Picture overload!

I had chance to sort through my pictures from the Spanish Regional Convention, so if you care to look at them, here they are!

Oh, but first I have a cool story to tell. During the invitation campaign in Spanish I talked to this very polite young dad who sounded very interested in attending the convention. So, yesterday we were out around there and I saw there was a car outside. So I went to find out if they'd gone, and to offer them something released at convention. His wife was home, and it turns out they went!!!!!!! They were only there about an hour, but hey, they went!!! After they got out of church around 1pm, she said they headed down there! So she accepted a publication, and the sister I was with is going to return on Saturday with her husband! Yay!

We were tied into the International Convention in Atlanta for some talks. The three biggest conventions were Indianapolis, Houston & Atlanta, all had over 25,000, but Indianapolis was the biggest!

Dear friends from Columbus, Indiana Spanish

These young ladies grew up so fast!

Mark & Mitsuko serve in Guatemala, but they're in the States at the minute. They stayed with us for the convention.

Charley's sister and hubby invited us to dinner with some ex-Bethel coworkers. Jason & Xiomara are now special pioneers in Kentucky, and just had the privilege of going to the Bible School for Christian Couples last year. 

Saturday morning, ready for a day of learning

I was so excited to see these girls. They used to live next door to my in-laws, and now one of them moved back to Puerto Rico, so it was exciting to see her back in Indy for a bit.

Claudia is in English but very kindly came to work at the convention

With my buddy Cherub. She's moving to Nicaragua at the end of the month!

The section where the 470 baptismal candidates had been sitting!

The baptism pools were busy most of lunch!

With some dear Argentinian friends. Back in the day we were in the same congregation and it had been a couple of years since we'd all seen each other. 

Wendy & Yuliana from East Spanish

Saturday we ate with these lovely friends from Columbus, OH at a Turkish restaurant

So excited to see Holly again. It had been YEARS since we'd seen each other. I love this picture. We were so well coordinated, accidentally!

Rachel & Daniel with their adorable kids, Elijah & Liliana

Such a joy to see little ones learning to give back to Jehovah

Brother Malenfont was the Governing Body helper who gave a few talks, streamed from Atlanta. He is such a good speaker and his Spanish is also very good.

Almost 32,000 on Sunday. 

Just over 700 attended the meeting for the School for Kingdom Evangelizers

Got to see Iris. She served for a time in Nicaragua, so it was nice to finally meet up again

Convention theme - reminding us to put the Kingdom first, not sports!!

Just six missionary couples that were in Atlanta

Some of the signs in Atlanta. The one at the bottom says "Look for us in paradise" and it has a bunch of arrows pointing up to the people holding it!

God's Kingdom Loading - 99%

Sad goodbye to Lucas Oil Stadium. What memories we had there during July & August!

Indianapolis International Convention

I thought I'd have all kinds of time to post while we were visiting Indianapolis, but it hasn't happened! So, here are a bunch of pictures from the Indianapolis International Convention. We had a great time! Just over 32,000 were in attendance with 280 baptized. With all the conventions tied in to the one in Indy there were about 122,000 and 791 baptized. We had Brother Mark Sanderson from the Governing Body. He has such a smiley, friendly face. It was such a pleasure to have him with us and hear his talks.

We got to enjoy Brother Sanderson's talks twice, since he was also the visiting GB member at the Atlanta International Convention in Spanish. He gave his talks in English, and Brother Williams did a FANTASTIC job of interpreting. That is HARD work indeed. We went to the Spanish Regional Convention in Indianapolis this past weekend and it was quite a treat. We had almost 32,000 there peak, and a whopping great 470 baptized including 10 from the congregation we used to be in here in Indy! With all the locations tied together the peak attendance was over 191,000 with 2248 baptized! Spanish is still a growing field here in the US! My pictures from Spanish are still inside my camera so that'll be another post.

Thursday cleaning was HARD work! I got filmed by the Bethel camera crew. I got so nervous - haha!!!

Family from England

Some of the Indianapolis Burmese group. They're so sweet!

Tim & James from a Polish group in England

Friends from Poland and Bulgaria. 

Local delegates from Kentucky. A sweet sister in our congregation in Nicaragua sent little wooden bowls as gifts for some of the delegates so I made sure I got a picture of those I gave them to.

Charley with a brother from Estonia

End of day one. A couple from Poland gave us the bags. They have the convention theme on them. Apparently a brother in Germany had them made for a convention he was going to, but they didn't arrive in time. So he gave them to this sweet Polish couple to give out in Indianapolis.

The lovely Lucas family. We later spent a day in service with them and had dinner at their house. Their daughter Iley quickly made Charley her best friend! She just loved him! She says she's coming to visit next year!

Lucas Oil Stadium enjoying it's calmest event ever!

Sister from Poland in traditional dress

The baptism on the big screen.

More traditional Polish outfits

Polish again - we had a lot from Poland! 

My dear new friends, (l to r) Halinka, Elzbieta & Agnieszka from Poland. Only Agnieszka spoke English so she translated for her mam and friends. Helenka did know how to say "I'll miss you". She said it over and over again!

Fellow Brits from Chesterfield, Derbyshire - my favorite British county!

Charley with the British brothers

I just love this shot!! Such a united people

My friend Cherub had a TON of people over Saturday evening including two really sweet brothers from London Hindi congregation. They taught us some Indian dancing! It was so much fun!

Dressed up Nicaragua style for the last day of the convention

We were thrilled to find this couple, Arthur & Anita. They are Polish, but are special pioneers in Sign Language in Slovenia. We met them at the International convention in Poland in 2009 so it was soooo exciting to meet up with them again. Who would have thought we'd run into each other in Indianapolis!

Very few friends from the Philippines were able to come, but here are few of the beautiful friends who did. I guess many of them weren't able to get a visa to come visit.

After being baptized for some 36 years, Janice had the pleasure of seeing her husband get baptized on Saturday!

My favorite picture from Sunday! This is our new friend Zane. Isn't he ADORABLE!?!?!?

This pretty much sums up what Sunday was like!!! We have half a suitcase of gifts to share with the friends in Nicaragua.

I think these sisters are in a Russian congregation in the UK

The Matthews. I think Lara was trying to hide!

With some friends from East Spanish Indianapolis

Ukranian maybe? We were comparing notes about not getting to take many of our own pictures because we'd been in so many pictures. She wore a traditional outfit all three days though. I don't know how she had the energy!

So, this little girl came and gave me a bookmark. The sister with her said she was really shy of giving anything to the brothers. So Charley got down to her level and asked if she had anything for him. She said still had bookmarks in her hand but she said "No". And she would not give him anything!!! It was soooo funny!

Couple from Finland

The Tres Amigos! The family resemblance is so strong in this shot.

With my parents

With our new friends Adam & Sohpia who gave us those cool bags on Friday

Not sure - it had been a long day by then!

Friends from Romania.

The Monday after the convention was foreign delegate service day down at the hall my parents go to. There are 3 Kingdom Halls on one piece of land, so 150 delegates came for service, lunch and afternoon entertainment.

The Bethel camera crew were there for the meeting for field service too!

Isn't Josslyn adorable?! 

Friends from the Philippines with a couple of locals

This couple are from England. We discovered we have friends in common!

Lunchtime in the tent

Arthur & Monica from Poland

The kids did the drama of Achan

Time for the delegates to leave

Well, that was enough for today, probably more than enough. I have more pictures, but I won't post them all. You get the idea from the above pictures. It was such a pleasure to be part of this experience. Starting to save our pennies for the next round of Internationals!