Meet San Sebastian - Group #1

Well, things are going well here. We miss our other couple that moved to the South congregation, but we're getting by! We still spend time at their house when we want to rest during the service day. Our groups for service have been quite small during the week, but just another reason to make good arrangements and encourage others to come out. I got to work with three sisters in this past week that I'd never worked with before. Part of the reason being that we don't go out Thursday's and we meet in separate groups on Sundays. But we had a good time getting to know each other and made plans for future afternoons out doing studies and calls.

I can't think of anything terribly amazing or unusual having happened lately. No bus stories this time. Mostly because for one reason or another we've taken the truck nearly every day. We got to help someone move the other evening so that was nice to be of service. We're the only people in the congregation with any kind of vehicle bigger than a bicycle so it's nice to be able to help others out using the truck.

We had a really good weekend. Yesterday we stayed home because Charley had the talk at Ticuantepe North congregation which is just about 15 minutes down the road from us. It's actually quite a bit closer than our congregation, but we're not even in the same circuit. Anyway, so he did a good job with his talk about young ones. It was funny seeing him in a suit actually. That's about the only time anyone wears their suit jacket down here, if they're giving a public talk, so it almost looks strange to see someone you know wearing one! The congregation was very nice and the Kingdom Hall is lovely. And the brother conducting the Watchtower is from Spain originally - he has an awesome accent! We really enjoying listening to his Spanish!

Then today Charley, as service overseer, visited Group #1. So we decided to take advantage of the arrangement to invite the group to our house after field service. We had a good group out, about 12 which was most of the group, and we all had a good time out.  I worked with a sister I hadn't had chance to go out with before and we had two good Bible Studies. One of them I hadn't found in a few weeks but we had a great study today. She's about 20 and is super sharp. She amazes me how she answers and explains the Scriptures. And the other study I got to show her how to use the website www.jw.org to be able to listen to the Bible and the magazines and find information. Not many people have internet here, but her house is a "cyber" (internet cafe type thing) so she has a few computers, so that was cool. Then everyone went home, and at 1pm we all met back at the hall, piled all 15 of us in the truck and came to the house. We had prepared snacks and they were devoured and enjoyed it seemed like!

Here are some pictures of what we spent most of Saturday making:

I made a couple of quiches. Some were afraid to try it so we still have one left - yum!

Two banana breads, and I also made two cream cheese pound cakes
but they were gone before they got their photos taken!

And we made about thirty of these little sausage rolls, using bread dough that Charley made.
The rest of the dough was used to make two french breads which were also eaten up!

And then we had a couple of bags of chips, a bag of candy which the young ones devoured in no time, a bowl of fruit and yogurt and drinks. It all seemed to go down well. Only the quiche remains!

And this picture is dedicated to my mother-in-law - yes, Katie, I washed all those! And I also washed about 15 plastic plates too. All but 4 of the plastic forks ended up in the trash though - and that was nothing to do with me!

And here are some pictures of the group. First we played a game that my mam told me about the other day. We played mixed teams, then guys against girls, and I managed to never be on the winning team! But we sure did laugh a lot playing it! And then we played the game where you have to guess which Bible character name is on your back as you'll see in the pictures. Mine was really hard - Michal - that one took me a good while!

Juan Carlos was Nebuchadnezzar - it took him a good half an hour! 

And we had a good laugh during the process

Juan Carlos thinking deeply about the name on this back!
He's our Coordinator in the congregation. 

And Edward was Paul

And here is the whole group together. Spot the difference - not difficult!

Jose Sr., Conchita, Marlene, Carolina, Norma, Helen, Jorge, Dixie, Juan Carlos, Jose Jr., Nicolas, Edward, Carlos & me

Charley just got home from taking everyone in the truck back to Masaya. He sends his greetings to you all! Here's one last picture of everyone ready to head back.

Plus four more inside the truck! We know how to pack 'em in here!

So, we plan on doing the same thing each month when Charley visits another group. It seemed to work out well and we really enjoyed having everyone over. Stay tuned to meet Group #2 in January!