Special Day Assembly

Special Day Assembly in Potosi

(highest city in the world, 14,000 ft)

Well, as you can probably imagine from seeing this picture, the day was an adventure.

It was wonderful inside the (indoor) basketball stadium all until it started to rain and then hail.  The rain was no problem but the hail seem to make it's way into the stadium and onto us.  The program even had to stop for 10 minutes or so until the hail stopped due to the loud pounding sound on the roof and the commotion of brothers and sisters trying to shield themselves from hail stones.  Haha!  Sonia and Carmen Acuna seemed to enjoy it.  Lol!  (On a side note, these two sisters have helped me greatly and have been a blessing to me.  They are really awesome!!  If you haven´t already, you should read Sonias life story in the WT.)

The congregation arranged a bus take everyone that needed transportation (like me. It is really weird having to depend on others for transportation and getting taxis and busses for everything.).  We met at the Kingdom Hall at 5:45.  Well, I should rephase that.  I met at the Kingdom Hall with a few others and then by 7:30 everyone arrived and off we went.  So we were on the road to go straight up basically.  The altitude really does a number on some.  So I didn´t want to take a chance so I took altitude sickness pills.  However, not everyone on the bus was aware that they as well should have taken a pill.  Therefore, there were some that vomited on the way up and felt miserable for majority of the program.

The brother that organized our trip did a splendid job.  He brought breakfast and coffee for those that didn´t eat or get their coffee.  But of course, that wasn´t something that I forgot.  I always remember my coffee.  I have found that I have be eating a lot more here as well.  If I am not eating at any given moment in time, I wish I was eating since I am hungry.  Haha!

He also arranged for us to sing kingdom songs.  Majority loved this idea but others only seemed to get more bus/altitude sick (like my friend sitting beside me.)
You can see some more of the friends in my congregation.

After the program we were all very happy to have received the spiritual food but also exhausted.  Thankfully it only threatening to rain and hail inside the stadium.

Much love and warm wishes to all!

Talent Show!

Talent Show!

Who knew there was so much talent in my congregation!

They put on 19 superb acts last night.

I am a bit partial to the group that performed that is in the picture above. 

We danced a typical dance from Tarija, Bolivia.

Sorry just pictures this time.  I gotta go! 
As always, love and miss you lots!

 

Preaching in Sucre (Sur Congregation)

Preaching in Sucre

The territory in Sur Congregation is very diverse and very LARGE.  They have the southern divison of the city of Sucre plus four isolated territories which vary in size.  The are groups that are taken out to work these far out territories now and again.  The one territory, city, Padilla is about 5 hours away from Sucre so normally the friends will spend a couple days there and conduct a Sunday meeting.  The last service meeting there was announced that there are now 3 new unbaptised publishers that live in Padilla. 

In Sucre we are close to 9,000 feet above sea level so the sun is VERY strong.  Thus umbrellas are a must in the ministry.  The sister in the picture with Aida is Damaris Mitchel.  She and her husband are special pioneers in our congregation.  Damaris is Bolivian and originally from La Paz and he is from England and has lived in Bolivia for 18 years.  Damaris went to school to become a lawyer.  She now only uses her education mainly to help the friends.  (Like me and Aida with Visa stuff.)  Her husband Carl and her have been serving in the Sur congregation for almost 3 years and are nervous that they might be asked to move to another congregation since there are already 2 missionaries and other special pioneers assigned to the congregation.  I don't want them to talk about possibly leaving...

Aida and I both enjoyed working with our partner in a section of the Sucre's territory that has never been worked. 

My partner, Primativa, and I were assigned a section of this little town that had a school.  We after being unsuccessful in getting our doors home we preaching at the enterance of the school to a teenaged boy.  He then told us that we should talk to the mothers inside.  It turned out there was  no one at home since everyone was getting ready to eat lunch with their kids at school.  Unfortunately, they all spoke and understood Quechua, which is a whole other language from Spanish, so I quitely listened to my partner witness.  Everyone accepted a tract to read later and were informed as to where our meetings are held.

Random Goats...

We are just leaving Yotala, one of the isolated territories and around the cornor and in front of the car come a herd of goats.  There was no herder, just a herd.  They marched down the middle of town and the town square like they owned the place.  It was hilarious.  Even our Bolivian brothers got a kick out of it.  :)

I'm sure that is not even the beginning of the many more random things that are still to be seen.

I am just glad that I had my camara handy.

I'll share some details on some of the responses in my ministery once I am able to go back on some of my return visits.  It isn't the easiest to do returns since each territory is far from the other...but I'm working out a strategy.

The Apartment

The Apartment At Last!

Hello Everyone!  I am excited to show you pictures of my apartment!

It was a hard search but at last I found the perfect one!
The only drawback from this place is that it is on the 6th floor!  But it has a lovely terrace and the view is wonderful.  Many have told me that it has the best view of Sucre. 

Bolivian apartments have a totally different style than the States.  So it took a while to find something that I knew that I could feel comfortable and safe in for a long period of time.  

It is about $300.00 to buy a washer so I wash all of my clothes by hand.   I'm cheap and it really doesn't take that long to wash them by hand.  This picture shows my laundry sink and the stairs that go to the roof where you hang them out to dry. 

The living and dinning room are at the very humble beginnings stage.  I am not quite sure when I will get a living room set.  I'm thinking of getting a Bolivian style tapestry for the wall behind the dinning room table.  For those wondering about the prices of funiture, I paid 630 B's ($95) for the set.

Funny thing....I still owe 2 B's to the lady I bought it from.  I went with a sister that has a small SUV to look at the funiture but I was sure that I wasn't going to find anything.  Guess what..I found this set.  However, I didn't bring enough money so the sister and I scaped our purse for every last bit of money that we had and came up 2 B's short.  I already talked her down on her price so she wouldn't budge on the last 2 B's.  It was crazy.  So now I have to just go down and pay her, right?  Well, it could be easy if I could find the place again.  Everytime that I go to the market I can never remember how I got to the furniture section.  lol  Well, one day soon I should be successful.  She has been waiting now over a week.  Whoops!

Aida and I are sharing a room.  A two bedroom would have been nice but after looking at so many places we thought that a one bedroom would be ok to share.  So I pay 1300 B's a month.  (7 B's to $1)  Plus, we have to pay for water and electric.  I haven't had to pay for utilities yet so I don't know exactly how much it will be but I have been told that is $20 to $30 depending on our usage.  So it is a managable amount for the two of us. 

I have budgeted to pay about 28 B's a day in food.  I think that I should be able to stay within that now that I can cook at home.  Eating out is not that expensive but it's not good on your stomach to do it that often.  Plus if I eat at home everyday I will have no problem staying under budget.  Always a good thing.  :)

My lovely bathroom!!  This was the seller right here.  Doesn't it look so normal?  haha!  The bathrooms here are anything but normal.  For starters, the majority of the bathrooms are separate from the main house.  Even the new ones...total craziness since it gets cold at night.  Plus the electric shower heads are what heat your water not a hot-water tank.  That sounds fine execpt you forget that you haven't seen Bolivian electric.  So when I didn't see any wires hanging outside the electric shower head this apartment got major points.

If you notice the size of the bathroom you'll see that there is plenty of room for the shower, toilet and sink.  Well, many of the bathrooms here are smaller than a closet so the shower head is over the sink and the toilet is right at your feet.  Everything always gets wet since they haven't discovered the advantage of having a shower surrounded by a curtain at a distance from the sink and toilet.  Even with this bathroom there didn't come a shower rod.  I have to have someone come and install one. 

You'll never believe the next oddity.  No one flushes the toilet paper down the toilet.  You put it in the trash can.  That gives you insight as to how the plumbing is here.  Oh well, if you never put paper in the toilet, you don't have to ever worry about having a back up.  :)

So that is the end of the tour.  Would you like to come for a visit?  You are welcome anytime. 

Miss you all!  Take care!  Hope to see you soon!



Zudañez

 

Off We Go to Zudañez!

We are loving Sucre but can not pass up an opportunity to go to isolated territory about 3 hours by bus from Sucre.  

We had a group of nine.  All of us foreigners.  Trey and Shannon headed up the expedition.  

We had a great time and made some new friends!

We preached along the way.  The woman selling food and drinks to the passengers were surprised to be offered something in return.  One woman turned around and yelled, "Watchtower!"  They a young lady came running up to the bus and said, "I want the Watchtower.  What do you have?"  That was a clue to what was to come upon reaching our destination.  

When we arrived in Zudanez it was an adventure from the start.  Trey confirmed our rooming with the hotel owner before we left, however, there is only one room available when we arrive.  One room for nine people just is not going to work.  It turns out that the owner was not in Zudanez at the time and the employee let the rooms out not knowing that we were on our way.  Lovely!  It was by then after 8 and getting colder by the minute.  Then the "nice" employee tells Trey to check out the other hotel up the street.  It was a blessing from Jehovah that they had rooming for all of us at such short notice.  

Our rooming and hotel was nicer then expected.  However, there was an attack moth.  Jenni will have to fill you in on that.  lol!  

This was the group.  Trey and Shannon, two sisters visiting from Argentina, Ann from Canada/Haiti, Summer from Florida, and us three girls.  We enjoyed each other's company very much.
Since Zudañez is lower in the mountain it was a little warmer which was a pleasant surprise as well. 

Since people don't really like you to take their picture I don't have any good pictures of us witnessing yet.  But this is what some of the countryside looks like.  It was breathtaking.  Everywhere you look is another amazing sight.

This is where we ate all of our meals.  There are only a couple places to eat and since Trey and Shannon said that they have never gotten sick here, we decided that this would be the place.  There is no menu.  There only serve their soup of the day and a choice of the two lunch plates that they have prepared.  The meals were humble but were hot so it warmed our tummys.  And even better...No one got sick.

It was an experience to preach to the people here.  No one was rushed or said that they didn't have time.  Everyone that read Spanish excepted the literature that we offered.
My goal in talking with the people was show them God's name in the Bible and explain why knowing it is valuable to them.  Then offer the Oct mags if they read.
There were people that we talked to that asked if we were going to have a meeting Sunday.  We we told them that we couldn't stay til Sunday, they replied, "Too bad.  If you would have had a meeting we would have come."  Responses like that and the general interest in the Bible in this small town warmed our hearts and give us great hope for its future.
 The harvest is great and the workers are very few here!!

 

Life in Sucre

Good Bye Santa Cruz!!  Hello Sucre! 

We had a great welcoming lunch by the missionaries.  Sonia and Carmen Acuna and Trey and Shannon were very accommodating and sweet.  Sonia and Carmen picked us up from the aiport and brought us to our new place in Sucre.  It is very clean but very small so we are hoping to have another place soon. 

The day that we arrived was the day of the Sur Congregation's meeting night.  So off we went to the meeting.  The congregation is very warm and I think we met just about everyone that goes there.  There had to have been over a hundred at the meeting.  They were saying that they were appreciative for the elders that they had in their congregation.  The neighboring congregation has only two elders.  The one elder just arrived and he doesn't speak much spanish.  So there is much help needed. 

This is a picture taken from close to where we live.  The scenary is very beautiful!!  There are scenes like this all over the city. 

This is a Chulita.  An indigenous woman that is wearing her typical dress.  She is just chillin out on one of the step.  It was just a good snap shot.

We are enjoying the sites at the moment since we have soo much running around to do for our Visas..

We went to an isolated territory... I'll give you an update soon.  Miss you!! Take care!

We Made It to Santa Cruz, Bolivia!!

Hello!!  Greetings from Santa Cruz Bolivia!!  Miss you!

  Aida, Jenny and I are very happy to say that we were all able enter Bolivia without any major issues.  We did have a rude woman to deal with at the American Airlines in the US.  Once we stopped dealing with her everything went well.  She thought that she knew it all and was on a serious power trip.  But the next customer service agent was very nice and reassuring.  However, since the first lady had sown some doubts as to our being able to enter the country using our Specific Purporse Visa we were a bit nervous.   We found out very quickly after we arrived at the Santa Cruz Airport (Viru Viru) that everything was in order like we thought and passed into the country with flying colors.  What a relief!

When we arrived at Bethel we were received with open arms!  Our world wide brotherhood is really wonderful!  The friends made sure that we had everything that we needed.  Sonia Manani was our host during our stay and Vanessa Ugalde gave us the tour. 

I had a lot of fun playing volley ball with the brothers on Friday night!  They said that we shouldn't go to Sucre.  (I wonder why??)

This was the service group that we supported on Saturday.  Gwendeline (the girl beside Jenny) is who brought us to the group.  She is Mexican/American/Canadian I believe.  I went with her to a couple of her studys after working in the territory.  The one study had baby ducks and baby parrot.  Since the family didnt have a cage for the bird I opted to help clip its wings.  I have never known a sweeter bird.  It didn't bite once and was very affectionate.  One day I hope to have it together like Gwendeline.  She has been very blessed. 

Our favorite Bolivian food!!  Saltenas!  They normally preach from 8:00am til 10:30am then break for lunch.  During the summer they regroup at 4:00 or 5:00pm.

These are some of the friends from the Portuguese group.  No one in the picture is Brazilian.  Haha!  There are a lot of Bolivians learning Portuguese and few Brazilians in the group.  There are 40 publishers and there was 80 in attendance!!  They should soon be a congregation.  When I told them that I was leaving for Sucre in a couple of days they loaded me up with literature to take with me.  They gave me instructions to help form a group in Sucre since as of yet there is none.  Let's see what happens...

These are some of Bolivia's typical musical instruments that were being sold at the town plaza.

So we have now arrived to Monday.  We have done so much in so little time.  After having the privilege of being at morning worship and saying hasta luego to our big spiritual family at bethel we leave to stay with the Rojas family on the other side of Santa Cruz.  Directly after luch their youngest daughter Fabiana says, "Do you girls want to go preaching at 4:00?"  We are thinking that she meant for just a couple of hours so we say, "Sure!  We are tired but sure."  Then we ask when we will be returning.....  We preached til 9:30 at night!!  It was definitely not something that any one of us expected.  The people were very nice and Jenny even was given a donation.  The lighting was a problem at some of the doors but majority of the people didn't seem to notice it being a late hour.  The biggest problem we had was the lack of literature.  haha!  We didn't bring enough.  Well, you now know why we are sooo tired looking in the picture above. 

We are enjoying ourselves at the Roja's home and they are feeding us well but we are leaving at 7:30 am tomorrow for Sucre.  Hopefully we will have good internet connection at the next family's house so that I can upload more pictures.   There is soo much to do and so little time.  We are seeing the Jehovah's hand in everything.  He is taking good care of us!  Much love!  Hasta luego!