Studies!

You see those yellow flags in my book?  Each one is for a different study.  I'm so happy that I now have five studies!!  You may think that's not so many in a country that had a 7% increase last year, however, for a novice Spanish speaker, I'm very happy with this amount.  It's a great deal of effort to teach (let alone teach well) in a language you're struggling with.  However, with lots of preparation, perseverance, and patience on the part of the students, it all works out!  My fifth study just came about last week when A.J. and his service partner Javier talked to a woman in a bread shop.  She had a Bible Teach book (which is quite common here for people to have our literature), and wanted to go over the part in the book about living a life that pleases God.  So me and my friend Victoria went back two days later and went over the information with her.  The last paragraph brings up how we can answer the challenge that Satan made to Jehovah.  I asked "Do you know what that challenge was?"  "No," she said.  "Would you like to learn about it?"  "¡Claro que sí!" (translation:  Of course!).  This Tuesday I'm going back for our second study, and I know she'll be there, because she's always behind that bread counter! ;)  I really enjoy my studies; it will be a bummer to leave them all when we have to go back to the States in August, but I'll turn them over to capable (fluent-Spanish-speaking :) hands.  In the meantime, we're enjoying the time we have left...

Ingapirca

On Monday we headed up to Ingapirca, the largest Incan ruin site in Ecuador.  It was a holiday for the city of Cuenca (April 12th is the day Cuenca was founded 453 years ago), so we took the bus north up to 10,000 feet above sea level and enjoyed the beautiful site along with the surrounding views.  A highlight was all of the llamas roaming freely around the ruins.  The lowlight (if I can use that as an antonym for highlight) was my body aching starting with the busride home...which turned into a nasty intestinal infection.  I think (I hope) I'll be back up and at 'em by tomorrow?...Friday?...Hopefully Saturday because that's our Special Assembly Day!!!

To see the full album, click here.

Memorial 2010

Our Memorial began at 6:30 on Tuesday night.  Our speaker was from our sister congregation, Sur, which is common here, to have brothers from other congregations give your Memorial talk.  A.J. served as the chairman (the picture to the right was taken before the Memorial, during microphone testing; I wouldn't use my flash during our most sacred evening!).  We had 235 in attendance (about 100 more than we typically have at our meetings)!