I never learn...ALWAYS take your camera!

I had some stories I wanted to share today so here's another post. I think we had some nice reminders this week of why we're down here, and although there might be parts of the country with more need, this last couple of days helped me see what a need there is where we are too.

Before I forget, the cake I was making with the "gone-wrong" frosting last time I blogged turned out to be DELICIOUS! So much so, that I made another one yesterday. I've been sharing these cakes with the congregation by the way, so it's not that Charley and I are eating a whole cake every three days!

Wednesday has become our long day in the ministry. Charley goes on studies with one of the other pioneers in the afternoon, and I went with my new friend Dyckcy (pronounced Dixie believe it or not!) to do a study and some calls. I had a GREAT study with Raquel this week. She's the one I'm conducting for a few months until the sister studying with her is finished with her computer course. I got to enjoy the beautiful feeling of seeing someone's eyes light up as they understand a Bible truth. Things that are so simple to us, but that so many have never understood before.

Before we started the subheading "Where did Jesus come from?" in the Bible Teach book, I asked her what she thought. She said, "From Mary". So we read paragraph 10 in that subheading, and John 3:13 and 6:38 and she learned that Jesus existed in heaven before he came to the earth. She was astounded!

Then the next paragraph talks about him being the Firstborn and the Only-Begotten. After reading Colossians 1:15, 16 she understood that Jesus was the very first thing Jehovah created, even before creating the angels and the earth. She was astounded again. Amazed at how she could have been going to church all these years, and reading the Bible, and not have known that before. She was really impressed by what she learned. So, although I had to sit outside and wait for her for about 20 minutes because she had a visitor, it was well worth the wait. It was even worth all the constant interruptions by the neighborhood kids coming to buy candy from her the whole time (she has a little store in her house like many people here)

I also had a few really interesting conversations in the morning too when we went door-to-door. Three of those people I went back on today, and another one that I visited for the second time on Wednesday, I found again today too. All were really good conversations on a variety of themes. Unfortunately one is moving to the other end of the country soon, but she was very excited about having the Learn From the Great Teacher book, and I ended up leaving  her the new brochure too since she promised she would study it in her new location.

I could go on forever telling stories of the good conversations we've had this week. Charley has some really good ones too. But I need to start heading towards the kitchen to make dinner soon since it's after 4:30 already.

But before I do that, I will explain the story that goes with the title of this post. The Thursday before the convention, our Theocratic Ministry School conductor gave the 2nd part on the school himself. It was from the Reasoning Book, and would have been a pretty simple talk to put together. So I told him after the meeting that if he ever needed a volunteer to let me know. With that offer in mind, I decided to spend a bit of time working on the 2 student talks that a sister might give for this week. We have set aside Thursday as our other day off, and used a lot of it in studying. So I had the time to put together outlines for those two parts. I'm glad I did, because I ended up giving the 2nd talk, Are God’s Heavenly Creatures Organized? I had a really good householder, and if I do say so myself, I was pleased with how it turned out. I've never really done volunteer talks like that, not unless I knew a day or two in advance. But I was asked to do this one just after the meeting started! 

Anyway, it just felt good to know that it's not just Charley, as an elder in the congregation, who is being used at the meetings, but that I was able to throw in my grain of sand too. And since a lot of people down here don't have a DVD player, we were also the main ones answering the questions from the Young People Ask video this week. Next time we're going to get organized though and watch a video as a group or something so that more people can participate. Oh, and so the point of the title of the blog, is that I wanted to have a picture of me giving my first part on the school, but since I didn't know it would be last night, I didn't have the camera with me!

Ok, well, I really need to head to the kitchen now! 

Is this the queue?

Hello everyone,

Hope you've been enjoying the picture blogs. A lot quicker to read than my usual posts!

We're doing well. We had a good week in the ministry. I got to conduct a study that someone asked me to do for her for the next few months, so that was nice. I also got really lost again trying to find a return visit. I got lost last time I looked for it too. I think maybe now I've finally learned where it is - maybe! 

The District Convention was very nice. It was held at the assembly hall just about 15 minutes down the road from where we live, so that was handy. It's an open-sided hall that seats about 2300 maybe. Friday there were only 1600 there, on Saturday 2000 and on Sunday 2550! They had to put out extra chairs in the back. And Charley and I ended up sitting behind a column where we could only see half of the stage. But we could see the speakers, and since we'd seen the drama twice already we didn't mind missing out on seeing some of the scenes, although most of them were visible to us. It took us ages to find two seats together and we were there about an hour before it started. There were not so many people or bags in seats as there were books!

The power didn't go off all weekend, until 15 minutes into the drama! Particularly bad timing! But the two girls on the stage at the time, just froze and waited a few minutes, and then the generator kicked in I'm guessing, or the power came back, and they picked up where they left off. They were very professional about it.

One thing I just have to share about the convention are my trips to the bathroom. Don't worry, this is not going to be a nasty story, just amusing! Friday the bathrooms never seemed to be too busy and it was easy to get in and out. Or maybe I just didn't go at peak times, not sure. Saturday and Sunday were a different story though. I never really figured out how the bathroom thing worked, so I just had to go during the talks when it wasn't so busy.

Now, I know they know how to stand in line down here, because they did it very well when it was time to get the new publications. Speaking of which, Sunday the line had formed to get the new DVD at the beginning of the closing song. It was the whole length of the assembly hall by the time the song finished. Rather strange! It backfired though, because they gave the DVD's out at the opposite end, so everyone that was lined up during the song, and at the front, ended up being at the back!

Anyway, back to the bathrooms. So, yes, lines are not a completely foreign concept here. However, they are in the bathrooms. I went in and stood behind some sisters who seemed to be waiting. They had one half of the bathrooms closed off for cleaning, so everyone was on this one side. I stood for a while, and people came out of stalls, people went in stalls, people came in behind me, walked ahead of me, and went in stalls as people came out. After half a dozen people came in and managed to use the bathroom before me, I decided I didn't like this system, and since it was getting really humid in there I just left!

This happened again on Sunday, but twice. I still never figured out how it worked. Everyone else seemed to know the system, and I even asked someone, and they told me just to go ahead and get in one when it was empty, but there always seemed to be someone faster than me!!!! Strange indeed!!!

Charley said that no matter what time of day he went into the men's bathroom there were always three brothers mopping the floors. I guess they kept it nice and clean. They do clean a lot down here which is good. In the morning they sweep and mop the floors a bit. And then after everyone eats lunch, they sweep and mop again, and then again at the end of the day. 

As I mentioned the other day, the baked products were a huge hit. I'm currently baking again. I made some cream cheese frosting for the carrot cake, but I didn't get the sugar fine enough when I was trying to turn it into powdered sugar, so it was really crunchy so I didn't use it! But thanks to the feature on allrecipes.com where you can search for recipes that have certain ingredients in, I found a recipe for cream cheese pound cake so the frosting is now part of a cake and smells yummy in the oven. Can't wait to try it!

We got to meet quite a few of the foreigners serving down here at the convention this weekend, although there aren't as many as I expected. No more than a dozen at this convention. They were from the US, Canada or England, oh and one from Romania! There are a few other couples around our age serving in other congregations in Masaya. And we also met a couple who until a couple of months ago were living a couple of streets away from us, but they had to move out. They were missionaries, graduated in the 90's and were sent here, then went back to the US, and now they're here on their own. It was nice to finally meet them after hearing so much about them. Very encouraging talking to him. He was saying about how much the foreigners help out in the congregations here. I have noticed that, the attitude towards us. It's like all the foreigners serving here are superheros, and as long as we're here everything will be ok! He told us not to underestimate the positive effect we can have in the congregation, and that what we do will be imitated - that'll keep us on our best behavior if nothing else will!!

It certainly shows at a District Convention what a need there is for brothers down here. Almost every, if not every brother that gave a talk on the program during the three days, gave at least two, and a couple of brothers gave three. I've seen that happen in Spanish in the States a little bit, but not as much as here. And many of those brothers didn't just give their part at one convention, but at two. There are a total of 16 conventions that will take place at that assembly hall, the last one being the last weekend in November.

Laynori and I matched on Saturday!

With Nora, who used to be in El Crucero, where we visited the first time we came.

Paola, Georgy, Junior & Jamie - all from our congregation

Mario Sr giving his second part, on Saturday

This is how most arrive to the convention.
The congregations rent a bus for the weekend.

Some of the family members of one of the elder's wives back in Indianapolis

Couple from England serving in Las Esquinas, and a young sister from England who is visiting them for three months.

An idea of what the assembly hall looks like. You can see that it's open on the side.

And this is the side we sat on Sunday, near the edge, where the air blows through!

I couldn't get my camera out quickly enough, so this is the best I could do!
This was how one congregation got to the convention I guess.

Well, I think that's enough story-telling for today. Time to go see if some of the stuff on the line is dry............spoke too soon, it started raining a bit. Oh well, it'll dry. The sun came back out now!

Wash, wash, wash

As you probably read the other day, I talked about how you take the spin cycle on your washing machine for granted until you try to wash towels by hand. Well, I thought I'd document the washing process for you all today! Here's what I've spent the last few hours doing.

First - the soak cycle

 Then the wash cycle which is the next three pictures.

That's soap in my hand

Scrub

Scrub

Then the rinse cycle

And finally the spin cycle

While I did that, Charley was fixing the dryer

Almost fixed

And there it all is in the dryer

It's pretty tiring work. I think three loads is as much as I'll be able to handle today!

Pictures of this and that

I tried to do this last night, but we had no phone line or internet when we got home. But I guess they fixed it by this morning, so here are some pictures. I don't have much time to tell stories to go with them right now, but I thought I'd go ahead and at least share the pictures.

Charley was stitching a new strap on his service backpack, and complained he didn't have enough light, so I ran upstairs and got his light I bought him for our last anniversary (and I grabbed the camera while I was up there!)

I spent Thursday afternoon baking stuff to share at the convention. Here's the banana bread which was all gone in a hurry yesterday!

And my carrot & pineapple cupcakes that got a bit too big for the pan!

There I am with my little faithful apron!

I had to cut the cupcakes out!

And then some oatmeal cookies for Sunday

And a quiche (of sorts) for lunch yesterday and today. Yum!!

And the moment you've all been waiting for - the coolest cooler ever!!! This is it's bag.

And there's the cooler. I know you're all jealous of it.

At District Convention with some of our congregation

Scarlet and her little boy - ain't he cute?!

Our friends Mario & Mario Jr from El Crucero. They had a part in the afternoon. The one about resisting temptations.

This is the assembly hall. I'll take some more pictures today.

And the big cool tree everyone sits under at lunch time

A good friend from El Crucero who didn't realize we were back in the country, so she was quite surprised to see us!

Mario giving his talk

Mario Jr doing the demonstration

Well, that's it for now. I need to get ready for another day of convention. It was wonderful to go again. Today we're going to look for seats a bit closer to the edge so we can get some more breeze. It got pretty warm yesterday and I'm sure there will be more people there this week. I'll make sure I take some pictures of the buses that everyone comes in today and some more of what the assembly hall looks like for those of you who didn't see my pictures of it last time.

A funny little story that I just remembered

I just remembered a story I meant to tell from our first week here. We went to go visit some of the studies that I started last time I was down here. One of them, Nidia, is maybe around our age and has a teenage daughter. We were waiting for her outside and someone brought us chairs to sit down in. When she finally came out she came to me first, and kissed me on the cheek. But then she did the same thing to Charley!

It was sooooo funny! I got the feeling by the look on her face that she didn't mean to do that, it was like, she just did it before she even realized what she was doing! Charley was a little surprised too. But we all just acted like it was completely normal!!!!! Maybe you had to be there to appreciate the funniness of it, but I thought I'd share the story anyway!

And today we went to Maxi Pali for the first time - I'm in love. It's owned by WalMart and is cheaper than where we normally do grocery shopping, and bigger, with more variety in certain things. They even sell appliances and kitchen utensils and stuff. It's in Masaya where our territory and congregation are, so we decided today that we'll be changing our shopping day to a day that we are already in Masaya so that we can shop there!

We bought the most amazing cooler you've ever seen so we'll be taking that to convention tomorrow. I'll post a picture of it another day. You'll all be really jealous.

Bye!

Spin Cycle

Hello all!

It's been a long week (for me it has, Charley didn't seem to think so) of not being connected to the internet. Last Tuesday we went and signed up for a permanent connection, but I didn't realize it was going to take a whole week for it to be set up! So, since I kept thinking that "manana" we'll have internet, I didn't bother buying an hour. 

Today the technician came and when he called to say he was on his way I turned the computer and modem on, and what do you know, we had internet! So when he got here I felt like we'd wasted his time!! But he said he saw another fellow employee leaving when he arrived, and that he'd done something here in the area to fix the internet lines, so he just got online to confirm that it was all set up and off he went! He seemed glad that his job only took 2 minutes and he got a nice cold glass of water out of it!

So, productivity after he left went rapidly downhill. Mondays are our housework and shopping day. The internet has caused a bit of a stir at home, and it's now 5pm and we're just now finishing the housework (which we had all done by 2pm last week!), and we haven't gone grocery shopping yet! But we were able to listen to NPR's Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me online while we worked so that was a nice treat!

It's been a good week in the ministry. Charley has 3 studies now that I started for him in the territory. Now it's time to find some for myself! I do have one with the niece of a brother in the congregation. She started coming to the meetings, and he had her sit with me. She's about 11 and a very serious little girl, but a very good student I discovered on Saturday when we had her first study. Apparently, she had a double-yoke egg at home that her chicken laid that she was saving for us. Her uncle told us that she got home Saturday to discover that her mother had eaten it. She cried and cried and cried about it because she was saving it for us! She has very intense emotions it seems!

Our landlord's niece also finally arrived to her dad's house two doors down so we'll be getting her study going again tomorrow. She came for it today but since she hadn't prepared, and we hadn't finished housework, we rescheduled it for tomorrow afternoon. So it'll be nice to have her study again. She's the one that I studied with here last time, then in the States because she came for a few months, and now we're back here together again!

We've spent some longer days out in the ministry, taking our lunch with us so that we don't have to drive back and forth since it's quite a distance and gas is over $4 a gallon. It's been a challenge coming up with lunches to take with us though. We don't have a cooler yet (something else to search for down here) so we had to think of something non-perishable. We thought maybe we could leave our food in someone's fridge, but people down here live very simply and many of them don't have a fridge. Some don't own a stove either. Things we take for granted as basic necessities are just out of people's reach financially down here. And obviously if they don't have those things, they don't have a microwave either, so we've eaten cold rice and beans, tortillas, and boiled eggs as our lunch! 

On Saturday we were invited to eat lunch at someone's house, so we had our lunch that we had taken for dinner later in the day. We have discovered that frozen bottles of water in a plastic bag, tied up, and put in another bag works well as a fridge in the truck!

Now to the title of the blog - Spin Cycle. I was thinking yesterday how most people in the developed world probably do appreciate their washing machine. And when it breaks you appreciate it even more because you have to go wash it somewhere else. But I don't think I'd ever appreciated the spin cycle of a washing machine, until I started washing towels by hand.  It took a whole day just to dry the towels on the line, because they were so full of water when I hung them up. Even though I squeezed and twisted until my hands cramped up, I still couldn't seem to get the water out of them! Very few people down here have washing machines. Just another "necessity" that perhaps isn't as essential as we always think.

On Sunday we worked in the invitation campaign in the morning, and then went to do some calls. One of them was one of the studies I started for Charley. He's studied before, and Sunday they were going to have their first formal bible study. Well, he lives one block behind the Kingdom Hall. Sounds easy enough. I mean, we've already been about three times, it takes less than 5 minutes to walk there from the Hall. 25 minutes after we left the Kingdom Hall we arrived at his house to find out that he'd been waiting for us but he had to go out. We were already going to arrive about 20 minutes later than we'd told him because I got delayed on a study with someone, and then we got so lost and went in the wrong direction about three times that we were super late! However, his niece was there, and we had a great chat with her, and I'm going to start a study with her the weekend after the District Convention, so it was a blessing in disguise!

So, this week we'll be in the ministry tomorrow and Wednesday, and maybe Thursday too. And then Friday the District Convention begins. It's so exciting to get to go for the third time! I'll make sure I take the camera and take lots of pictures. Sorry that I don't have any pictures for this blog, but I just haven't taken any! I guess since it's our third time down here things don't seem quite so foreign, but I must get better about carrying the camera around and using it!

Well, I think that's the latest from our end. Time to reheat the yummy soup I made yesterday and then go grocery shopping since the last of everything went into the soup! 

Hope you're all doing well. See you later!

Teaspoon or tablespoon?!

Hello all!

It’s been a busy week and I just haven’t had the chance to write anything. I hope I can remember some of things that I thought I’d blog about! I would have written them down, but I kept thinking all week that I’d blog, and never did!

Anyway, we’ve had a lovely week out in service with our new congregation. They meet every morning except Monday so we’ve been out every day but one. Monday we went to the market and bought some more things for the house. The market is in Managua, and it’s a bunch of stalls, but it’s all covered. They sell just about everything in there, except what you’re looking for!! Some things are just hard to find around here, which is why we brought some stuff from the US, but then you always think of something else. And some things you can’t bring, like food. We were surprised and disappointed to discover that it’s just about impossible to find rolled oats here, you can only get the instant ones, even at the places that sell it by the pound. We did get some, but a tiny bag that was more than we should have paid!

I decided while in that market, sweat rolling down my neck, back, front, shoulders, legs – you get the idea – that I’d never buy meat there. I can’t imagine what happens to meat when it’s been inside a market for who knows how long, in 90+ temperatures. Yuck!! And the smell – wow, words cannot describe! But after we spent a while wandering around getting what we needed, and getting completely and utterly lost, we finally found our way out. It’s like a maze in there. Maybe I’ll get the nerve to take some pictures of it one day! I argue that I don’t take pictures because I don’t want to look like a tourist – and then Charley reminds me that I’m white, with blond hair and blue eyes, and measure at least 8 inches taller than everyone else – I guess it’s not the camera that makes me look like a tourist eh?!

So, like I said, we spent our mornings out in service. We don’t have many return visits just yet, or any studies, so we don’t have much to do after the group finishes, but we’re getting established. We’ve been lost in Masaya more than once. Charley is usually really good at directions, but Masaya turns him completely around for some reason. At least twice I’m the one that has got us back on the right track, which is very unusual indeed!

We’ve had some nice calls this week. People are mostly willing to listen, sometimes too busy, but for the most part they listen to you. We met a young man this week who was really interested, and his mam wants him to study the Bible with us, with anyone she said! We got him home again today but he was on his way out to college, so we answered the question he asked us last time, and made plans for Tuesday. I think he’ll turn into a regular study. And another young man that we talked to was home again. He already has the Bible Teach book and accepted a study, probably a brief doorstep one, but you have to start somewhere. And today we went back to visit someone I talked to last Sunday and made plans to start a study with him. He’s studied before but seems to want to start up again. So far, I’ve started three studies for Charley and none for me!! But we have some other calls to go back on during the next week so we’ll see what becomes of those conversations.

Charley did the part on the service meeting from the Benefit book this week, and I did the demo, so that was fun to get to participate. Today we had the WT first and then one of the local elders gave the talk. They wanted Charley to, but he didn’t have any outlines with him, and our house is so far away from the hall, so he escaped this time! It rained so hard for the last 10 minutes that we had to lip-read the talk! It was hard for me concentrate without thinking about my lovely dry clothes hanging on the line at home. They did finally get dry today though after a whole night of heavy rain. It feel cooler today though so that was a relief.

We started the invitation campaign for the District Convention today which starts in two weeks. It doesn’t take long to cover the territory here, and we used up all our invitations already this morning, so hopefully they’ll let us have more invitations! We’re looking forward to going to the convention for the third time. And glad we don’t have to wait until October like many do. I’m dying to be able to talk to them about it freely, and make use of the new tools!

One thing that surprised me this week is that I’ve learned not just to endure, but to actually enjoy the cold showers! If you want to read more about my thoughts on cold showers click here to read the blog post from last time we were down here, about the third paragraph down. Anyway, a couple of times this week I’ve enjoyed the cold shower so much that I have lingered!!! That’s very exciting to me - means I’m adjusting.

The heat has been pretty intense these last few days, which may be why the cold showers are getting better! Some days I take three showers during the day, just to cool down. Usually within 10 minutes I’m sweating again, but those 10 minutes of relief are wonderful!

I’ve decided that baking will be my hobby while we’re down here. I’ve made just over 2 dozen banana bread muffins, and I think about 4 banana breads in the last week or so! A lot of it we have shared, but if we start to look chubbier in pictures you’ll know why. I’ve also made a couple of quiches, using a quick recipe I found online last time I was down here. I made one yesterday, and my teaspoon was dirty, so I just decided to use the half teaspoon twice to put a teaspoon of salt in the mixture. I remember thinking at the time that a ½ teaspoon of salt is a lot more than I thought it was. I thought, no wonder when I boil pasta it always needs more salt, I don’t put near enough salt in it. I also chuckled to myself thinking about the story of when my sister-in-law put tablespoons of salt in the lasagna instead of teaspoons and nobody could eat it.

About an hour later, I sat down to eat a piece of quiche, and I thought, man this is salty. Then I started to visualize the moment that I put the salt in, and the thoughts I’d had. Yes, I think you’ve guessed the rest. But we’ve been sweating so much it’s probably good for us to have a little extra salt intake. And I have to mention that Charley has now made two wonderful loaves of bread. Yum. The bread down here isn’t that great, so we’re making our own – well, Charley is!

I talked to my mam and dad today which reminded me that I hadn’t said anything about the earthquake in Costa Rica yet. We were sitting on a sister’s porch getting ready to start the meeting for field service on Wednesday morning when we all suddenly started feeling dizzy. We were feeling a tremor. It lasted for almost a minute. It was a strange feeling, not shaking, just like rocking. It was like being on a boat for a minute, made your head spin a little. So we used that subject out in service a lot this week.

I also heard that a volcano erupted about 90 miles from here. We haven’t felt any effects of it as far as I can tell though. Someone said Managua had tremors yesterday, which is the capital about half an hour from us, but we didn’t feel anything. Constant reminders of the fact that we’re living in the last days.

Well, here are a few pictures to finish up another incredibly long blog post!

Dinner with Pavon family at house of brothers in Nindiri

Yuca chips that I made - delish!!

My invention for my earrings. That's the bag the tablecloth came in!

And my invention for my necklaces. That's tape to keep them from all falling together!

Charley's bread ready to go in the oven.

My banana bread muffins that came out - they didn't last long!

And Charley's loaf after baking. It was yummy!