Anybody want a mango?!

So, we had our Special Assembly Day yesterday and what a wonderful day we had. It went by so fast. We didn't have a visiting speaker but our CO did a GREAT job with the final talk of the day. He told a really great experience when he was talking about the need to meditate on what we study. I'll start a new paragraph for it.

A missionary made plans to take a sister on a Bible study since the missionary was still struggling with the language in the country she was serving in, so she needed some help. When the missionary arrived at the sister's house she apologized and said that she wouldn't be able to go with her. The missionary begged her to come, or for someone else to come with her to help her. So the sister said her son would go with her. The missionary looked at the 6 year old boy and said, "Well, better than nothing I guess"! So off they went.

On the study the missionary told the lady that if she had any questions to feel free to ask. The woman said she did have a question. Why didn't Jehovah give Adam five wives instead of just one. She said that if he'd had five, then maybe the others would have been able to persuade Eve not to eat of the fruit. So the missionary is battling with this question, trying to find the words, and figure out how to express herself in her new language, when the little boy who came with her put his hand up. The missionary looked at him and said "Do you want to answer the question?". "Yes", said the little boy. So the missionary told him to go ahead.

He said "Jehovah didn't give him five wives because that would have left Adam without ribs"!!! 

Turns out the night before, in their Family Worship, the little boy had learned about how Eve was created from Adam's rib. But he didn't just stop there, he'd obviously continued meditating on the subject, to be able to come up with an answer like that!!! We had a good laugh, but he also really made the point too. How important it is to continue thinking about what we study!

There were so many good points brought out about the conscience but since some of you maybe haven't been yet I won't spoil it by telling too much!

Our circuit in Masaya is split into two sections. 1500 were there on Saturday, and we had just short of 2000 on Sunday. 14 were baptized on Sunday, including 3 from our congregation. And I managed to do a pretty good job of taking pictures. Get ready - there are LOTS of them!

Listening to the music, waiting for the program to begin.

Assembly theme - Safeguard Your Conscience.

Josue, from our sister congregation, getting into the baptism pool

And there he went

Our new brother, Josue

Carla (with green towel) and her sister Tamara (behind her) waiting their turn.

They were baptized together. Tamara (left) getting ready, and Carla (right) coming out. A brother supervising stood right in front of me when Carla went under, so I only got her coming back out!

Tamara making a splash.

Our two new sisters, Tamara & Carla

Vilma getting ready

I think you know these two!

Our buddies, Brenda & Caleb

Noelia, Kitlis, Loyda, her niece & Laura from CA who serves in San Jose de Masatepe

Laynori (my little study who I play "preaching" with) and Noelia, one of our young ones.

Our new sisters Carla & Tamara, who are also fleshly sisters.

Interviewing our CO and his wife, Elizabeth & Felipe Olivares.

Interviewing Javiera who goes to our sister congregation. The brother giving the talk looks like a little boy but Charley said he was at the elder's meeting.

New friends Cynthia & her mam Ana. They are studying and sat in the same row as us.

Franci and I showing off our new dresses courtesy of mam.

William and Charley. Someone from back home sent him ties, but for some reason he chose his old "Century 21" tie for the assembly!!! Typical bachelor I guess!

The twins!!! Aren't they the cutest?!?!

Jaimy & Junior are always so coordinated at assemblies.

Tamara & Gloria with Abrahan & Jessica and their daughters Xiomara & twins ( I forget their names!)

Our other regular pioneer sister, Carolina, with her son Edward.

Julia, Tania, Raquel & Gema (Tania's progressive study). And little Jael and hmmm.... I've forgotten Gema's son's name!

Our other new sister, Vilma, with Raquel who studied with her. Raquel's mam was studying with Vilma before, but she died of cancer just less than a year ago. She was a regular pioneer who everyone remembers very fondly.

One of our regular pioneers Nelson (with glasses) and Eduardo our literature servant

Our beloved Rosibel & Domingo.

 It was nice to get to hear the CO and his wife interviewed. When asked how long she'd been in full-time service she said, "only 20 years"! And he talked about how when he became a regular pioneer he was a teacher in Mexico (that's where they're both from). He won a national prize for his skills, and they even wanted to put a plaque in the local park in his honor, which he wouldn't let them do. Then he was invited to special pioneer, so he left his job and off he went. His colleagues thought he was insane, but he's happily served in full-time service for the last 28 years now. He was a regular pioneer for a year, special pioneer for 6 years, then a CO 10 years in Mexico, and now 10 years as a CO in Nicaragua.

So, those are just a couple of highlights from our day yesterday.

And what about the title of the post? Well, it's mango season. And it's not hard to tell. There are mangoes everywhere you turn and it's time to figure out what to do with them! I like to eat them, but you can only eat so many mangoes in a day! On Saturday two people gave us about 25 mangoes between them, and then yesterday someone gave me two more! Some we've eaten, and today I learned a new skill. Jam making! I just used six mangoes to see how it would turn out, and well, YUM!

Home-made bread courtesy of Charley, with home-made mango jam courtesy of Rachel!

Afterwards I decided to strain it because it was a bit stringy. And then I had an empty jar to put it in. It made almost a full jar! I'm so proud of my very first jam!

I wish I could send you all some mangoes! I have a feeling that this is just the tip of the iceberg! Look out for more blog posts on ways to consume mounds of mangoes!

Oh, and I also finally went to the market in Masaya for fruits and vegetables this past weekend. I took a local with me to help me get good prices and not get lost! It went very well. I think I saved about 30% over buying them at the little stall near our house. Some things were a little cheaper, others were WAY cheaper, but nothing was more expensive. Check out what I got for $8.00.

One dozen tomatoes, 5 onions, 10 small green peppers (called chiltoma here), 4 heads of garlic, 10 potatoes, 4 huge carrots, 7 ripe plantains, 3 pineapples, 1 giant papaya, 13 oranges, 12 bananas, one cucumber & 15 super ripe bananas perfect for banana bread. Not bad eh?!

Ok, well, I need to go sweep and mop for the floor now. Bye!

Why I'm going to read the Yearbook again

So, this is a really good example of why I need to read the Yearbook more than once! I read it in the first few days after it came out online. And you remember that blog post the other day about Abraham and the scripture in Hebrews 11:15, 16? Well, a sister from Florida commented on it and said that she was listening to the Yearbook and the experience on page 159 caught her attention because she'd just read my blog post. Have a look at the Yearbook and read the experience on page 159. Funny, because I'd read it already, but had no recollection of it! Probably because I didn't actually look up the scripture, so it didn't stick. That's also a good example of why it's a good idea to always look up scriptures quoted in the publications! The truth of Hebrews 4:12 comes to light once again!!

And another funny little thing I remembered today. The owner of the house had a water heater installed for the other bathroom, the one we now use. So when our visitors arrived for that one night the other week, we turned it on for the first time so that Josie didn't have to have a cold shower on her first day here. So the shower water was nice and warm, actually it got hot. But so did the water coming from the sink, which is fine until you want to brush your teeth! Funniest thing was that the cistern for the toilet felt really warm too!!! So we had a Jacuzzi for a day. Nobody seemed to want to get in it though! And I never thought I'd say this, but I discovered that day that I prefer cold showers!!!! I was shocked at myself!

Ok, well, time for service. See ya!

Now for some pictures!

Just a few pictures from the last couple of days. Inspired by my friend Tasha who recently arrived with her hubby and his cousin to serve in Jinotega, I decided that I could make tortillas myself too. They make them super thick here, so I wanted to try making some thinner ones. And here they are. They were delicious if I do say so myself, and I made them again today at lunch time. They're so much easier to make than I had imagined!

The ones on the plate are ready to eat. The other I'm working on. That's a bread bag cut open so that they don't stick.

Then just peel it off the bread bag and throw it on our stoves built-in griddle.

So, that's my latest homemade thing and I think it will continue to be a regular feature. Yesterday our friend who came to make bread taught me to make sopa de frijoles (bean soup) so we've been eating that with rice, homemade tortillas and avocado which is available in abundance now - yay!!!

This morning we didn't go out in service, because we went to help prepare the assembly hall for our assembly this weekend. I wish I had a picture of everyone that showed up. There must have been at least 200 people there, maybe a little more. So by 10am we'd finished our assignment. Here are some of the friends working.

Maritza, Emanuel, Jorge, Escarlet & Hesvan (who worked very hard and got very wet in the process!) We were all cleaning in all those little holes in the decorative wall you see in the background. I got stuck doing all the high up ones since nobody else could reach! There were 10 of us there from our congregation.

The main auditorium of the assembly hall.

So, that's all. Just wanted to share those few pictures. I'll try and take pictures at the assembly on Sunday although I have a history of doing a very poor job of actually taking any despite always taking my camera!

Well, we're heading into Masaya this afternoon to do some studies and support the evening group so I need to go get ready. 

Warning...this is all WORDS and no pictures!!

While Charley teaches one of our friends how to make bread, I thought I'd blog a little. I haven't talked much about any of our field service experiences so I'm going to try and remember one or two for you.

The campaign to distribute the invitations is going well. We've done the territory once over already, so now we're just working it with the offer of the magazines, but also asking if the person received an invitation since we still have some left. About half the people say they haven't. That's mostly because there are usually 2 or 3 families living in one house, so you could visit a house 10 times probably and talk to someone difference each time.

I had a really good call last week with the son of a lady I've been visiting. His name is Luis and we talked about the end, what events will lead up to it, etc. He couldn't accept the idea that I presented to him that the punishment for sin is simply eternal destruction. We read Romans 6:7 and he understood it, but still couldn't accept it. Eternal death didn't seem like enough punishment to him. So, I'm going back this weekend to share some points from that article we had about hell-fire in the November 2012 Watchtower. We'll see how that conversation goes. He was very nice though, and didn't want to argue, he just didn't see how it was just for God to just destroy someone if that person had done something awful like kill someone.

I have a few studies who say they're definitely coming to the Memorial, and the others I've invited and will be reminding them and going over the information on page 206 of the Bible Teach book this week and next so that they know what it's all about. 

I'm still having a lot of fun studying with Mirna & Yuliana. Yuliana was asking a lot of questions about baptism the other day, about how we do it and how you qualify for it. She seemed rather interested in our Special Assembly Day that we have this Sunday, so we'll see if she decides to come. She was impressed with the Whole Association of Brothers video that we watched. She recently took an exam to try to qualify for a place in Radiology classes at the University where she studied to be a doctor. When we were talking about it before the exam, and how there were only about 12 spots available, I was saying that one of the things I like about the career I chose (the full-time ministry) is that there was no exam to get in, and there's room for everyone! The next week she told me she didn't qualify. She was disappointed, but then she said she was remembering what I said about how Jehovah has room for everyone in his people. Hopefully she'll decide to make that her career one day!

I also watched the Organized video with another study, Dulce (yes that means Sweet, that's her name). She was majorly impressed at how organized we are, and how the whole organization runs on voluntary donations. That astounded her! 

I can't think of any other experiences as of late although I'm sure there have been some. I started a new study but didn't find her last week so I'll talk about her another day after I see whether she's going to continue or not. 

One last thing I did want to mention though was a scripture from our Watchtower study a couple of weeks ago that I just thought was wonderful. It was like I was reading it for the first time, which maybe I was, I don't know. Or maybe just because it had new meaning for me. It was the December 2012 edition in the last study article. Paragraph 9 was talking about how Abraham kept his eyes focused, not settling down to become a permanent resident in some nation. And then it quoted Hebrews 11:14, 15. I thought that was just the most amazing scripture, and verse 16 too, and I'm determined to always think of it whenever I feel a little homesick. When my studies ask me when we're leaving, I realize how I don't want to leave these people behind, how I want to continue helping them. That helps put any little bit of homesickness away too.

Well, that's all for now. Hope you're all doing well and look forward to hearing how the Memorial season is going in your part of the world.

Playing catch up again

Well, I typed the title of this post about 3 days ago I think, and that's as far as I got. 

So, where was I? Mam and Dad left February 12th. Oh, and I blogged about the day after that already. So, that weekend, the 17th, Charley visited Group #2 as Service Overseer. We did the same thing as last time, and had everyone come to the house in the afternoon after field service. We had a good time eating and playing games. Here's a picture of the group so that you can "meet" them.

The group consists mostly of two families, Blass (6 on the left, including the kid - the dad and other daughter couldn't come) and Salinas (7 on the right including two kids). Then in the back that's one of our pioneers William who got attacked by some gang members and had his face stitched up (he's better now), and in the front middle, Sister Rosita whose husband Diego is in a wheelchair from a stroke. You'd probably cry if you saw his situation, heard of her health problems, and saw the little place they live in. But they keep on going. There's so much I could tell - everyone has their story and we're grateful to each one of them for the little things they've done for us since we've been here.

So, we all had a really good time together and everyone enjoyed the banana bread, cream cheese pound cake, peanut butter cookies, and cinnamon rolls. I'm waiting for Charley to make the cinnamon rolls again because I didn't eat one that day...................I'm still waiting!

The next week or so is a blur. I'm assuming it was just time spent in service, meetings, study, housework, etc. I'm LOVING the washing machine. It's amazing how much more time we have now to get other things done, or just rest a little!

Most of my studies studied with someone else while mam and dad were here and I was off running around with them. So, the same sisters that took care of them in February, will eventually be the ones I'll leave studies with one day. I continue to have really good support in the afternoons, I'm actually spoiled for choice, and it's been a pleasure to spend so much time with different sisters in the congregation going on studies and calls.

Last weekend we headed up to Leon on Saturday afternoon. We ate dinner at Don Jack's. It's a little place run by a pirate from Canada, who also happens to be a GREAT cook. I had THE BEST burger, and Charley had some delicious venison goulash. I guess I don't have any pictures of that evening. We also accidentally walked past this awesome French bakery they have there so we got a couple of little quiches for breakfast (we kept them in the fridge at the hostel so no ants this time!!) We stayed in the same hostel as we did when we took mam and dad to Leon. Charley gave the talk the next morning in the English congregation and did a very nice job. He hardly said anything in Spanish this time! I think I'm probably the only one that noticed when a tiny word in Spanish slipped out! 

Giving his talk in Leon. They were shocked that he wore a suit jacket since it's hotter up there!

Meet the Perez family. They're so sweet. We had fish at their house and enjoyed their company after the meeting. Little Natalie was shy at first but she opened up later on and even fed us play food - it was most delicious!

We drove home that afternoon, and spent Monday getting the house ready for guests. Aaron & Tasha Muerer and Josie Vaughn, all from East Spanish Indianapolis congregation. I've known both Aaron and Tasha since my early days in Indianapolis, and Josie just switched to Spanish so it was our first time meeting her, although we know her older siblings. They came down here to serve for two months in Jinotega so we picked them up Monday night and then Tuesday morning we made the 2 1/2 hour drive to Jinotega. It was a lovely drive, the weather in Jinotega is fantastic since it's about 15 degrees cooler than where we live, and it's in a valley so it's surrounded by gorgeous scenery. 

Lake we stopped to stare at on the way.

Panoramic view of the Jinotega area. 

With Josie, Aaron & Tasha overlooking Jinotega. The town is behind that mound back there in the middle.

This will be their house for a month until the couple who live in it get back from England. Josie very kindly posed for me. Aaron & Tasha are busy checking out the kitchen.

After a little shopping trip we had dinner. I didn't quite get the camera lined up just right!

We spent a chilly night sleeping on our airbed in their living room. We're not used to needing long pants to sleep in, or an extra blanket! It was rather refreshing actually. The next morning after a gourmet breakfast courtesy of Tasha & Josie, we went to Selva Negra (Black Forest, it's a cloud forest run by Germans) about half an hour away. We hiked and spotted strange creatures and had a delicious lunch and just an all round good time. It was a beautiful day spent with good company.

First cool insect we saw.

My hiking buddies

Can you spot Aaron?

I thought this tree was so cool.

I spent way too long trying to get a "soft water" shot.

This forest has some serious leaves.

We had resigned ourselves to the fact that we wouldn't see the monkeys,  when "Eagle-Eye Tasha" spotted one, which turned out to be a dozen or so. And it was a really open spot for taking pictures.

I love his face - he's really into these flowers!

Without even realizing it I took this shot of momma monkey and her baby hanging on. Can you see him? His head is right under her chin.

The lake. The restaurant is on the other side, and their are cabins you can stay in too. 

Some of the rooms available there.

It's hard to capture the beauty, but this was the view on the way back down from Matagalpa to Jinotega.

In the evening we went to the meeting. I forgot to get a picture of it. But here's a picture of me with a sister serving down here from Spain, who lived for years in London, and was in the same congregation as David & Julie Carpenter, who those of you from England reading will know as being Bethelites from our circuit back in the North East of England! What a small world it is!!

With Patricia Hermosilla from Spain/London.

So, we really loved Jinotega. Didn't want to leave! But we left on Thursday to get back to work down here in Masaya. It was a lovely little vacation though - again! Seems like we've had a lot of those lately!! Hopefully we'll go back before Aaron & Tasha leave to do a rural day with them in the ministry.

How could you not love a town with a Moe's Tavern!!

Look at that view from the front door!

And looking the other way. Just beautiful.

So, that's the latest from us. We had a good weekend. Friday and Saturday are such long, tiring days that I have a hard time getting going on a Sunday! But we had a good morning in service, and some rest this afternoon. And got three loads of laundry done without even having to scrub! YAY!!!!

Next time I'll talk more about service. So far we haven't been around a whole lot for the invitation campaign, but it looks like we're pretty much done with our territory already. Hopefully we'll have some good experiences to share from all the activity. There is quite a buzz in the congregation with the extra activity, and we have our Special Assembly Day to look forward too next Sunday so it's all go. More on that later.