there were four of us. By the time we got to the Kingdom Hall there were 13 of us in the truck!!!! Everyone but a few people walks to the meeting, so we picked people up along the way! It’s nice to be able to help them out like that. They appreciate the ride.  Reminds me how much we take for granted though, just getting in our cars and driving to the hall. So easy.

I didn’t take my camera Tuesday night and I regret it immensely! As soon as we walked into the hall the CO grabbed Charley and vanished with him into a back room where I could see a couple of sisters who looked like they were practicing a demo or something. If I’d had my camera I could have recorded Charley’s first part. It was a silent one – just the kind he likes! The CO’s talk was the one that’s been given everywhere about impartiality. But this CO did it differently to ours. He had these little skits in it! So two sisters were on one side of the stage out in service, and they saw a brother dressed as a doctor, and decided he wouldn’t listen to the message. Then Charley came up on the phone, and they were like, oh, he’s a foreigner, he’ll never listen, those foreigners think they’re so much better than us, etc. It was really funny!!!!  I get mad even now thinking about the fact that I couldn’t record it because my camera was at home!

So, we’ve spent the week going out in service morning and afternoon with the CO and his wife, Luis & Gema Balladares. They’re amazing! He’s a fantastic speaker. Great sense of humor too. He’s 44 and she’s 38. She started regular pioneering when she was 13, and was appointed a special pioneer at 17. He’s been in the circuit work 17 years (if you do the math he started really young) and they’ve been married 14 years. So she was in circuit work at 23. And they served six years as District Overseer too! He also went to MTS before he started in the circuit work. I got to work with her on Thursday morning and found out all that and more. Wonderful couple!

We also got to attend the pioneer meeting with the local pioneers. That was a real treat. We’d already been to that meeting with our CO but it was enjoyable to see how this brother presented the information. Here’s a picture of the group of regular pioneers. One of them just filled out her form this week, but the CO told her to stay for the whole meeting, so now we’ll just be waiting for the announcement!

Standing, L-R - Leonardo Garcia, Lester Perez, Lucia Pavon, Rachel, Charley & Luis Balladares(CO)
Sitting down, L-R - Ada Garcia, Rosa Rivera, Katya Mena & Gema Balladares (CO's wife)

Charley missed an entire day out in service on Thursday because he had to go with Cesar to get the truck’s paperwork sorted out. They left here at 8am, and got home about 5:30pm! And after all that we didn’t even get the permanent plates because they’d run out of them! So we have temporary ones for a month, and hopefully when we go back it won’t take long to get the permanent ones! The CO and his wife picked me up that morning since they were driving right past of the entrance of where we live. And in the afternoon I got really brave and walked to the bus stop, and then got the bus by myself to the hall. I was very proud of myself!!

It’s great having the truck though. Makes it much easier to get around. We met for service on Friday in a neighborhood called El Raizon where one of the elders lives. They told us it was a bad road, but I had no idea what they meant! We took the truck down there – what an adventure that was. I thought we were never going to get there or that the truck would fall apart. But it’s a good strong truck with four wheel drive too.  Again I didn’t have the camera otherwise I would have taken a little video of the trip. Good times!

Friday afternoon four of us went to do return visits in the truck. The sister with us, Lucia, and I sat in the bed of the truck. That was fun!! I enjoyed the breeze – keeps you cool. But then it started to rain, so we got the umbrellas out, but I was wearing a white skirt – it wasn’t white by the time we got home! I found one call home, and two calls we couldn’t even find the houses!!

Friday night we had the meeting. During the opening prayer the power went out so we all sat in the dark for about 10 minutes until they got the auxiliary lights going. Then about 15 minutes into the meeting, the regular lights came back on! It was fun while it lasted but we’re glad it didn’t last long!!

This morning we had about 40 out, so more than half the congregation. Everyone piled into the truck, and the other two vehicles in the congregation, and a couple more on motorbikes and off we went to the territory. We had a good morning and I accidentally found one of the return visits whose house I couldn’t find Friday afternoon!

It’s pretty much rained on and off all afternoon and evening. It’s raining pretty hard right now actually. People celebrate Christmas starting at midnight tonight, so I hope we can sleep. They set off a lot of fireworks so it can get pretty rowdy so we’re told. But we’re in a pretty calm neighborhood so I think we’ll be alright.

So tomorrow Charley has asked to be chairman. He didn’t bring a suit, because last time nobody used them, but now it’s starting to become a bit more standard over here to use one for the meeting, if you’re on the platform. Well, nobody was using them until this week that we had the CO! So he’s going to be borrowing a suit from one of the elder’s sons who appears to wear the same size as him. Hopefully that will work out! And we’re having the CO and his wife over for dinner after the meeting so we’re excited about that. The house got a good cleaning today! And Gema said they like pasta and don’t get served it very often here, so I have a homemade sauce bubbling on the stove right now that I’ll heat up tomorrow. And we have salad, bread, and I plan on cutting up fruit tomorrow for a fruit salad. We bought a papaya to include in it, and some star fruit which I need to look online and see how on earth you cut/serve the stuff! And a pineapple that I hope is ripe!

So, that’s the latest news from our end. We’re really enjoying the ministry here and getting to know the congregation. We have some good return visits that will hopefully become Bible studies before too long. We hope you’re all doing well and that the weather has been kind.