Why did the chicken cross the road?

Hard to believe it’s 2012 already, isn’t it?! And with the end of December came the end of our unlimited internet access. But that’s ok, living without permanent access to the internet is a lesson that I need to learn.  I would like to start by retracting something from my last post. I just noticed that I said that Charley has ASKED to be chairman for the Sunday of the CO Visit. Any of you who know Charley well, would know that it should have read Charley has BEEN asked… He didn’t ask!! Hahaha, how embarrassing. Can you imagine him asking to be chairman?!?!!? Ok, so now I can move on.

It’s been so long since I last blogged that I’m not sure I can remember what’s happened over the last week and a bit. The weather has been very mild indeed, not too hot, and rainy for end of December/beginning of January. The end of the CO visit was great. We had the privilege of having them here for dinner after the meeting on Sunday. Here we are with them and a couple of brothers, Harry & Moises, that we invited along. Harry & Moises are both in similar situations in that they are the only ones in their household that are Witnesses. Not sure about Harry’s family, but I know Moises said his family weren’t too happy about it either when he got baptized. They’re both really good brothers. Moises is a Ministerial Servant and supports the group quite a lot during the week. And Harry works with one of the elders in carpentry, and is a good support on the weekends. It was nice to get to have them over here.

After dinner with CO & his wife, and Harry & Moises

The week following circuit visit is a bit of a blur. We went out in service every morning, except I took one morning off because I just couldn’t get going! We’ve been going out in the afternoons quite a bit, and had some great calls. I started a study last week with a girl called Gabriela. Ended up on the subject of Judgement Day on the first visit, so we went back this past week and studied that subject in the Appendix of the Teach book. She’s been called on before, already had the book, but nobody has managed to get her to study regularly. So we’ll see what happens. I’m supposed to go tomorrow to start the first chapter in the book. Hopefully she’ll be there. I also have a few other calls that I’ve sort of started studying with, they just don’t know it yet! One young girl in particular called Brenda I’m hoping to go tomorrow to continue in the article on page 16 of the November WT. We had a good discussion on the first two paragraphs last week. And we finally got a call home today that we’ve been hoping would study. His name is Jose Luis, probably in his early 20’s, and today we actually got to sit down and study with him. And Claudia (the landlord’s niece) is doing well. She came to the meeting yesterday and we had a really nice study today.  We’ve had a lot of very interesting discussions about hellfire this week with a variety of return visits. Seems to be a popular topic on people’s minds, because it’s them that have brought up the subject, not us. It’s been great to see how they come to the right conclusions after reading scriptures like Ecclesiastes 9:5, Romans 6:7 & 23, Genesis 3:19, Jeremiah 7:31 and 1 John 4:8. I also had a good call today using a question the CO suggested – Why did Jesus have to be born of a virgin? People say Jesus came to die for us, but a lot don’t understand what exactly that means. Made for a very good discussion with a young girl today, and she seemed to enjoy learning the answer.

I made my first fresco this week!!! That’s what they call homemade juice here. We bought a giant granadilla from the little stall that is just outside the housing division we live in, and some oranges, and the girl told us how to make it. It was rather good. We certainly won’t be buying fruit from the supermarket anymore. It’s WAY cheaper at the little market stalls that are dotted around. We bought a huge papaya (which didn’t have a ton of flavor but that’s ok because I think papaya tastes a bit rotten anyway!), a pineapple, 16 oranges, and the granadilla, and it only came to $4.50. And who knows if that was a good deal compared to the big markets!! But the papaya itself would have cost that much at the store. So we’ll see what we find this week to make a drink out of. Oh, but the granadilla, it has the weirdest inside you’ve ever seen. Here’s a picture below. I’ve never gagged cutting up a fruit before, but I came REALLY close on this one. It feels like, like……I don’t even know the words to use……like ugh, it’s so slimy and just UGH! But it tasted good!

UGH, it felt, soooooo UGH!!!!

Once again I didn’t have my camera the other day, but I wish I could have taken a picture. We were heading down a bumpy road to some calls, when a chicken crossed in front of us. And again on the way back it did. We’re still not sure why the chicken crossed the road, but we think we know what country the joke originated in! Maybe before we leave, we’ll find out the answer.

On Saturday we had a lovely, lovely day. We went up to El Crucero where we spent a month last year with the Robleto’s. We got there for field service in the morning, and man was it COLD!!! Well, it was really cloudy, not warm, and SUPER windy. I thought I was going to blow away! And I was dressed for warm weather, so that made it feel worse! But we had a nice time out in service and then we went to their meeting in the afternoon during which I was cold the whole time! But anyway, we saw almost all of the brothers and sisters there that we had such a good time getting to know last year. I felt guilty when they asked how long we’d been here, and I had to admit it had been a month already and we were just now arriving to visit, and not even staying until Sunday!! So there were lots of hugs, and a few photos mostly with the kids to show how much they’ve grown since last year. It was a happy reunion. Then we ate nacatamales with the Robleto’s after the meeting then headed home before the New Year’s celebrations got too crazy. That night we woke up around midnight I guess and were kept awake for about half an hour with all the loud fireworks and bangers they set off. It sounded like they were setting them off in the back yard, or the spare bedroom or something!

With my best friend Margarita

Charley & Adaya who about squeezed all the air out of me with his hug!

Patricia gave me a ring so we both have one that will remind us of each other.

I'm not sure what was going on in this picture! The nacatamales were yummy though!

Last night after the meeting we had a family over for dinner.  They’re a really sweet family. The mam, four daughters, and one son. The children range in age for 25 to 13 and all, including the mother, were baptized within the last five years, two at a time! They’ve gone through a lot from what they told us of their story. It was so encouraging. Being raised in a Christian household you take a lot for granted sometimes. We’re hoping to eventually invite just about everyone over, but time is flying by fast and we’re just barely getting started. Quite a few here seem interested in learning some Scottish Ceilidh dances that I mentioned so we’re going to see what we can organize to do that here one evening!!

With Sunday night's company

Well, for not being able to remember much, I managed to write a lot…again….as usual! We hope you’re all doing well in your respective cities and countries. We’re doing well down here. We will be buying internet by the hour now, so we probably won’t be connected daily anymore. It’s only 50 cents for an hour so that’s not bad. Take care and keep in touch. Hasta luego.