This and That

First of all, I just noticed that the ingredients for the Cinnamon Roll filling didn't show up on the blog post. They showed up in the email, but in case you read the blog online instead of via email here are the ingredients again:

Smear

1 stick                   Butter

1 cup                     Sugar

1 tsp                      Cinnamon

Ok, now what? Shout out to one of the elders in East Spanish Indianapolis. Last night Brother Guerrero called us on Skype. They had their Special Assembly Day yesterday there in Indianapolis. And this morning, I'm listening to it!!! He recorded the whole program and sent it to me via Sky Drive. YAY!!

I've ended up staying home this morning, although my excuse for not going out in service in Masaya somewhat vanished on me, but oh well! Charley has a meeting at 11am today, then he has another one at 5:30 to practice setting up the Kingdom Hall for a Zone Visit meeting that we'll all get to enjoy next weekend. And then at the last minute he was asked to go give the talk in Managua English congregation this morning! I was going to go with him, which was my reason for not going to Masaya for service, but then I slept through the alarm and Charley didn't wake me up, so he went by himself to give the talk. He's leaving after the talk anyway because he has that other meeting in Masaya at 11am. But that's ok, I'll be productive at home instead. 

There's so much going on in the coming weeks that I know time is going to fly by. Yesterday Charley gave a talk in Las Villas congregation. We were at our meeting for the Public Talk, then left, got a bite to eat, and went to Las Villas meeting. It was funny because our speaker was from Las Villas so we listened to him give the Public Talk at our hall, then went to hear him conduct the Watchtower at his hall! 

This Zone Visit meeting is really exciting. They will be transmitting the video of the special program they're having at the Zone Visit via internet three times on April 28th, and since our hall has the advantage of the CO's apartment, therefore an Internet connection, they're showing it all three times, and two different congregations will come to each of the showings. Ours is first thing at 10am so hopefully we can get it all set up and working well. It's a three hour program that we just can't wait to see. So that's our meeting next week instead of the usual Public Talk & WT study.

Then two days after that our CO visit starts. I'm looking forward to actually taking the CO's wife on studies this time. Last time I only had return visits to take her on because we'd only been here a month, but now I can take her on a real study! I'm going to take her to Mirna & Juliana's. She actually met Juliana before I did and was the one that told me that she seemed really interested too. So it'll be nice to take her back there.

Then in May we have some rehearsals for the circuit pioneer meeting, visitors from England who've been in DR for two months. They'll be with us for a month. We have to go to Costa Rica to renew our visa and also to meet up with them since it was easier to fly from DR to Costa Rica than DR to Nicaragua. There's an English Special Assembly Day in June that we'll no doubt go to. And we'll be making a trip to Ometepe Island with one of our young sisters some time in the next few months. And we have our Circuit Assembly in July. There are also going to be three Pioneer Schools just here in Masaya in June, July & August and it appears that Charley is involved to some extent in organizing the food for that so hopefully we'll get chance to go serve the food to the pioneers. I just can't keep up with everything that's going on! It'll be the end of this service year before we know it!

Anyway, I think I'm getting a bit rambly and boring here. How about a couple of pictures.

We went to Jinotega on Wednesday to take pick up some friends and take them to the airport. Look how far off road we drove according to our GPS! The pink line over to the right is the road!

Didn't look very "off-road" to me though!

And here is how our poor friends had to travel for two hours with all their bags. They had pillows and sleeping bags though so they seemed to survive the journey. And no, that's not a shower cap Tasha's wearing, it's a scarf.

And here's me with my complete mango peel - do you think I might make it into the Guinness Book of World Records?!

So, now time for a service experience. One of my studies is Dulce (literally "Sweet" in English). She had studied before so we started the Bible Teach book in Chapter 6. So, last week we finished Chapter 9 about the last days. Since we'd studied about 1914, and in the Jehovah's Will brochure we'd studied about how the truth was rediscovered in the late 1800's I thought it would be nice to watch the Faith in Action video, Part 1. Dulce really enjoyed the video, and afterwards she was commenting on it, and although I forget her exact words, she basically said "Seeing all that work they did to understand the Bible accurately, it makes you realize that you've found the truth". I smiled, but inside I was dancing!!! Just to hear her say that, man, there's just nothing compares to the joy of teaching others the truth.

She is one of the studies that came to the Memorial and she says she felt such a peace there that evening. She could feel the loving atmosphere and she just felt closer to Jehovah. It really was a turning point for her. She's always enjoyed her study, but she seems like she's really serious about this now. This Saturday she had to work, but she said that next week I have to call her to make sure that she's getting ready for the meeting!

As a little reminder, this is Dulce next to me at the Memorial.

That was a lovely end to my long day in service on Tuesday this week. It was a really good week actually. We didn't go out Wednesday because our trip to Jinotega wore us out, and it was nice to get a little extra rest. But all five studies I had scheduled, or rescheduled, for Friday studied. I love those days. It's not often that every study I have scheduled actually studies, but Friday was one of those great days that just flew by. 

Well, if you made it to the end of this post, congratulations! Your endurance will be rewarded in some way or another!!!