Beautiful Day

Today we did service right next to the beach. The water looked so beautiful, and the breeze coming off the ocean was so refreshing. It is just an absolutely beautiful day to be in Honduras.

Here are some random pictures we've taken over the past few weeks.

Dianne at the Pupuseria on the beach

Cacao pod- this is what chocolate is made from. The white part is slimy and surrounds the brown cocoa bean

Disinfecting the produce we picked up at the local market

The view from our front door

We ran into this friendly fellow out in service. He was hiding under a van but came out just long enough to pose for a picture.

Playing cards with friends

The local swimming hole

Zach preaching in the jail. Kinda stands out, doesn't he?

Memorial and other unrelated news

Here's some photos of the Memorial and our day today.
We had 34 in attendance at our memorial. There were 5 visitors.

This is Sister Woodrow, she and her husband live in the building next to us.

 Kate and Samara

 The Campbell Family (Jenny, Seth, Glen and Gavin) with Jenny's study Dulce.

Here are some pictures from today.
This is a carrot we got from the supermarket. It's huge and probably weighs about 2 lbs. All the fruit and veggies here are really big. We saw a papaya the size of a watermelon- no joke. I was going to buy it, then I remembered I don't like papaya that much.

Zach has a habit of picking up every centavo he finds in the street, and has quite the collection. He counted out how much he has today and made these two piles. The one on the left is .93 USD, on the right is 17.75 Lempira. Guess which one is worth more....

Trick question. It's the same amount.

We booked our flight home today, we are staying here the full 120 days allowed. I had to recount the days a couple times to make sure we weren't going to overstay and get in trouble. I was a little worried, because the flights home using my miles were either in the beginning of July- which is really soon- or the end of August- past when our 6 months is up- but thankfully we found a flight that will work and we won't have to be deported. I'm a big fan of not being deported. 

That is all.

Quick Story

So just a funny little story for everyone before we go to the Memorial tonight.

Witnesses are really well known here. A lot of people will just stop you and ask if you're a Witness, and some ask for magazines. The other day, we caught a cab to go home. After we told the driver the general area we wanted to go to, he asked if we were Testigos de Jehova. When we told him yes, he started driving without us having to give him directions. He drove us straight to the missionary home. Thankfully, we live right down the street from there. So we started telling him where we actually live, and it was as if he knew that too- we didn't have to finish giving him directions. This isn't the first time this has happened.

So, apparently, all the Witnesses who speak English live at the missionary home, or the Sallis compound. And everyone seems to know that. It's a little weird.

Ok, that is all. Hopefully I'll have pictures of the Memorial to post.

Service

Here are some photos from service the past couple of days. This can give you a little bit of an idea what the area looks like.

  The building in the background is the soccer stadium. The stadium is in the middle of the city, sorta...We can hear the games from our house sometimes.

This is Zach and Bro Woodrow doing a house across the street from us. You can see how they have to stop at the gate and yell towards the house from there.

This is my favorite picture. It reminds me of the new Watchtower covers, how they have a scene from out in service. This is Wes inviting a young woman to the Memorial.

We had two cute experiences today. At one house, we asked a group of kids for the woman there who spoke english. They disappeared and did not come back out for several minutes so we went to leave. As we were doing so, the kids started yelling for us to come back. Two of them had grabbed a blanket as a cloak and one was standing on the other's shoulders to pretend they were taller, like an adult. As they tried to open their gate and come show us, they fell backwards. Everyone was ok, but it was really funny.

Then we were walking to another territory by the beach, and we passed a family walking along to go to the beach. All of a sudden, I feel someone grab me at my waist. Their little girl- probably no more than 5- had run up behind me and was hugging me. It was quite the shock at first, but everyone had a good laugh about it and we went our separate ways. We picked up our friends at their house and continued on our way when we ran into the family again, This time the little girl ran up and gave Kate a hug. I don't know why she was hugging us, I think she was just really excited to see white people, because we do get strange reactions from little kids pretty often. But this one was the best, it totally made my day.

Pictures of Tela

Tela is a beach town... actually, a lot of towns here are on the beach. But in Tela, you can go in the water, which seems to be a rare-ish thing here.

We took the local bus out there. This is Jenny and her son Gavin from somewhere in Canada.

It was a beautiful day when we went, the beach wasn't crowded at all.

This is the group at lunch right on the beach. You can see how red my back is- I got burned sooooo bad.

 Dianne ordered a seafood soup, but it came with a few interesting surprises- whole animals. In the first picture is a crab, and the second picture is a fish lying amongst the plaintains. She said the soup was good, but It looks a little funky to me.

All in all, it was a pretty nice day. But that bus ride is killer! Next time, We're taking the direct bus.

At Long Last- Pictures

We finally got pictures uploaded to our computer! I will be adding pictures in a couple different posts so you can see everything you missed.

To start- ziplining!

This is me and Lindsey from Toronto in the back of the truck riding to the ziplining place. I'll let you decide if we were safe in the bed with no seatbelts.

 This is the whole group that went. The two in front are Lindsey's mom and grandma, and yes, both of them actually went on the zipline. The others on the left are Wes and Kate from Pennysylvania and Dianne from New York. The other two faces should be familiar, but maybe we've been gone long enough that you've forgotten what we look like.

View from midway point up the mountain, you can't really tell but there is an island behind our heads

Zach getting ready for his first ride. Does he look nervous?

If you look closely at the middle of this shot, you will see Dianne going through the trees. Yes, it was that high up.

This is one of the hot springs pools. It was simply awful, you go sit in the hot springs, then get a massage and a mud bath, and soak in the springs again. I think I could get used to that.

 This is Wes and Kate doing their best Flinstones impression after the mud bath.

More photos to follow!

Exciting News!

Howdy Y'all! I am writing to you from our brand new computer that we just got a couple hours ago. I feel like we waited sooooooo long!
We walked over to the missionary home to pick it up, and the brother asked us if we needed a ride. Zach replied "O we're just gonna walk home." The brother goes "Isn't that what caused this problem in the first place?" O yeah. So we took a taxi home, and got the computer in safely. I feel relieved now. It's not going anywhere.

The other good news- the Subway in the mall is finally open! It was like a taste of home for a few brief moments. I think we may be eating there a lot.

We have gotten a good response to the memorial campaign. We currently have the territory right downtown where all the businesses are, and there are a lot of english speakers. I was surprised. Even the ones who don't speak english are interested though, so we give out a lot of invites. I had a really good conversation with a security guard at a store, at least, I think it was a good conversation. It was entirely in spanish and I have no idea what either of us said, but I'm pretty sure he is going to go to the Memorial now. Very few people tell us "no," most say "sure, I'll try to come." That's nice to hear.

Some of our friends are starting to leave to go back home, It's very sad. In about a month, there will be only 15 people or so left in the congregation. So we need people to visit us, and help us in the territory- there's so much of it!

Pictures will be coming soon!