How time flies!

So, since I last blogged we've been mostly working and trying to get a bit of field service time in - well, we have the rest of the year to catch up, eh?!

We spent a lovely evening in the company of some old friends from Indy. It was nice to catch up, hear their experiences and stories of how Jehovah is blessing their efforts to lead a simple life and put Kingdom interests first. We also enjoyed some good food! Here we all are at the end of the evening.

Monday afternoon I had coffee with a friend who used to serve in the Spanish, and now she's in the French congregation. She's a regular pioneer and her husband just started up again, and they seem to be doing well in the French. It was nice to hear her experiences about serving in that field here in Indy. 

On Wednesday, we celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary. Charley took me on a picnic in Brown County State Park. It was a bit chilly, but the sun did finally come out. We had a lovely time eating and walking the trails and trying to take pictures of ourselves! I'm quite pleased with the results below. You come up with ingenious places to put a camera when there's nobody around to take a picture for you! Unfortunately Charley came home with a temperature of 101, something he'd been fighting with for a couple of days finally won out! But a day off soon fixed that and he was fine. Seems like the last couple of anniversaries have been rather eventful, we're thinking we'll just stop celebrating it!!

Charley unpacking the lovely picnic he put together for us

All the things I miss about living in the States and England - good cheese, good sausage, strawberries, good bread. YUM!!!!

I get earache really easily so this was the only way to enjoy lunch!

10 shots later we got this nice little picture

I guess this is work of a beaver - pretty impressive!

Another self shot - about 12 takes maybe!!

He was running around so fast it was hard to get a picture, but check out how full those little cheeks are!!

The trees here in Brown County haven't reached their peak yet, but they were still pretty.

One of the trails around the lake.

On Thursday we had a chili cook-off and dessert contest at work. I made some caramel shortbread. I didn't win anything (shock to those of you who have eaten the shortbread!) but I did get to enjoy watching people's faces as they ate shortbread for the first time. They thought it was really good. Can't go wrong with a recipe full of butter, sugar and condensed milk can you?!

Friday I had lunch with two other old friends, and also enjoyed catching up with all of their activities over the past year. They have plans on working less real soon and pioneering, and perhaps looking to serve elsewhere. It was encouraging to catch up with them. Before we knew it we'd been at lunch for an hour and a half!! Whoops! I'll have to make that up next week sometime!!

Yesterday the Spanish congregation had an anniversary party for us!!! It was so lovely. I'm still collecting pictures since my battery died and I didn't take many. It was cold out but they had a fire pit which was lovely. I just stayed warm by dancing all night in the garage!! We did some Scottish dancing, which they all seemed to really enjoy! My in-laws, and one of my sisters-in-law and her two boys came too. Our 7-year old nephew Asa was the star of the evening. I didn't know he was such a dancer!!!! He was out there dancing salsa and bachata and cumbia and didn't seem to want to stop!! He even danced by himself in the middle of the floor with everyone watching him for a while!!

Charley is giving the talk at East Spanish today (our old congregation here) and they do hospitality by group so I guess we'll be doing more eating this afternoon!! East Spanish also had another elder announced this week!!!!! So now they have FIVE elders. And four new regular pioneers were announced - two that moved in to help from another congregation, and two that just started up again. WOOHOO!!!!!! So now we can go back to Nicaragua knowing that East Spanish is stocked with elders!

So, we have lots coming up for the rest of our month here. My mind is already back in Nicaragua - I think I've dreamt we're there, or on our way there, every night for a week now! Our nephew Asa has his first part on the school this coming week so we're going to hear that, we're taking a short trip to Charlotte, NC to see a study of mine who we haven't seen since just after she got baptized about 6 years ago! We're having dinner with some more old friends next week, Charley's family have their Special Assembly Day up here in Indy so we'll be having them here for dinner afterwards, East Spanish is host congregation so we'll have a special week of activity with them, and then the circuit assembly. It's just all go!!! In between all that we're working, going out in service, and trying to collect some things to take back with us. Hopefully we can fit it all in two suitcases!!

Well, that's it for now. Best start getting ready for the meeting and finish doing laundry. Hope you're all doing well. And a big thank you to the two couples who sent us anniversary cards from England - you know who you are!! They arrived right on the day of our anniversary, both of them!!! Thanks!!