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.