What exactly is the definition of lukewarm?!

So, today is Monday already. How time flies! I finally got a bit of quiet time to write another post. The hard part is remembering what exactly we did and when! Just for reference when I talk about Leyla in this blog, she is the sister whose house we’re staying in down there. Just so you can follow my stories!!

Friday – hmmm…………I can’t separate one day from the next. I think Friday Leyla’s niece Claudia arrived to stay with her dad who lives two doors down from us. She lives with her mam the rest of the time about 20 minutes from here. So, she’s been with us since then. I think we just went grocery shopping, upacked, bought hangers to hang stuff up. Oh yeah, that was a funny thing that happened. Well, I thought it was. Before we came I asked Leyla if she had “ganchos” in the house – hangers, at least that’s what I learned to call them. So she said they did so I didn’t need to bring any. So on Friday I asked Charley to ask Leyla for the ganchos. So off he went downstairs and came bag with a bag of clothes pins that you use to hang your clothes on the line to dry! I said “What are we supposed to do with those” and Charley just laughed, shrugged his shoulders and said he didn’t really know!! Well, turns out that for Leyla ganchos are clothes pins and I forget the word she uses for hangers. So, once we established what kind of ganchos I wanted, it turned out there aren’t any extra in the house!!! So we had to go buy some. Except here they call them perchas – like a perch a bird sits on I guess! Spanish is just like English – each country has its own words for certain things which can cause humorous confusion sometimes!!

Saturday, Charley took Leyla and Claudia to get their nails done, and then Leyla went to the dentist – her nephews wife is a dentist so she went there. Got a cleaning done for like $40 – I think I’ll go before we come back to the US too. Cheaper here than back home. So while they were all out I stayed home and learned how to wash clothes from Eda, the lady who comes here to clean. So now I know how. I have the red knuckles to prove that I did some of it myself!!

I washed those shorts and tops by hand all by myself!

Saturday evening we went back to the same congregation we went to on Thursday just because it was easier to get to in the rental car and the time worked well with our schedule this week. It was a lovely meeting. We got there a few minutes before it started and had to sit in the very front row. Had to look up to the speaker! He was from Spain, well originally. He didn’t travel from Spain to give the talk! It was excellent. And the WT study was good. Enjoyed it and met a few more of the congregation, and got a phone number to call if we want to go out in service with them this week since we haven’t settled anywhere yet, at least we could get ourselves out until we find a congregation and know their schedule for field service.

Sunday we went to Granada. It’s a nice, touristy town. We went out on Lake Managua in a boat for a tour of the islands in the lake. Charley and I did the same tour last year, but this time the water was a little choppy and I got a bit seasick! Not much, just enough to be glad when the tour was over and we were back on dry land! I got some good pictures of the monkeys on isla de los monos (Monkey Island). I have some from last year too, but maybe got a couple of better ones this time. I didn’t take a lot of pictures though because I was low on battery, but mostly because I just needed to sit still and look straight ahead so as not to get sick! Once back on dry land we had lunch, shopped a little, then came home via the mall. While in the mall we saw a cheap HP printer so we decided to buy it. It was about $35 including the initial ink cartridges, so now we can print stuff out. Charley forgot to bring his talk outlines, so the printer will come in handy so that he can print them out again!

Today we’re just running errands mostly. Nothing too exciting. I say that like everything else I’ve blogged about so far has been exciting!!! We were supposed to be getting the truck today, but now it’ll be tomorrow they said. Mañana, Mañana, Mañana, that’s what they always say. So who knows when we’ll get it. Mañana hopefully!!!

So, one piece of rather exciting news is that I have my first bible study already!!!! Leyla’s niece, Claudia. She’s spent the last few days with us, and Leyla has been talking to her and encouraging her to study. She came to the meeting with us on Saturday too. I tried to suggest I show her how the study works the other day but she looked the other way and started talking to someone else!! But last night she asked me if we’d be going to the meeting again on Saturday so that she could come with us!!! She said it totally out of the blue too! I think she’s starting to feel more comfortable with me. So then Leyla came in and said that Claudia’s dad said he’d bring her to the house once a week to have her study because she can't have it at her mam's house. So, this morning I printed out Chapter One of the Teach book because I didn’t have an extra one, and we did the first five paragraphs and I showed her to underline and make notes on the scriptures. She expressed herself well, and freely, and understood it all. I really enjoyed it. We just studied for about half an hour because then everyone was ready to go out. So I left her the homework of preparing, gave her the WT study article for the weekend, and there you have it!!! And she’s coming to Indianapolis with Leyla at the end of February so I’ll be able to continue her study once we’re back in Indy!!!!

My First Bible Study here - Claudia

Hmmmm….what else? Oh yeah, there’s a brother outside right now working on the garden. He’s going to put a lawn down and trees and make it look all nice and pretty. They’ve hired him to maintain the house. He’s from El Crucero where we visited last time so we already knew him. He’s a hard worker. Brought another guy with him and they’re out there hacking up the ugly grass so they can put the pretty lawn down. It’s going to look lovely when they’re all done.

So, you’re probably wondering, or perhaps you forgot by now, why the title of this blog is “What exactly is the definition of lukewarm?”, right?!?! Well, according to the dictionary lukewarm means mildly warm, tepid. That’s the temperature that everyone says the water in the house is. Welll…………………maybe my idea of mildly warm is a little off, but to me the water that comes out of the showerhead is COLD!!! So I’m slowly getting used to cold, I mean lukewarm, showers!!! It’s not too bad. I guess the water isn’t icy cold, but it kinda feels like it when you first get under it!!! But I’ve discovered that it is possible to adapt, so I’m adapting, slowly! It still takes me a few seconds of staring at the water and putting my foot under it, to then stand completely under it, but poco a poco as they say in Spanish! At least it doesn’t take my breath away anymore like it did the first day. Well, I don’t think that story was as entertaining as I thought it would be. Oh well, good enough!

That’s about it then. Leyla leaves tomorrow, the rental car goes back, and hopefully we’ll get the truck. If not, we’ll figure out another way to get to the meetings and field service until it does arrive. The bus would be an adventure in itself!!

I think I’m going to turn the computer off for a while now. It’s making my eyes sting! Take care and keep in touch everyone! Oh and I just keep adding pictures to the same album so click on the Slideshow on the blog page www.indybrits.com and you can see new pictures that we’ve added. 

Pictures!!

Here are some pictures that I've taken so far.

Click this link https://picasaweb.google.com/poet879/Nicaragua201112?authuser=0&feat=directlink

You can click on the Slideshow at the right at any time and see more pictures that I've added too.

We're Finally Here!!!

Before you start reading, prepare yourself, it's ridiculously long. I don't know how to make a long story short! Ok, here goes....

Well, it’s about 5pm Indianapolis time (9 hours after we left the house) and guess where we are……..Chicago!!! We arrived at the Indianapolis airport this morning at about 8:30am. But weather was bad in Chicago, so we couldn’t take off. We got on our plane about 11:30am, then we sat on the tarmac for a while, then we finally took off at 1:30pm. We got to Chicago at 1:30 Chicago time (an hour behind Indy) and watched our plane pull away from the gate without us! It was an hour later than it should have been, but we still didn’t make it. But even if we’d been on it, we would have arrived too late to Miami to get our flight to Managua anyway! So, here we are, supposed to be on the 3:10pm flight to Miami, which is now scheduled to leave at 6pm, maybe!! Thankfully the sister we’re travelling with, Leyla, has a sister in Miami so we’ll be spending the night at her house, if we ever get to Miami that is! So then our flight to Managua will be tomorrow, Wednesday, at 10:20am arriving at Managua around noon their time. So at least we have somewhere to sleep other than the airport, and we’ll be arriving to Nicaragua in the daylight instead.

So, that’s been the fun so far. Charley is at the desk right now making sure we’ll be on this flight and finding out where exactly our bags ended up!! We ate some lunch here, drank a coffee, and I was hoping to blog and email but the Wi-Fi here isn’t free – frugal airport!! And I’m too frugal to pay for access! So I’m writing this in Word and will copy and paste it into the blog later!

Stay tuned………..I’ll be back.

Ok, now it is Thursday morning about 9am. We’re at the house just hanging out at the minute, waiting to see who will be available to take us to the airport. “Why do you need to go to the airport?”, I hear you say! Wellllll……………we finally got a flight to Miami on Tuesday, and spent a very comfortable night with Leyla’s very hospitable sister and brother-in-law. Next morning we got up, went to the airport and checked in at the self-service computer. Went through security, and when we got to the gate, they acted like we were on standby and didn’t have seats for a while. But then it turned out that we had seats all along. Charley and I even got to sit in the exit aisle which means double the legroom – yay! The flight left about half an hour late but we arrived without problems…….or so we thought! We had never picked up our luggage because they said it was checked through to Managua. Well, for some reason or other, our luggage didn’t come on the flight we were on, and they sent ours on a later flight, and Leyla’s on an even later flight. So they told us to come back for the 8:30 flight to pick up our bags. So, after we were picked up at the airport we came to the house, then went grocery, internet, and cell phone shopping with Mario Robleto (the family from Indianapolis that live here who we visited last year). They were very patient and generous with us, taking us here there and everywhere and helping get furniture moved around in the house and stuff.

I don’t know if this is time for a new paragraph but that last one just seemed to be getting too long. So, we went back to the airport at 8:30 last night, which was practically empty of staff by then, and they told us that the warehouse where they put the bags was closed, even though that’s the time they told us to come back! ARRRGGGHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So, our bags were in there, well in theory they are, but there was nobody to open the door! Thankfully we’d packed a few clothes in our carry on, so we have had some clothes to change into. Of course we don’t have any deodorant or soap or shampoo so………well……..you know!!

So, I’ll pause the typing for now and add some more once we’ve been back to the airport and hopefully got our suitcases! Poor Charley is walking around practically blind. He doesn’t have his glasses with him and didn’t have any solution for his contacts, so he’s squinting a lot. But he made some excellent coffee this morning so not all is lost. We have coffee, so that’s all that really matters!

Well, hello, I’m back again. Glad you’re still with me. If you reached this part of the blog I thank you for your attention so far and hope you didn’t fall asleep too many times along the way. It is now Thursday night, 9:30pm. So, where was I earlier. Ok, yeah, so Leyla’s brother-in-law took us to the airport to get our bags around 10:30am. On the way we stopped at a car rental place and got a car for the rest of the time that Leyla is here, then hopefully after that the truck they sent down here will have arrived and be ready to use. Charley is the driver and has done a very nice job of it today, despite the fact that it’s a stick shift and he hasn’t driven one in a REALLY long time! But he hasn’t killed it more than 10 times so far! Don’t tell him I said that. I’m pretty sure he won’t care to read this blog!! Nah but seriously, he’s been a really capable driver. I’m impressed. Especially the driving we did tonight but I’ll get to that in a minute, or ten.

So, we got our bags, no problems, nothing missing, all is good. Then we went to Catarina which is a little town with an amazing lookout on to a laguna that we visited last time we came.  It was lovely up there. I bought the most adorable dress you’ve ever seen for my cousin’s baby girl – can’t wait to see her wear it next summer – it’s so cute!! Then, well, I can’t hardly remember how exactly the day went, but we got home about 5pm. The Robleto’s came by to drop something off, and we got to see Wanda too since we’d only seen Mario Sr. and Mario Jr. yesterday. She’s looking very well and feeling it too, so that’s good. 

Then we decided to go to a meeting, so we got ready and left a little late, but off we went. Now, for those who don’t know, there aren’t really any street names or house numbers in Nicaragua. So, the address of the hall whose territory we’re living  was “de la Pulperia San Antonio km 19, 150m al sur, 25 metros al este”. That is “from the store called San Antonio, which is at the 19^th KM (of the main road we live off), 150 meters south and 25 meters east”. Quite an address right?!?!?! So we passed the Pulperia San Antonio, so we had to drive on a while until we could turn around, then drive to turn around again because the highway has a median you can’t cross in the middle. We stopped at the Pulperia to ask and they just pointed, so we drove down this “street” that I wish I’d remembered to take a video of, but it was rough to say the least. Hopefully the rental car survived the experience – I think it did. Got to the hall after asking a couple more people, and it was all dark and closed. No meeting!! But then as we were driving away a sister who happened to be at the hall for something saw us, and told us that they just changed the meeting to Friday instead of Thursday about 2 weeks ago. But we found out they only have two elders now, so maybe when the truck arrives we’ll attempt to drive back there again, but not in the rental car! 

So, we drove to the hall in Ticuantepe, which we couldn’t find, but we stopped and asked at Bethel. They closed the branch, but there are still people there maintaining the place and taking care of certain things so they directed us. We got there at 7:30pm, just in time for the song…………..the one before the Service Meeting starts! An hour late, but we got there. And it was lovely. Everyone said hello and we met the elders and had a lovely time. That congregation has 120 publishers (in a hall fit for about 80!) and 5 elders, 3 of which are still working at Bethel. Soooo…. I don’t know if that will be the congregation we’ll serve in. They have more elders than any congregation I’ve heard of around here! But it was nice to learn our way around a bit and get to know a little about the congregations in the area.

Well, I think I’ve probably spent way too long telling all these details. I hope you didn’t get too bored. Off to bed soon. Tomorrow, I’m not sure, maybe just trying to unpack and organize now that we have our bags. Since Leyla is only here a week she wants to do things so we’re doing whatever she wants to, which is fine with us. She said she wants to go to the beach, so I think we can work with that!!!!!

So, hopefully during these next few days we’ll figure out which congregation we’ll serve in. Thanks for reading and hope you’re all doing well. My mam told me that a lot of you have asked how we’re getting along, so thank you for thinking of  us. Hope you enjoyed the story of our trip here!!

Should We Be Packing Now?

I can't believe we only have five days left!! Should we have started packing?! Why start today what we can put off until tomorrow, eh?!


We've been really busy since the last blog post. We said our Goodbyes to our studies this week. They've all been left in very capable hands. One study in particular, Leonor, I'm going to miss seeing how her face lights up when she learns something new. The sister who will be studying with her has been given instructions to take pictures of Leonor's little face as she learns something new and email it to me!!


We had an AWESOME time with our friends from England. The second week they were here we took them down to visit Charley's family one day. We went to Oliver Winery along the way - yum! And then on down to have lunch with the family, drive around some of Amish territory down there, and then had a candlelit dinner at my in-laws house (no, we weren't trying to be romantic, the power went out for about an hour!) Here we all are, well, except me because I was behind the camera and who wants to see a picture of me anyway!

Then a couple of days later we took our visitors to Chicago for the day. We had a BLAST up there! Went to Lou Michell's for breakfast, went up the Willis & John Hancock Towers - one by day, one by night. Ate Chicago style pizza, walked the Magnificent Mile, froze our toes off - you know, the usual Chicago in November stuff! Here we are on the Skydeck of the Willis (Sears) tower on the 103rd floor. I'm not afraid of heights but it was a little unnerving at first!

Friday last week we had our circuit pioneer day. It was wonderful, as always. We had 243 in attendance from 23 congregations. An average of 10 per congregation is not bad at all! It was nice to see old friends, and make new ones, and be reminded of everything I need to work on!


Saturday we said a sad goodbye to our visitors from England. We had a wonderful time with them and hope to see them again before too long. In the meantime, there's always Skype!


So, this week, as I said, we said goodbye to our studies. Today I'm enjoying a day off, getting stuff done around here, which so far hasn't included any kind of packing! We have our Circuit Assembly this weekend - woohoooo!!!!! 


Oh, and my amazing field service bag is done. I meant to have a picture ready to put on here but I don't. I'll get to that eventually. I LOVE it! Thanks Yvette - you're the best!!!!


Oh and I had my last day at work on Tuesday. Well, my last day until March 1st that is. It all suddenly seemed so real as I shut down my computer and said goodbye to my coworkers. I'm going to miss everyone at work so much.......................(my boss reads my blog, so I have to say that!). I'm sure they're having a party on Monday to celebrate the start of three Rachel-free months!! Enjoy it while it lasts!


Well, I think that was the latest and greatest. I'm sure I forgot something. Oh yeah I did - I had the best going away gift from a friend in the Sign Language congregation - an hour's massage! It was wonderful. I think I need to pack her in my suitcase!


So I'm going to try and find something productive to do now. Or maybe just watch a movie. I'm fighting off a cold so I need some rest. So far I'm winning, but we'll see who comes out ahead!


Take care everyone and keep in touch!!

Two Weeks Today - Need I Say More?!

Less than three weeks!

Well, three weeks came and went and I didn’t post anything. I know you were all bitterly disappointed about that ;o)

So, what’s new? Well, last weekend we had a lovely dinner with two other couples for our anniversaries. It was good to catch up with them. It’s pretty much the only time we get together with them all each year! We tried to get a free dessert by mentioning our anniversaries but it didn’t work. Maybe next year! Then the next day we went to a wedding rehearsal. I’m doing the video and Charley is MC. Seems like they got everything figured out. The wedding is tomorrow – can’t believe how quickly that came around. And on Sunday we went to Georgetown Spanish. Charley gave a new talk that I hadn’t heard before and he did a great job. Then we went to a friend’s house for dinner. So it was a busy weekend.

With our anniversary buddies.

Monday night/Tuesday morning our friends arrived from England. Yay!!!! It’s great to have them. I didn’t actually see them until I got home from work on Tuesday. We went to the meeting with them in English – it was nice to visit my old hall since we rarely make it back to see everyone. On Wednesday Charley and I spent the day with them. We had a BLAST! Charley made a delicious breakfast at home, then we went duckpin bowling (http://www.fountainsquareindy.com/bowling/index.asp) which was a lot harder than I thought it would be but we had a great time. Then we had a fabulous lunch at Tortas Guicho. For anyone that lives in Indy you’ve got to try this place - http://tortasguicho.com/. Their sandwiches are all named after famous people or countries. I had the “England” and it was really, really good! So, all in all we ate a lot and had a good time hanging out together. In the evening four of us went to see a musical at a local high school. I wasn’t expecting it to be all that great, but WOW, these high school kids over here have some serious talent! Great singing, good acting, and it was only $5!! Thoroughly entertaining.

This is a really boring post isn’t it?! You can just stop reading here if you like, it’s not getting any better in the next paragraph!

So, the most exciting thing that happened last weekend (at least the most exciting thing to me) was that I made some serious progress in my bag search!!! Since I’d blogged about it, a sister in my mam and dad’s congregation read it, and told me to come over because she has tons of bags. When I explained what I was looking for, she’s like, oh well just find a bag you like, and then we’ll add backpack straps to it!!! So I found one that would work, and a backpack, and she took the straps off one bag and is putting them on to the other, so it will have backpack straps and shoulder straps! WOHOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!! I’ll post a picture of it when it’s done!

So, tomorrow is the wedding. And Sunday we have hospitality for the visiting speaker. It’s all go! Oh, and in my shopping expedition on Saturday I got almost everything we still needed for our trip and finally found tan ankle socks – you have no idea how excited I was to find those! I’m not even going to try and explain why that’s exciting!!


And this evening we were at my cousin's house. Look how cute their little baby girl is! 

Well, that’s all for now. Hope everyone out there is doing well.

The final countdown - 4 weeks today!

Well, time is really flying by! I can't believe we'll be leaving in just 4 weeks.


All is well here. There's so much going on before we go. We went to the Zone Visit Meeting on Saturday evening - wow, what an amazing treat that was. Wonderful talks. It was so encouraging. Very timely indeed!


And then on Sunday we ended up going to West Washington Spanish (west side of Indy) to give the talk. Well, Charley gave the talk, not "we"!! We had a lovely time and a very nice lunch with a family in that hall. Seems like our COBE is getting the most out of Charley before we leave! He's assigned to give a talk at Georgetown Spanish (also west side of Indy) this coming Sunday, and then in Columbus Spanish (about an hour south of here) on the 20th!! 


I'm on the desperate search now for a good field service bag. I can't find this bag anywhere but on ebay, and I'd rather be able to buy it in a store so that I can see it properly first and have the option of returning it. I want a back-pack, not too big, about the shape & size of the magazines, that also has a shoulder strap. So if any of you see such a thing out there in a store that is nationwide in the US, let me know!!! I wish I knew how to make bags - that would be the easiest solution since this bag I have in my head probably doesn't exist!!


Well, not very exciting was it? I didn't promise this blog would always be interesting! Not much else to report. Had a nice service day yesterday with a couple of studies. So, that's it for now. Hope you're all well wherever in the world you happen to be reading.