Just a quick one

Just a quick post to put a few pictures out there for anyone who hasn't already seen them in Instagram! Things are going well here. It's been really busy lately, and we've had a full house with our landlady, her daughter, and her brother here, so it feels like we've been even busier than ever this last couple of weeks.

The ministry is going really well. I have a lot of studies now, it's a challenge to keep up with them all, but it's a nice problem to have!

The congregation is really flourishing too. As I think I mentioned before, in the first 9 months we just had one new publisher, although we had 5 baptized. But all of a sudden we've had a bunch of new publishers. All little kids and old ladies! Another of the little girls we spend a lot of time around was approved for this past month, and her brother is about to reach that goal too. And another young teenager too. And then three older studies. Two of them are almost 80, the other is a little younger, but she's blind. One of the almost 80-year old's has back problems so she can't walk too well. So she set up a table outside her house. It's a busy street, and she knows everyone, so I think she placed over 40 pieces of literature her first day sitting there! The other almost 80-year old was at the group on Saturday for her first time out, although I haven't had chance to talk to her yet to see how it went.

I hope to have some pictures soon of all our new publishers. It's so lovely to see older ones coming along like that. We have at least 6 more studies that are over 50 too, and are at all the meetings, so maybe we'll have another growth spurt in the next 6 months or so. It's lovely to see the growth. It's like the congregation has finally settled, we're all getting used to each other, and so now the growth begins!

We also had a man from our territory come to the meeting for the first time a couple of weeks ago. He's been in the territory since always, and a lot of people have talked to him, and everyone was really pleased and surprised to see him at the Kingdom Hall for the first time. He was sick this past Sunday, so we'll see if he comes this coming weekend. Our friend Cherub met him out in service and set things up for us to take him. Here he is below, chatting with Charley outside the hall. He said afterwards that the really enjoyed it. He was impressed with how well organized we are, how well everything was explained, and how the kids all participate too.

Don Oracio at his first meeting. Charley's not asleep, just squinting from the sun!

And here are some more random pictures with brief explanations below each one.

Here we are on Sunday getting our Memorial location cleaned up. They painted over the graffiti! We'll be having it outdoors again, but this time on a piece of land owned by a study in our hall. It's nice because it's in our territory, unlike our Kingdom Hall, so hopefully we'll have a lot of people come that evening. 

We spent a lovely evening down by Lake Nicaragua in Granada with some friends who serve nearby, and some others who serve in English in La Ceiba, Honduras. If you're thinking of serving in English somewhere, they would love your help. There's only about 12 publishers and lots of territory. There you go guys - I told you I'd plug La Ceiba!

Caleb's parents were here visiting so we had them over for a nice, relaxing afternoon. I think Caleb played volleyball for 2 hours straight! Charley was testing his new goggles!

Some friends from the congregation where we served in our first three months came over. Hardly anyone here knows how to swim, or even float, so we had a good laugh trying to teach them. Not sure we got anywhere, but we had fun!

One of Charley's studies, Johnny. He doesn't read well, but he pays rapt attention!

We had the privilege of meeting this lovely family who came for three weeks, and their friend who is here for 6 months. It's so much fun to see more and more people coming down here, spying out the land!

And here are our newly adopted nieces and nephew. They call us Tio Charley and Tia Rachel now, which I love, since that's what we did growing up - everyone in the congregation was Aunt and Uncle. Isaac is well on his way to becoming a publisher, his cousin Roxana next to him is my newest Bible student, his sister Jael just became a publisher, and Roseli just was on the school for the first time a few weeks ago. They're such sweet kids.

Well, time to start getting ready for the meeting. Oh, and one other thing, we booked our flights today for our trip home - July 1st to August 11th so to those of you in Indy, see you soon! It was so fun booking tickets without giving any credit card info - we used half the credit we got last time we flew!