Pali is Spanish for Aldi

Well, it’s been a hectic weekend so I’ve stayed home this morning to get a little rest. It also just started raining so I don’t regret my decision! Hopefully Charley is not getting too wet out there! Or it may be that nobody will be brave enough to come out and he’ll be home again before long.

So, the rest of last week went well. Had a good time out in service and a good meeting on Friday. I was hoping to have a video to share with you of a demonstration I did on Friday night, but we forgot to record it – despite having remembered to take the camera! I was the foreigner in the demo about using the Good News booklet. But the brother decided to have me change it up a bit and I pretended to be French instead!! I had to read the whole page in French, which I’m sure I did horribly, but it went off well and everyone said they liked it. The good thing is that the sister doing the demo didn’t say which language she turned to, so nobody could follow along in the booklet and see how I was butchering the language!

I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before, but for the last couple of weeks I’ve really wanted to eat pizza. So on Thursday after service in the afternoon, we went to find a pizza place that I’d seen a sign for. We ended up at a different place, which for some reason I didn’t realize until yesterday, but we got a vegetarian pizza, but with sausage on it too. It was DELISH! It was the BEST pizza I’ve ever had – which I’m pretty sure it probably wasn’t, but it seemed like it at the time. And we bought some 7UP so that I could have a shandy with it. I was the happiest creature on the planet that evening as you can see by the photo!

On the way to this pizza place we spotted a Pali supermarket. All this time we were driving past it to get to La Colonia where we do most of our shopping. It’s cheaper than where we shop too, although it doesn’t sell as much stuff. So we went in there while we waited for the pizza to be ready. I was very excited to find 2% lactose-free milk! It was the same brand as what I’ve been buying, but the one La Colonia sells is Skimmed Milk – therefore it doesn’t taste much like milk! And it was also a little cheaper. I was THRILLED! (I hear you asking why I was wanting lactose-free milk when I’m about to eat cheesy pizza! I appear to perhaps not be lactose intolerant at the minute, but I don’t want to push it, so I still get the lactose free milk just to be safe.)

Anyway, so we got some milk, and some other things and when we got to the register we said “You do take credit cards, right?”. The answer was no. Apparantly Pali is Spanish for Aldi – cash only. So Charley said he thought he had enough cash. So they ring it all up, and it was twice as much as we had cash on us. It was rather embarrassing, because we had two more people behind us, and now we had to pick out the things we really wanted and run it all through again. We just got the essentials – which included a can of 7UP for my shandy of course! And a can of Coke to have a rum and Coke over the weekend! So, we learned our lesson. We probably won’t shop there much, because although it’s a little cheaper than La Colonia, it’s more expensive to get cash out than to pay with our credit card, so it doesn’t work out any cheaper really. I will be getting my 2% lactose-free milk there though – it was like having cream on my cereal!!!

Cute little story that made me appreciate that kids here live a simpler life than in more developed countries. The brother who is working on the house has a four-year old boy who we’ve sent an apple for a couple of times when apples were on sale (they’re a dollar a piece when they’re not on sale so most people here don’t eat them).  There was a day’s text last week about Solomon. So, this brother asked his little boy what he would ask Jehovah for if he could ask for anything like Solomon did. He thought about it for a minute and said, “An apple”. I just thought that was a story worth telling. Who of us in the States or England would ask for something so simple as an apple?! I learned a good lesson from that story!

This weekend the English congregations in Nicaragua had their circuit assembly here at the Assembly Hall in Ticuantepe, which is just 10 minutes around the corner from us. So on Saturday afternoon we went to hear the program, and meet some needgreaters. We met mostly those serving in English here, but also those serving in Spanish and Sign Language who took advantage of the chance to come hear the assembly in their mother tongue. They interviewed the new District Overseer and his wife. I don’t know how old his wife was, but I can’t imagine that she’s much older than me. He was a little older, but still relatively young. It was a really encouraging interview. And the English Circuit Overseer and his wife used to be in Brooklyn Bethel – Charley recognized them and we talked to him for a minute. It was VERY, VERY encouraging to talk to others serving down here. Some have been here 6 months, a year, two years. Some just got back from working in the States, others on their way to go back and work for a couple of months. It really made a deep impression on me. And then add to that the Watchtower study on Sunday, and I’m ready to sell everything and move down here! But that was probably a decision based more on emotion, so I won’t commit to anything just yet! Oh and the DO mentioned that at the pioneer meeting they had on Friday, there was a 6 year old and an 8 year old in attendance. They’re both regular pioneers!!!! They were sitting a couple of rows in front of us with their parents. AMAZING! I wish I had a photo to show you all. Here are a few pictures of some of the sisters I chatted with. Most serving in English, one in Sign Language, one in Spanish.

On Sunday evening after the meeting Mario & Wanda Robleto came over after being at the assembly down here. And we had a couple, and two single brothers from the congregation over too. Made good old pasta again! It’s not a meal people eat much here and so easy to make! Some homemade sauce, and some store bought sauce, a loaf of French Bread, and some fruit salad and you have yourself an easy dinner for eight! It was a nice evening. I wonder sometimes what the security guards here think of us. Here come two foreigners, who’ve been living here only about 6 weeks, and for the last 4 Sundays we’ve been bringing in a truck load of Nicaraguans all dressed up nice and then driving them all back out again a couple of hours later!

Our dinner guests

Well, it’s still somewhat rainy out. And I’ve had to go bring the trash in because apparently it has something delicious in it and I’ve already had to run two dogs off. One being a rather nice looking one, obviously someone’s pet around here. And the other being a sad looking creature with one blue eye and one brown one. He was a bit harder to run off! We need to get a trash can instead of just putting the bag out there I guess. Hopefully I notice when the trash truck comes by so that we don’t end up keeping the trash.

Since I wrote the above we went out to do some calls/studies this afternoon and I just had to add this note. Do you know when you really can tell that it’s time to study a new Bible Teach book for your personal use? When a page flies out and blows under a bush and your return visit’s daughter has to go and retrieve it for you. – I think it’s time.

And here is my favorite picture from the week. One of the twins in the congregation!

Take care everyone. Until next time…