The simple things in life

Well, another week or so has gone by very well. The studies are continuing. Sonia, who I talked about in the last post, is doing really well. She's been to all the meetings for two weeks now, basically since we started studying. She did the Bible reading for the Theocratic Ministry School last week and had pages of notes, and all kinds of questions that I had to do some research on to be able to answer accurately! 

Charley gave the talk at our sister congregation on Saturday and did a very nice job. So we didn't go to our meeting on Sunday afternoon. Sonia called me that evening to make sure we were okay. It's so nice when your studies call to check up on you!! She even calls to make sure that we're having our study! I'm having a great time with her!

And this past weekend I started to study with Anai. She was raised in the truth, but then the family wasn't real regular for a while. Now she's in her early 20's and has a little boy. We did a review of the first couple of chapters of the Bible Teach book and got to know each other a little. She's a lot quieter than Sonia, but that's not necessarily a bad thing!

I also finally had a couple of studies that I've had a hard time finding this month. They're both really smart young women, and we have a great study when we do manage to get together. Unfortunately one of them is moving out of our territory in about a month, so I'll have to make the most of the month that she's still around. She was one of my very first return visits, actually I think my first, when we moved to this congregation.

The last time I blogged we were getting ready to have our congregation pioneer meeting. Our two elders did the meeting, obviously, and it was very nice indeed. Here is a picture of us all, it didn't turn out that well, but you get the idea. I realized later that I had a big smudge on my lens, therefore the smudgy faces behind me! I look really funny in this picture, like a strange shape or something. Can't put my finger on it, but oh well!

Pancasan's regular pioneers. Front row - Reyner & Jael and us, obviously!
Back row - Rut, Erica, Matilde & Jose

Jose is our youngest pioneer. He's 14, but he's been pioneering almost three years already! Matilde is our older pioneer, as you can see, but she's SUPER zealous. Always out, got tons of studies. Her husband isn't a witness, but she's always busy in theocratic activities. Reyner & Jael are the newest pioneers, starting together at the beginning of the service year, although Jael has pioneered in the past too. We worked out that between us all we have about 50 years pioneering, ranging from 7 months to 17 years. 

One thing I remembered the other day that I kept meaning to blog about, or maybe I did already and I forgot, is about the kids here. There's a sister I go out with almost every week in the afternoon, and she has two young kids aged 8 and 11 I think. Their cousin lives next door, and she's about 9. One evening I was over there while Charley was in a meeting, and they got out a little puzzle, maybe of about 30 pieces or so. It was a picture of a little tiger. So we had a fun time putting that together, then we played a little card game with this tiny somewhat worn-out set of cards. Both the puzzle and the cards were from an American sister who has been serving down here for years and brought these presents from the States. The kids had a great time, and I did too, and I was thinking how nice it is to see kids enjoying such simple pleasures. That's something I really appreciate about the kids here. Hardly anyone in our congregation has a computer, the kids don't have video games, if they're fortunate they have a bike and a few little toys, they've probably never been to a cinema to see a film, but they're so happy with the little things. They play outside all the time, and climb trees and invent games, such a simple life that I think a lot of kids in the developed world don't get to enjoy anymore.

Last Monday a friend and her little girl came over to hang out. And then in the afternoon we spent a bit of time at the Lagoon with Brenda and her family. Her mam and dad are here visiting, so it's been nice to get to know them a little.

Caleb, Brenda, and her mam and dad

Laguna de Apoyo. I love the warm, calm water here!

Loida & her little girl, Kitlis. You may remember them baking at our house in previous blog posts!

And with Brenda's parents came a lovely gift from my father-in-law. We love our new 2014 books and pens, and the friends are loving the bookmarks he sent. Thank you, Mike!!!

Also here's a picture of the house. They added some decorative stone out the front and it looks very nice, adds a nice little detail to the house.

Well, I think that's all for now. We're going to see a movie later on today. We get to see it in the VIP theater which has big, reclining chairs and you can order food and have it brought to you. And since the showing is before 2pm, it's only $4.50 each to get in!

Time to go bring the clothes in off the line, they dry pretty quickly here!

Ok, no more for now!

Well, time is zooming by and we're in 2014 already. Things are going really well here. It's been a busy couple of weeks, but we've had some time to rest too.

I had a super productive morning, so I treated myself to just curling up with the digital version of the Yearbook this afternoon. They're shorter now, so they don't take as long to read. Wonderful experiences. Look forward to reading through it again.

So, a few weeks ago Charley and I were out doing return visits in the afternoon, again, and I was complaining about not having many reliable Bible studies yet to keep us busy. But later that day when I really thought about it, I realized what was missing. I hadn't been asking Jehovah for Bible Studies. So, I started in earnest to pray about it.

Well, this week I had to ask for a pause for now, no more studies please! They all just sort of fell from the sky after I started praying about it!!! I started a couple of studies myself, and then a sister told me she wanted to take me to a family where she studies with the mother. She said the daughter wanted to study, but that's all she told me. We went, and it turns out the family have been around the truth for quite a while, and the daughter is determined not to loose any more time. She was at two days of the convention, and has been to one meeting already. We've had two studies, just reviewing the Teach book without really studying it since she has a good basic knowledge already. She's got the cutest little boy, Salomón, who is starting to warm up to me know - thanks to my tablet and the videos from jw.org!!!

That same week, another brother asked me if I had time for another study. It's with the adult daughter of a brother in our congregation. She's studied before but wants to start up again, so we'll see how that goes this weekend. 

And then a progressive study in the congregation got a Bible study for me with a girl who lives just around the corner from her. We've only had one study so far, but hopefully tomorrow we'll have the second one. She really wants to learn more. We started in the Teach book right away in Chapter 3 since that's the subject she chose to start with.  It's funny how that all happened too. Charley and I had been at the hall hiding from a sudden rainstorm, and we found some large print books that we decided to take to this progressive study, Rosa Elena, since she uses large print publications. When we went to drop them off she was outside, so we were chatting, when this neighbor of hers walked by. Rosa Elena introduced us and said she wanted to study, so we made plans right then and there! Talk about being in the right place at the right time - or angelic direction perhaps?!

We had another lovely example of how Jehovah provides just what you need, when you need it, especially if you ask for it! A couple of Sunday's ago I got up so tired, I just didn't know how I was going to make it through the day. Sunday's are a long day since we go out in service, often for 4 or 5 hours, then get changed somewhere and go to the meeting at 4pm. Since we live out of the territory we don't go home until after the meeting. And on Sunday's it's a bit harder to find lunch since a lot of the places we usually eat are closed.

So, I prayed that morning for strength to not just get through the day, but to enjoy it. I also mentioned to Jehovah that it would be really nice if someone could invite us to eat lunch at their house!!! Well, when I got done accompanying another sister on her studies that morning, I met Charley at the house where we meet for service. I went to use the bathroom, and the sister asked me if we'd had lunch yet. This is the first time she's offered us lunch, and just the very day that we needed it the most!! (she later thanked me, yes, she thanked me, for not saying no to her food!) So we had lunch there. Her and her husband are so sweet. Neither of them have the best health, and they barely make ends meet, yet they were willing to share the food they'd made to go sell with us that day. And since then almost every time we meet at their house (4 times a week) they give us some kind of fruit. So we were able to eat lunch, and then continue on doing calls and didn't finish until an hour before the meeting was due to start! It was a wonderful day.

That same day we were also invited by another sister to have lunch at her house the following Tuesday! Invitations fell from the sky, kind of like the studies!!! Now that the friends in the congregation are starting to discover that we eat the same things they do, they're starting to feel more comfortable about inviting us over! There's this idea here that foreigners don't eat Nicaraguan food, so I've been explaining that we come from a culture where we're used to eating all kinds of types of food, so we're pretty open to anything. People here tend not to eat "outside their box" so they assume we don't either!

So, we still eat lunch out, we don't expect people to feed us daily! But it is nice when every now and then someone provides us a little lunch or something. The friends here have so little, yet they are so generous. So, now I have lots of "thank you" banana breads to make!

Well, we have our pioneer meeting with our local elders this evening so I think it's time to start making some effort to get ready for that. I made a couple of banana breads to take. There isn't a lot of good sweet, bakery products here (in my opinion!) so it's easy to impress everyone with banana bread. They love it! And I love it because it's so easy to make. 

Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the 2014 Yearbook.

More turtles!

Since I had so many pictures from our day at the beach with the turtles, I decided just to make a video of them instead of posting them all in a mile long blog post.

It was an amazing experience to see the wisdom of Jehovah in his creation. The only detail I don't have pictures of is the amazing starry sky we saw that night. With no artificial light around, the sky was just bursting with thousands of stars. What a wonderful sight.

Below is the video, or if you can't view it for some reason, click here to see it.

Let's try that again!

Not sure if the blog email went through properly. I'm subscribed and I got a rather strange email today, so perhaps everyone did.

So here is what I was trying to share below or click here to see what wonders of Jehovah's creation we enjoyed on Monday.

The wonders of Jehovah's creation

More later on this, but for now, here's a video of the amazing day we had on Monday!