Just daily life really

I'm not really sure what to blog about anymore since it seems like we've just been living our usual daily life lately and nothing too exciting has happened. After a rather productive morning though (see photo below) I decided to sit and try to type a little of our latest experiences and activities.

We had a couple of fun Thursdays (our other day off besides Monday) with a young mom in our congregation and her little girl. She came to learn how to bake. One week I taught her to make banana bread and oatmeal raisin cookies, the next week Charley taught her to make bread, and I made a cinnamon swirl coffee cake with her. She also did a load of laundry in exchange the second week! Here are some pictures from our baking lessons!

Loida and her daughter Kitlis mixing

Cookies almost ready to bake

Pinneaple filled bread triangles - don't know what they're called!

A nice view of Kitlis' teeth!

Her mam wants an 8x10 of this one!

So, the rest of our time has been spent being busy in the ministry. I'm having a hard time keeping up with all the calls and bible studies now. If someone isn't home when we arrange, they've pretty much just missed out until the next week because I don't have space left to fit them in some other day!

Charley and I started a study with a couple, Luis & Cecilia, who have the cutest, chubbiest little twin boys. I need to take my camera next time to get pictures of them. We don't have any Bible Teach books in at the minute, so we've just been sharing ours with them. We did the first five paragraphs and when we finished Charley showed him what we'd do next time. He asked if Charley could write down the scriptures that we would be considering next time so that he could look them up and that way be prepared for the study! Unfortunately they had to go out this past Saturday so we didn't see them, but it was just really cool to have someone that eager to prepare, even though they don't have their own book yet.

Another good study I have is with a lady named Mirna and her cousin Yuliana. They have lots of good questions and last week the subject of blood transfusions came up. So on Friday we watched the video about all the alternatives. Yuliana is a doctor so she was especially interested in it. She wants a copy of the video so that she can watch the other two programs that are on there, since we only had time to watch one with them that day.

Charley has a good study with a guy called Richard who lives just a couple of doors from the Kingdom Hall. He's a hair stylist, and I guess he speaks pretty good English. Charley ordered him an English bible. He also has a Spanish NWT from years ago. One that doesn't have the cross references in it - that's how old it is! But he's switched him from the Good News brochure to the Teach book now. I haven't been with him lately since I have a study at the same time, but it sounds like it's going well.

It's fun having a small territory partly because we never have to walk huge distances, but also because you start recognizing people. It seems like we say Hello to people we know on the street all the time now! And I'm sure once people have seen us once they remember us! Actually, we don't say Hello, we say Adios. That's what everyone here says when they walk past each other, even if they don't know each other. Adios, adios. It's funny to me, since we've never said Hi, but we're saying Goodbye already!

We're really looking forward to this Saturday since the congregation is having a Welcome party for us and the other couple that arrived. Although, it turns out that it will be a Goodbye party for the other couple! I didn't think we'd be allowed to have four elders for long. It's like against the law down here to have more than 3 in one congregation! But our sister congregation, Sur (South) just had an elder move, so now they only have two. So the new couple are going to be moving there, and the day of the welcome party is their last day in our congregation! We're really going to miss their support, but they live close to our territory so we'll see them still no doubt. But this Welcome party will be a blog post in itself I think. I get the impression there's a lot gone into the preparation of it. They usually perform local dances and stuff, in local costume, so it'll be fun to see what they've put together.

We have to go to the immigration office this week, probably on Thursday, to get our 90-day visa extension. It's hard to believe that this Saturday we'll have been here 90 days already. So for $62 each we get another 90 days. Then when that 90 days is over we'll be off to Costa Rica for a little vacation to get our passport freshly stamped.

There was a reference in the Watchtower study this past weekend to an article about what missionary life is like. It mentioned about their bus trip, and how they packed people on and it made me think about what happened to us last Wednesday. 

To save money we've been trying to get the bus at least a couple of days a week to our territory. They told us the last bus home was at 5:30, so I met Charley at the bus stop at 5pm, only to discover after a few minutes waiting that all the buses arriving were not going back out again. So we had to walk about 20 minutes as fast as we could to another bus stop. We caught a microbus which is a small 12 seat passenger van basically. But they get more than 12 people on them of course!  Charley got on, and as I was getting on I asked the guy if it was 10 cordobas (about 40 cents) to get home and he said 15. So I argued about that and he insisted it was 15. Trouble is we didn't know if we'd get another bus, and it was getting dark already, otherwise I would have got off! So, we had to pay 15 cordobas for the "privilege" of sitting on the "shelf" that is behind the driver. Neither of us could sit up straight, and I had to sit at an angle. And after that they still squished two more people on who were standing bent double. I had the cobrador (the guy who collects the money) with his face up in mine, and the lady in front had long hair and it kept blowing into my face and mouth. And I was muttering the whole time about having pay 15, and how the 10 cordoba bus was much bigger and more comfortable and always had seats available! 

By the time we got to our stop I couldn't feel my right foot or hand, and my back was killing me. I was so mad at that cobrador that I got off the bus and walked away without even looking to see if Charley needed any help. He was a bit further in than me, and he had our cooler bag which is kind of awkward! Poor Charley! He managed though.

So, that's my bus story for this week!! I haven't seen the bus drivers of the route we normally take yet to tell them off for not having a 5:30 bus last Wednesday. I guess tomorrow I'll see them and ask them about that! So, this Wednesday, we'll have to be at he bus stop about 4:45 to be able to get home!

Well, I figured if I sat here for a few minutes I'd manage to think of things to talk about! Hope you're all doing well. Wear a hat or scarf for me some day. I'm missing my winter attire terribly. I love the cold weather. But we're getting used to the weather here. At least now the dry season is starting it's not as humid, so although the sun is hot, there's always a nice breeze and it feels pretty good in the shade. Dry heat is a lot easier to handle. Not so much sweating! Well, looks like my laundry is ready to be brought in. I love how quickly it dries here. Our carbon footprint is definitely smaller here!