A jumble of pictures

My little service partner Jasmin is under there.  You can just see her fingers hanging on to her mom's hand. I have the privilege of studying with her mom who is an unbaptized publisher.

You pay extra for that seat in the back of the taxi!!

We enjoyed a great weekend with some other needgreater couples at the beach back in February. This was the view from the hammock at the house we rented. Super relaxing!

I finally got a good shot of Nicaragua's national bird. Guardabarranco, or in English MotMot I think they call it! Notice it's unusal tail. On the other side those feathers are bright blue. There are a few that frequent the trees around our house.

Charley trying to make our car look like a hatchback "Nica-style"!!!

Thanks to modern technology we were able to watch our nephews get baptized live from the State Fairgrounds in Indianapolis! They are 10 and 13 years old and wonderful boys. They both auxiliary pioneered with their mom that very month! She does a great job!

This was a busy Sunday picking up our dear friends (top left pic) from the airport at 1am. Then going to meeting with them at 9am. Then going to a wedding in the afternoon, then staying at that hall after the ceremony so that Charley could give the public talk at the meeting! Then we said goodbye to our CO and his wife who were reassigned back to El Salvador after only 18 months with us. And then we went to the reception of the wedding from earlier and I captured this great shot of them!!

We're back in the kitchen for CO's school at the educational center. We work Friday's now so we get to help on the lovely lunch they always do for them on the last Friday of class. The dining room gets all decorated nice for the occasion and the CO's and their wives are always taking tons of pictures of it all! We cherish our undeserved privilege of working together in this assignment. It's very rewarding work.

Just a random picture of me at assembly!

With visitors came the excuse to finally sit in the long line to get in to the volcano at night. Such an awe-inspiring sight! You can't help but reflect on Jehovah's power as you look down at the bubbling molten lava!

We have a new member of our congregation, Ashley Diana, and I made my very first diaper cake which I thought turned out pretty well. Nobody had ever seen one here so it was quite the hit!

Charley and I at our circuit assembly in March.

One of the four baptized from our congregation at this past assembly. 3 of the 4 auxiliar pioneered in April!

Isn't Obed the cutest?!

With our new CO and his wife who just arrived in time for the circuit assembly. Enjoyed pizza with them afterwards and getting to know them a bit. Straight away we could tell we're going to really enjoy having them!

Another one of those baptized at our assembly, with his family. His mom was just announced as a regular pioneer too so that was exciting! He auxiliary pioneered in April too and is being used at the meetings on microphones. 

Making sure we could all hear the assembly!

The couple in the middle got married. Brenda (in yellow) used to study with her, and when she moved she handed the study over to me. So nice to see her taking steps to make spiritual progress.

Mildred showing a video in service! She acts like she's shy but once she gets going she wants to do it all and won't let you talk or hold the phone or anything!! Her mom and sister are the ones in the first picture on this post.

We had to do a border run to get our visa renewed. We managed to travel there on a fancy bus with AC. Ironically it was the same price as the horrid old school bus that was so packed we had to stand for the whole two hour trip home! We got a flat tire on the way there but an equally nice bus soon had us on our way. We managed to cross and get back with no problems, although they did tell us we have to figure out how to get residency. Easier said than done!

Preparing the hall for Memorial

Rented chairs inside, and the Kingdom Hall chairs outside. Ready to go!

Helping at an ongoing construction project here in Masaya. Pacayita is getting their very own Kingdom Hall. Very exciting!

We found this, what we finally decided was a baby possum, outside the house. We tried to save it but it only lasted a couple of days. It was cute in an ugly sort of way!

Just an idea of daily life here. This is rush hour. You do whatevr you can do to get home! Notice there are two pairs of legs there!

Chocolate cake in a mug made in the microwave! My first attempt and surprisingly delicious and easy!

Another busy day in the educational center kitchen. Charley is making cinnamon rolls which I must say turned out to be "melt-in-your-mouth" delicious!

Working on a project of putting shelves in the bathroom where at one time there was going to be a door or something! Hopefully by this weekend we'll get it all done. We made some considerable progress yesterday! Pictures will be in another post.

Like I said in the title of this post - a jumble of pictures! Back to Memorial in this picture.

Charley had the privilege of giving the Memorial talk. Thankfully he didn't get sick this year and end up missing out on giving it!  Click here to read about last year's Memorial!

The outdoor crowd watching the talk on the wall!

Masaya is getting a fancy little mall complete with movie theater! Never expected to see that!

Memorial campaign - we had excellent support

And last, but certainly not least, a family in our congregation heading home from field service. Whoever said a motorcycle wasn't an excellent means of transportation for a family of five?!

So, that's it from me for now. We also had a lovely meeting from Mexico during the Headquarters Representative visit to the Central America branch. Wonderful experiences and a couple of videos with some familiar faces in! Very encouraging to hear of all the work going on in the Central America region.

This month is a relatively calm one as is June, at least as far as we know! Then it all starts in July. We have pioneer meeting and circuit assembly towards the end of July. Then Charley has the privilege of being an instructor in one of the two pioneer school classes that will be held here in Masaya in August. We're also looking forward to going to the English Regional Convention just down the road at the assembly hall in August. And then September we have our Spanish Regional Convention and Charley has Elder's School.  So, before we know it we'll be in Indiana briefly in October and then off to NY with my parents for a visit to the new World Headquarters!!!

Hope you're all doing well and enjoyed this albeit jumbled and mostly photographic update!