One last post for 2014 - Why not, eh?!?!

I just posted this experience on Instagram, but I thought I'd go ahead and post it here too. And maybe add an extra detail or two.

Here's a picture of a family we studied with today:

Eunice, Rachel & Sergio

We had the BEST study with them. Charley started studying just with Sergio about 3 or 4 months ago. He taught him how to prepare, and now he prepares for his studies most weeks.

Then 2 or 3 times his wife Eunice has joined in since she's on vacation from working in a school.  

And this week their daughter Rachel joined in for the first time. I shouldn't be able to forget her name, eh?!

This was the first time my schedule worked out to be able to go with Charley and it made my day, week, month actually! December is a rather frustrating month for studies, since most people are too busy working or partying! So it was a delight to find a family who actually have more time to study in December because they're all off work and school.

All of them joined in and readily accepted what we studied about the condition of the dead. After the study they mentioned they'd been studying Chapter 10 in the Bible Teach book together, as a family, and learned about the angels and wicked spirits. (Yeah, they're doing Family Worship already!) When he mentioned that he learned that there are millions of angels, his daughter corrected him, and said "thousands of millions"! She was definitely paying attention - and that was in the footnote!

He also said that last night he went looking for a church to go to but couldn't find one open. I guess he wanted to confess his sins for the year or something. Then this morning he realized we had our meeting last night but he hadn't looked at the invitation Charley gave him! He said "That's what we get for not looking at things that people give to us!"

They can't come this Sunday but they decided that they'll come as a family next Tuesday night! Hopefully they will! It turns out they studied with a couple from Spain who were serving down here years ago, and they even went to a meeting when their daughter was really little and didn't let them concentrate! We showed them the video about the meetings and the wife commented that she remembered that about the hall, that everyone is very welcoming and don't look at you funny like other places she's been to.

So, we'll see what happens in 2015 with this family. Just shows that sometimes a seed planted can take a decade or more to start growing! 

Well, I'd say that's my last blog post for 2014. Thanks for wasting another year of your precious time keeping up with my ramblings!!!

Until next time...

The things you discover...

I just remembered a little something I was going to share in the blog yesterday.

If you've been reading this blog from the early days, you may remember that I discovered that pancake syrup is easy to make. Brown sugar, water, heat until boiling, add a bit of vanilla flavor if you like - simple! I will never buy pancake syrup again!

Well, I have now discovered that flavored coffee creamer is really rather easy! A friend of mine down here got herself hooked on French Vanilla coffee creamer, and then bought me some for our anniversary and got me craving it too! But, it's REALLY expensive to buy it close by to where we live. And then the one store that does sell it, didn't have any more.

So, I thought, let's look online! 1 can of condensed milk, 1 1/2 cups of milk and some vanilla flavoring and voila, we have ourselves coffee creamer!!! AMAZING!!!

So, I was wondering what things have you discovered that are actually rather easy to make instead of buying? Especially if you've moved somewhere and can't get your favorite things anymore, or cheaply enough. Please share in the comments if you have any.

Now if only I could figure out how to make peanut M&M's...

Instagram Killed the Blog Star!

It seems like since I started using Instagram, my blog motivation has dwindled! So, it's been another month. Probably monthly updates are about as much as anyone can take anyway!

So my last post was mostly about convention. Not much to report really since then. I have finally decided to accept that December is just never going to be a fantastic month in the ministry, especially not for studies! There is always more work available in December, so half of your studies don't study, and the other half only study once or twice in the whole month! So it's been a bit hard sometimes to find the motivation to stay out long in the afternoons, but overall it hasn't been too bad of a month.

Sadly this trend isn't just evident in our territory. It's also reflected in meeting attendance and support in the ministry. Unfortunately many get caught up in the opportunity of making some extra money in December and other things get pushed aside, things that should be priorities. But, the month, and year for that fact, are almost over so hopefully January will see a surge in activity!

The weather this time of year is simply delightful, most of the time. It's only been in the 80's most days, and it gets cool in the evenings and at night. Been even using a blanket some nights. Right now there is a lovely breeze blowing through the house. I really do enjoy the weather this time of year. It did suddenly get hot for a few days, but overall it's a good month for weather. January and February should be too, and then the heat begins again!

It's amazing how low 70's can feel cool! Our bodies are amazingly adaptable.

Serving down here has it's challenges and sacrifices, but we do also enjoy the perks too! We got a deal similar to Groupon and so we had Papa John's for dinner a couple of weeks ago! They're not quite as generous with the toppings here, but the garlic dipping sauce came direct from KY (who knew KY was where Papa John's dipping sauce is made?!) and it was deeeeelicious!

We also recently enjoyed a wonderful day at the Laguna Beach Club. We get a discount, so it's about $4 for the day, per person with unlimited free coffee, use of their grills and kitchen (you can take all your own food and drinks) and use of their kayaks. It's so nice to have a place like this nearby. Not the ocean, but I actually prefer it. We had a great day there with a bunch of other needgreaters. It's nice to use our Monday's off to do something like that now and then instead of just the usual chores.

The view from Laguna Beach Club

We finally got some more pictures hung, so the house feels a bit more like home. My parents are coming next month and bringing a couple of posters I got printed of pictures I've taken so that should complete the "decorating"!

Our new picture wall using string and decorative paper clips. Someone told me there's an Esurance commercial that looks a lot like this. I looked it up online - hahaha, they were right!

I really enjoyed the day's text the other day. It was talking about how Jacob must have been concerned as to whether his trip to find a wife would be a success. But then Jehovah told him in a dream that he was going to be with him. It then applied it to serving in a foreign land. And it's so true, Jehovah takes such good care of us down here.

There is one family in particular who take extra good care of us. The whole congregation does, but particularly this one family. We park our bike in the safety of their front yard almost every day for service, and whenever they can they feed us. They have very little. They live in a house which is basically one room divided into two. Probably their living space is the size of most people's living room in the developed world, but they always share with us, even when they barely have enough to cover their own needs. I had a specific example that I remember thinking I'd share in the blog, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was!

Wednesday was actually the day that the text I mentioned above was used. And the same day Jehovah reminded me how true it is! We did early morning witnessing with the public witnessing stand, and I didn't want to bother the young sister who lives nearby to ask for chairs. So we were standing, but I was so tired I said to Charley that I wasn't sure I'd be able to stand much longer. Literally 30 seconds later, the young sister appeared, and asked if we wanted chairs! Around 8am Charley was getting ready to head to the group, and another sister was coming to join me for the rest of the morning. I had thought to myself how awesome it would be if she showed up with coffee. We hadn't had any that morning, and there just isn't anywhere to buy a cup of coffee in our territory. I thought to myself, maybe Jehovah will take pity on me like he did with the chairs. And what do you know?! 10 minutes later the sister shows up with coffee!!! I must have looked really pitiful from heaven that day!! Hahahaaa!!! So yes, Jehovah takes wonderful care of us!

The daughter and niece of the family who are always feeding us! They dressed up as Charley and me! Roxana swore she could see properly with my glasses on! Maybe she needs them!

And here's a random sight from our territory!!!!! I'm keeping an eye out for the flat screen tv trees. Not sure what part of the city they're in yet.

Our fan quit working a couple of weeks ago. Charley never did get it going again!

This was our first Christmas season here at this house we're in now, so we were curious to see how much noisier it would be. We used to live in a super quiet residential area, but now we're in the city, and Masaya is notorious for being noisy and celebrating noisily every celebration you could possibly come up with.

We were pleased to discover that we live in a really quiet neighborhood. The fact that we live in an alley, not a main street, probably helps. We had half an hour of explosions at midnight on the 24th - that's what people do here. But no parties, no noise at all really. It was as quiet as where we used to live. So that was a relief! Some friends who live in a really noisy part of town spent the night and said they hadn't slept that peacefully in quite a while!

It was fun this month to see Nicaragua featured online and in print. There's a picture on www.jw.org homepage of Las Pilas, Nicaragua which is about 20 minutes from where we live. And in the Watchtower study last Sunday the picture of a brother at a public witnessing stand was taken right here in Masaya. The brother witnessing is a special pioneer in our circuit who a few months back graduated from the first ever Bible School for Christian Couples held here in Nicaragua. (He's also in a picture in the 2003 Yearbook that covers the history of Nicaragua) And the brother he's witnessing to is in his congregation and was interviewed on our convention about the lifestyle changes he made when he came in the truth. So it was pretty exciting to see that picture in the Watchtower!

Well, that's really all there is to say. I can't think of much else to report. Keep up the good work everyone and see you around!

I leave you with a picture of Charley and me at our friend's wedding:

Summing it all up

I can't believe a month has gone by since I last blogged, if you can call posting pictures blogging!

November has been a good month. We did our visa run, crossing the Costa Rica border, and it went fine. Nicaragua wouldn't let us back in for three hours, but we'd gone really early so we were still home by 3pm. Glad that's out of the way...for now!

We had our regional convention the 14th through 16th and it was wonderful to get to hear the program for a third time. It was nice to be reminded of the information, and hear the interviews down here. I've made a collection of points and phrases I really liked from the three conventions we went to this year. So, here they are!

Adam & Eve didn't get a second chance to put Jehovah first. 

People today hate the people they don't know because they don't know the people they hate.

Isa. 33:21 wasn't a scripture I was familiar with. I liked the point that the other big cities/powers of Isaiah's time had canals/water to protect them, but Jerusalem didn't because Jehovah was their canal, so to speak.

There is so much hunger today, not because the earth doesn't produce, but because the ruler of this world isn't interested in feeding the hungry.

When Satan reminds you of your past, remind him of his future.

"I've seen Jesus turn beer into furniture" - loved that story!!! I'm sure you remember it.

Matthew 6:33 - keep seeking FIRST the Kingdom - Jesus didn't say ONLY, but FIRST. There are other things that have a valid place in our lives, but Kingdom interests should come first.

He who doesn't make time for recreation, sooner or later will have to make time for sickness!

He who offers Jehovah second place, offers him no place at all  (One of my favorites!!)

You'll never see a bird holding a sign saying "Will sing for food". Jehovah provides!

One brother here read Matthew 6:33 this way - Keep on, then, seeking first the Kingdom and his righteousness, and all these other things will be added to you...unless you have a family to provide for! Obviously it doesn't say that, but he said sometimes we may be reading it that way, not trusting that Jehovah will help us provide for our family.

Don't just apply Bible principles - apply them with the confidence that doing so will work out well.

A miner doesn't keep the dirt he digs up, just the precious metal (referring to our speech, and looking for the good in people)

Proverbs 2:1-5 refers to searching as for silver - it doesn't say gold. Silver is much harder to get to and it has to be smelted and purified. So our study takes effort.

For those who speak Spanish - "El que tiene boca, se equivoca" - talking about learning a new language! I can't translate it because it won't rhyme in English!

Comment from BSCC graduate - "You'll never regret that you went, only that you didn't"

Do root canal Bible study - deep!

Do not fumble at the 1-yard line - we are THAT close to the end.

Jehovah is driving the chariot. The Governing Body is just trying not to get run over by it!

In the new world, we'll have the health of youth, with the wisdom of old age.

Didn't remember ever having read Ezequiel 34:25 before about sleeping without fear in the forests. Love that idea!

You can't move forward if you're looking behind.

Experience of the sister who kept the stone that the elder threw through her window when he was a kid! Time to throw the stone away! (I think it was in the outline so you will all have heard it. If not, ask me and I'll tell the rest!)

And of course the amazing videos that we all enjoyed. What a treat!!

And then, there were so many encouraging interviews at all three conventions. We really enjoyed listening to some of our local, special full-time servants being interviewed. A special pioneer, a missionary couple, assembly hall overseer and Bethelite were all interviewed together. I liked what the missionary sister said when she started to suffer with migraines. She viewed pioneering as her career, and you don't abandon a career because of migraines! 

I also really appreciated the honest comments of brothers who reached out to serve, but at one time didn't want to. Just as a reflection of the great need here, one brother was baptized 9 years before being appointed a servant. The brother interviewing him said "Obviously you had a problem with your attitude since it took 9 years to become a servant"!! I thought that was funny, but very true. Here, there's no reason not to be a servant within a few years of baptism, since the need is so great. I had the privilege of attending pioneer school with this brother, who is now a servant and regular pioneer.

Also another brother said he'd been an elder, then wasn't, and didn't reach out to become one again. It wasn't the CO said "Soon, no more foreigners will come to serve here, and the local brothers will have to make more of an effort"! Sometimes straight forward words like that reach the heart. The brother is an elder again now!

It was so nice to see so many young elders giving talks at the convention. If any of you brothers want to be used more in the organization, come on down here. There is a lot to do and the friends appreciate the help so much. They take such good care of you!

Charley had his first convention talk and did a great job. I was backstage getting ready to be in his demo, so it was hard to concentrate on his talk, but from what I heard, he did great! So proud of him. 

So, that was the convention. We had over 2700 there on Sunday. Not sure how many publishers were assigned to the convention, but about 15 congregations maybe? So, I'm thinking that's a pretty good attendance! And we had 50 baptized, including two from our congregation. One of our 78 year old publishers got baptized. The brothers who baptized her were so kind and loving helping her in and out of the pool. It made me cry to see her symbolize her dedication to Jehovah.

I leave you with a few pictures from the convention.

Charley and the crew from his convention part. We did the demo about public preaching - how NOT to do it, then how to do it right!

Some of our friends. Roxana (top middle, pink shirt) came to all three days with her aunts and cousins. She's my little study and I was so proud of her for being there all three days. Charley was in charge of the platform this year - he's with the CO in the middle looking over all the charts. There were a lot of microphones involved in this year's convention!!!

I was impressed by the technology. Words of the songs on screen, split screen for interviews, name of talk and speaker on the screen at the beginning of each talk. Sound crew did a great job with all the video equipment.

Pre-convention cleaning. We got to do some landscaping on the beautiful assembly hall grounds.

My first time being on a convention down here. These pictures are from the week before our convention. I'm smirking because the brother adjusted my microphone and walked off stage. Then it slowly fell and twisted and they didn't notice! The brother asked me the first question and I just stood there, wondering what to do. Finally he came back out and got me set up again!! This was the interview about what new understanding I appreciated. I talked about the Faithful and Discreet Slave and especially the fact that we are all domestics now.

Oh, and a few more pictures. We had the privilege of going to a wedding on Friday. Just the second wedding we've been to here, and the first one where they did the civil ceremony first in the hall. It's interesting. They had a sister who is licensed to marry people. She did the civil part, and they signed the paperwork with their witnesses. They did all that down in front of the platform, then she sat down, and they moved on to the platform and had the talk and the wedding vows. It was a lovely wedding.

Aren't they the cutest?!?!?!

We had fun with the props our friend brought from the States!

Well, that's November in a very small nutshell! Amazing how quickly this month has flown by. Maybe it won't be so long before the next post...maybe!

Catching up with Instagram

This post is just dedicated to posting pictures that my Instagram followers have already seen. So, for those of you on IG, don't bother looking at this post!!! I will warn you in advance that these pictures are all completely jumbled and out of order! I'll just put captions with them to keep you straight!

Our parents secretly planned a surprise 10th anniversary party for us with the help of our local need-greater buddies. This is before we left the house to go out for a meal together. The surprise almost fell apart because we were home earlier than we were supposed to be, but they managed to pull it off!! We had a good laugh about that.

I thought Charley was joking when he said one night, "There's a horse in our front yard". Poor skinny little thing was helping us cut the grass. But then the police who ride around on bikes doing nightwatch chased him away, poor guy!

Another surprise from my parents. The lovely Brenda delivered this fabulous arrangement for us the morning of our anniversary. Enjoyed having it around the house while it lasted.

This was the night we had our young ones over to study the Watchtower and play games. We have a good group of teenagers.

Collage of the surprise anniversary dinner. We had some fabulous pizza at Monna Lisa in Granada, about 20 mins away. The picture with a beer in my hand - I wanted a shandy but they didn't have any Sprite or 7UP so one of our friends, Jenny, decided she'd go buy some from a local corner shop. She came back with two bags of 7UP!!! That's how they serve it here out of a glass bottle, but it was funny to have that on our table in the restaurant! THANKS JENNY!!!! Enjoyed the shandy! We are also still enjoying the presents. We got some whiskey, homemade starfruit wine (tastes like sherry, yum), French Vanilla coffee creamer (it's a luxury here!) and homemade chocolate. Thanks everyone!

The day we spent in Granada on our anniversary day. We had some great food, and a chocolate body scrub and deep tissue massage! Wonderful treat!

My new comfy seat on the bike! HAHAHA! Just kidding. Charley was going to care for a brother at the hospital and if you want to sit down you have to take your own chair - the health system here leaves a lot to be desired.

Fun with my study Anai. After we read the story of Moses we did some coloring. I love coloring and counting my time. Doesn't get much better than that!!

Remembering our wedding day 10 years on.

Spent $3.60 on all of this at the market yesterday. I love living so close to the Masaya market.

Visitor we found in our bathtub the other day!

Charley is tiling the kitchen. So far, so good.

Then we found another one the next morning!

My new haircut. I'm hopeless at selfies but I love how it turned out.

And I leave you with a shot of Granada's lakefront with Mombacho Volcano in the distance.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures. Sums up what we've been up to lately, more or less. We have our convention coming up in a couple of weeks so hopefully I'll have some good pictures from that. We also have to make a visa run soon before the convention. Our 90 days is about to run out, so we have to either buy an extension, or take a daytrip to the border with Costa Rica. I hate it every day 90 days starts to roll around! Amazing how time flies and that we're already thinking about that.

Well, back to the housework. I keep getting distracted!

The person faithful in what is least...

Well, dear friends, I just realized yesterday that it's been a month since I posted anything! You'd think after a month I'd have all kinds of things to say, but I can't think what's been happening!

I do want to tell a little story of a young brother in our congregation. His name is Isaac. He's 11 years old and a very bright young man, but also a little timid. A few weeks ago Nicaragua was celebrating it's independence and the kids are all involved in processions carrying the flag around the streets during those days and wearing banners and stuff. The kids with the best grades are the ones who are chosen to be at the front of such parades. Obviously, to remain neutral at such times, our kids have to take a stand for the truth.

So, Isaac told me a couple of days afterwards that he always gets at least 90 on his tests in school. And his teacher told him he'd be one of the kids to carry the flag, because he's such a good student. He told her that as one of Jehovah's Witnesses he wouldn't be participating in the procession and she told him he would! So, when the next test came around, he purposely got 80 on his test! His teacher guessed that he did it on purpose, but he said he just said Huh? when she asked him about it!!

I just was really impressed by this. It may seem like a small thing, but I know Isaac made Jehovah's heart rejoice that day. He wasn't concerned about breaking his record of high scores in school, if it meant he could be obedient to Jehovah.

Telling this story reminds me of his little sister, Jael. She is 8 and also really shy. She is a publisher already, but gets nervous about talking or reading out in service. I showed her the new video, Jehovah Will Help You to be Bold on Tuesday morning. Her mam told me yesterday that as they walked to the meeting on Tuesday evening Jael suddenly said, "Mam, I'm going to talk out in service now, because Jehovah helped Sophia to speak up, so I can too". I was so touched that just seeing that little video once, had such an impact on her. What a beautiful gift from Jehovah these Become Jehovah's Friend videos are.

Speaking of gifts from Jehovah - you know what I'm going to say! tv.jw.org!!!!!! WOW!!!!!! I spent Monday morning in front of the computer laughing and crying my eyes out and thanking Jehovah over and over again. What an AMAZING gift. We are such a blessed people. There just aren't even words...

This past week or so has meant a lot of phone calls between Charley and our other elder in the congregation. Our congregation "grandpa", Brother Taleno, fell in his house and fractured his pelvis area. He's been in the hospital a week now and today they're going to Managua to get a part that will be used in his surgery to fix it. It's been a nice opportunity to see the love of the brothers, since he has to have someone with him all the time in the hospital. Hospitals here leave a lot to be desired, at least the local, public one does. To receive proper care someone has to be there with him, take him his food, and if you want to sit down for the shift while you care for him, you have to even take your own chair!

So, the brothers in our congregation, and neighboring congregations have been taking turns spending 6 hour shifts with him in the daytime, and a 12 hour shift at night to make sure he's okay. He's doing well though. They don't like to let people in to visit, so I haven't seen him, but Charley says he's handling it all well and is in good spirits. The doctor says the operation will see him up and about pretty quickly, so hopefully that is the case. It's times like this that you realize what wonderful healthcare is so easily accessible in the developed world. But everyone is doing what they can to help, including pitching in to pay for the part that is needed for his surgery.

Service has been going very well. My attempt to keep my number of studies down so that I can give each of them proper attention has worked out pretty well. I still have a dozen studies, but it's less than I had before, and I feel like I'm able to care for them better and my service days don't consist of just running from one study to another! 

Well, what else? Just been busy with the usual mostly. We've added some personal touches to our little house, pictures that I've taken over the years, and still have a couple of other projects lined up to decorate a bit more. It makes such a difference having those personal touches. I feel like this place is our home now, not just a house!

Oh, yeah, funny little thing. The friends tried to have a surprise party for us, but their lack of communication meant it didn't end up being entirely a surprise! We were still a bit surprised though because we thought it was for our anniversary, just a little early, but when we got there it turned out to be a "welcome" party!!! That tickled me because we've been in the congregation since it was formed over a year ago!!! Haha, the friends are so appreciative here. It was a nice gesture and I danced until I could hardly walk! And it was a perfect opportunity to give out all the lovely gifts that so many friends gave us at the International Convention. Everyone loves all their bookmarks, and postcards, and other little things. And the kids were delighted with their new toy cars, and toothbrushes, and the big bag of candy was devoured in 10 minutes by young and old alike!!! For any of you reading this who gave us something - thank you so much! Your brothers and sisters in Nicaragua send their love and thank yous!

So, yeah, anniversary. It's our 10th anniversary next Thursday! Can't believe how quickly it came around! Our first decade - we survived it and actually thoroughly enjoyed it! We were going to go to Little Corn Island, which is a beautiful isolated island in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Nicaragua, but the place we wanted to stay turns out to be closed for maintenance until mid-November, so it might end up being a trip we'll do for 10 1/2 years of marriage! 

But we are planning on treating ourselves to a day off next Thursday. We're going to have breakfast in Granada at a place called Kathy's Waffle House that does American-style breakfasts!!! And then go to Cocoberry Spa for a chocolate body scrub and 60 minute massage!! And then maybe pizza at our favorite pizza place in Granada, and some kind of chocolaty delight at Hotel Dario. I'm so excited about our little splurge day!!!

Well, that's all for now. Hope you're all doing well and enjoying all the latest treats from Jehovah and his organization! That new song, 138, man, made me cry!

What a shout of praise to Jehovah

I just had to share this article from a Zimbabwe newspaper online about the International Convention recently held there. Friends from Indianapolis went and had an unforgettable, moving experience there. 

After you read this article, https://www.newsday.co.zw/2014/09/11/came-saw-made-zim-richer/, check out the Twitter account of the Minister of Tourism who is extensively quoted in the article. 

Here's the tweet of the visit he paid to Brooklyn Bethel. Click on it to see the pictures better.

Courtesy Call on Jehovah ' Witness NY Brooklyn HQ: Thank you for choosing Zimbabwe as Global Convention venue. pic.twitter.com/5D4eziBAhL
— Walter Mzembi (@MzembiW) September 10, 2014

I hope you enjoy reading it and seeing the pictures as much as I did. 

What an amazing organization we belong to. Just another reminder of how grateful I am to Jehovah for allowing me to be a part of it.

Introducing.........(drumroll)......the new Rachel

So, a new service year is already 8 days old, and it's been a great first week.

Pioneer School - what can I say?! It was FANTASTIC. It was my third time going, first time in Spanish, and I loved every minute of it. Jehovah keeps sending me, hoping that maybe this time I'll put something into practice! The new format of the school is wonderful and there were so many good reminders. So many things I need to work on. I like to think I came out a different Rachel, and hopefully I can maintain that for longer than 3 weeks!

I got to attend with some old friends, but mostly made lots of new friends. And we all will be at the same Regional Convention in November so it's going to be wonderful to catch up and see how everyone's getting along three months after school, and I'm just looking forward to knowing more people at the convention and meeting their families too.

Our instructors were just wonderful. We had our Circuit Overseer, and a brother who has been a missionary with his wife in Nicaragua for 14 years now. They just graduated from the Bible School for Christian Couples back in November last year (they never went to Gilead), so I like to think he used some points learned in the school with us. 

There were two pioneer school classes, and Charley had the privilege of being the School Coordinator, so he was there every morning making sure they had what they needed for the day and running little errands. That kept him busy while he was still finishing up his service year. I'm proud of all his hard work. He got his time in on the last day of the year! 

Here are some pictures from pioneer school:

My view from the back row. They seated us by height, so I was the very last one!

Henry, Francisco, William & Gilberto

Xochilt, Abigail, Martha & Ana Rosa

Scarlett, Karla, Felipe (CO) & Daysi

Maryoli, Nohemy, Matilde & Amalia

Aldo, Nelson, Frederick (instructor) and Victor

Brett & Cathy and Roberto & Eliveth

Kathia, Maryin, Sara & Victoria

Tania & Cristian and Hector & Eveling

Luilly & Kenia, Jose and Francisco

Yamil & Flor, Anielka and Catalina

Lunch overseer and his two helpers who came and helped serve lunch every day for the two weeks that the pioneer school classes were held.

This was what an older brother said when asked to comment on the school! He said, I'm just going to say one word, Tank You! It sounded like one word when he said it I guess!

Missionaries, he was our instructor

The official class photo

We all got our pictures taken individually, or as couples, with the instructors too

We had quite a few couples in the class, as you can see in the photographs, which was really encouraging to see. Charley went last year, so maybe next time around we'll go together if he's willing to wait another 5 years!

Hmmmm, what else? So, the day after Pioneer School ended Charley gave another talk (second one since we got back) so I got to see three sisters from my class again! It was a nice little congregation, we enjoyed visiting them.

So, the year started out really well. At the Laguna Beach Club!!! September 1st was a Monday, which is most needgreaters day off, so a group of us went to enjoy the relaxing atmosphere of the lagoon. It's such a beautiful place. It started raining though, so I never got a picture of us all there!

As far as service, I have a revised schedule, and so far it's working out well. I decided during school that part of my reforming myself would have to include giving some studies away. I just had too many to be able to dedicate the necessary time to preparing and caring for each one of them. So I've been working on reducing them this week, leaving some with the sisters who took care of them while I was gone.

We also enjoyed a trip to San Marcos English group this last Saturday. Charley gave the talk there. He's given lots of talks since we got back, yes!! He spent the whole talk thinking in Spanish he said, so he struggled to get his thoughts out in English sometimes! But he did really well. We took a couple of friends, including Cherub who is back in Nicaragua again to serve up north. Two young, Danish sisters had us over for dinner afterwards and we had a great time, good food, good company. That's one thing we love about going to visit the English! They tend to do hospitality. Not that we're in it for the food! But it's nice to get to spend a bit of time with some from the congregation afterwards. That's not a habit in Spanish. In fact, usually the speaker just comes on his own, gives the talk, then leaves. So Saturday was a real treat! I took pictures, but on another friend's camera, so I don't have them yet!

Well, we're off to eat pizza with some friends now. Our friend, Veronica, is leaving Nicaragua to search out other fields, so we're going to spend a little time with her this evening.

Hope you're all doing well and enjoying the new service year.

Welcome back...now get to work!

Well, it's hard to believe it but we've been back 10 days already. Time, as usual, is flying by.

For those of you who don't follow on Instagram (racharley1016) I'll update you on what happened on our trip home. We went to Indianapolis airport on Monday afternoon, August 11th. When we checked in the computer asked if we wanted to volunteer to get moved on to a different flight, since it was overbooked, so we said Yes. But you had to bid how much you wanted, and we bid $500 thinking they'd never give us that for a flight from Indy to Atlanta.

Anyway, we got our bags checked in and everything and off we went to the gate. To cut a long story short, they asked if we'd be willing to fly out the next day, since leaving any later from Indy that day would make us miss our flight out of Atlanta to Managua. So, they rebooked the whole trip for the following day and they gave us EIGHT HUNDRED DOLLARS Delta flight credit each for doing it!!!!!!!!!!!! I almost fell over when she offered us that!!!!!!! Especially since we'd said we'd do it for $500!! WOOHOOOOOOO!!!! So, now we have our next two trips paid, since we still have a credit voucher to use from last year!

So, mam and dad had to come back and pick us up again! We celebrated by going to the Claddagh Irish Pub for fish and chips, which we hadn't had chance to do on this trip. So that was a nice extra!! 

So, on Tuesday we really did leave, and the flights weren't full. The flight to Managua was so empty that we got to move to the exit row (mega leg room) and have a whole row to ourselves. It was an uneventful trip home. One of our suitcases had a bit more of an eventful trip than us though - see picture below!

We spent Wendesday unpacking and organizing and cleaning the dusty house! It wasn't too bad though since the substitute CO and his wife had stayed at the house for two weeks while visiting nearby congregations. Wednesday evening we went grocery shopping - why did we wait until the evening?! It's rainy season! So, of course it hadn't rained all day, but as soon as we got to the store it started pouring. We waited it out a while, then just went for it. Then Charley had to dress up in his waterproofs to go get my Pioneer School book.

So, pretty much Thursday through Tuesday I did nothing but stay home and study for pioneer school while Charley went out in service.

This was my view for six days!!

It was sooooo nice to go to our first meeting back down here on Sunday. Great to see our Nica family again, and they seemed pleased to see us. And in true serving-where-the-need-is-greater style, Charley was asked to give the talk that day! 

There hasn't been much rest since we got back, but we did lots of resting in the States, and that's what we're here for, to work! Charley also has spent this week overseeing pioneer school, making sure everyone has what they need, so that's been a nice privilege.

And this week we have CO visit, which is why I tried to get most of my studying done last week. We have a substitute, a different couple to the other ones that stayed here, but we've enjoyed the privilege of having them stay here and getting to know them better. They're special pioneers in a rural area not too far from here, and we've really enjoyed their company.

Here are a couple of pictures from the week so far.

These two brothers were interviewed Tuesday night about what it was like to preach here back in the 80's. They were both baptized while the war was still on, so they had to preach just with one partner, no literature, and a little bible in their pocket that they got out if they found real interest. Very encouraging interviews.

This is not too clear because I only had my tablet on me, but this is the pioneer meeting with the CO. A few had already left, but I think we have about 15 auxiliary pioneers this month, which is really encouraging.

It was raining after the pioneer meeting, so we decided to dress up Charley and the CO in our waterproof outfits that we just brought back (thank you Menards!) so that they could drive the bikes home and us girls would take a taxi. As it turned out, it was hardly raining much by the time they got dressed up, so we rode home with them too. I was hiding behind Charley as much as I could and managed to not get very wet at all!

Well, I think that's it for now. I will share something I noticed when I was in the States that I thought was funny. The first shower I took back in Indiana, I started scrubbing the bottom of my feet really hard, like I always do. And then I looked at them and realized that they weren't at all dirty. Just one difference between living here and there! I have to scrub them here! Anyway, just thought that was funny, even if you didn't!

Oh, and we enjoyed a day where there was no water from the city, which is usually every other day, but it's not a problem because we have a water tank. However the water tank is below ground, so it has a pump to get the water out. Well, Sunday the electricity went out all day so we had to electricity or water! It was a nice "welcome home"!!! So we (as in Charley) had to get water out of the tank with a bucket, then we took bucket showers.

Well, sounds like the guys just got home from the meeting. I hear the whir of motorbikes outside. So I'll sign off now!