Sunday

This morning we preached in Fatima. 

Josselin preaching 

Micheal is 8. And the only family he has in the truth is his young uncle (I believe his uncle is around 20), but he loves coming to the meetings, commenting, and preaching. The kids here are amazing! His presentation was perfect and the householder loved that he was preaching to her. 

Crazy plant today, these balls were hollow and spikey. 

Walking back we saw this guy reading the tract we'd left him. 

Party

Friday night Erika and G hosted their first party at their new house. Actually it was the first party G's ever hosted. It was great! 

Tuesday

Tuesday there were 29 people out in service! Many were off work because it was Independence Day. 

Lily preaching, this little 8 year old who I picture a lot on here is such a little pro. 

She was "mi compañera" which I'm not entirely sure how to say in English, here instead of car groups we get sent out in pairs, so she was my partner for the morning. 

This brother is a fairly new unbaptized publisher. He pushed his son around on this bike the whole morning. That is very common here since they can ride their bike to and from the territory this way. 

It was also Josselin's first day in service! She is only 15 and the only one in her family studying. She's so zealous! 

Cleaning the hall

Cleaning the Kingdom Hall here is a much... different process then in the states. It involves wiping down every surface, even the ceiling beams, and hosing down and scrubbing with brooms the outside until it shines. 

Fritanga!!

Yesterday after the meeting we took an elders family that have been so sweet and so much help out to dinner.

Here is the wife and daughter of the family. 

 Fritanga is a Nicaraguan street food that is amazing!! Here you see fried plantain chips, grilled pork, and a cabbage vinegar salad, along with the best cocoa you will ever have! 

La Paz

Today the San Marcos congregation was invited to the hall build in La Paz. It was very tiring but so so enjoyable. Something about hall builds make me want to go home and shower so badly yet when the time comes it's so sad to go. 

Even our new publisher Muriel came and worked super hard. 

This little guy is not from our hall but worked so hard carrying dirt for us!

I would just like to put out there that hard hats make amazing pillows, and I don't think it's just because laying down in general felt so amazing. 

Granada

This afternoon we went to Granada (which is on the shore of Lake Nicaragua- where the sharks are) where G's parents are staying. G's mom made us the most amazing Nicaraguan food. I discovered I have a problematic love for Nicaraguan food (problematic because I will not have access to it after this trip so obviously I need to learn to make it!) 

Here we are with G's super sweet mother

She even made us cocoa from scratch (which is like a chocolate milk but fresh from the cocoa beans) when she kind out how much Erika loves it. 

Afterwards we walked the town a bit (well after our siesta which involved laying on a matress in the living room thinking about how much we ate) 

Friday

I got to go in service with another of Erika's studies (Muriel) who became a publisher this month, and dispite having opposition at home today she preached in her own neighborhood boldly. 

Before the service meeting. Me showing a Caleb video at the bus stop where the service meeting was. 

Here is Muriel preaching 

Erika and Muriel 

Her preaching again... ☺️

Territory 

Service selfie, since is taken pictures of everything else, Its kinda fun to be a tourist. 

Thursday 😬

I still do not know how so much happened in one day! All of this, plus Erika worked, I started going through all of our stuff to sell, and we both got naps in! It probably had something to do with the fact the day started at 6am. 

Here we are, with our coffee (thankfully) standing outside the high school here (which starts at 7) wondering how those students are up everyday that early. It was super productive though and made our lack of sleep worth it. We placed 6 books and 4 magazines. One guy came up and talked for a while about how much he loved the magazines for this month, how it cleared so many things up about Jehovah's witnesses  

Then I went to visit some old calls. I didn't even recognize this son of one of my studies he's grown so much. Now Erika is going to study with his mother, which is super convenient because they live within a couple blocks of each other. 

I just had to capture this moment, as we were walking around town doing RVs Erika yells after this tricycle driver "do you have the new magazines?" Which turned into a good conversation. I felt like I was living in a yearbook picture so I had to capture it. 

Then we are back home and this guy shows up to deliver G's bed frame on his horse and carriage...nuf said

So by this points it's only around 2:30, so we feel like we have all the time in the world right? So we go to pick up my m&m at the brothers and sisters house about 15 minutes out of town where we left it. It takes us a while to get it running since it had been sitting or so long but soon we are on the road feeling like 6 months had gone by like just a day (it really did feel that poetic) until we started puttin' and Erika starts saying "oh no, oh no" and we end up gas-less in front of the Zona Franca (the factory hundreds work at) which was about to let all those people out. After some trying and trying and police men coming over and trying we called the brother who's house we were just at and pushed the bike over to the sisters house which was less than a block away and waited under a grass hit for the brother. In the meantime rain did start but it did not phase us as we sang, loudly, all the songs we'd had stuck in our heads. 

Once the brother came we got some guy walking to by to help since we... don't have any arm strength. Then to stabilize we rode in the back in the rain (which was when we realized how amazing this story will be years from now). After stopping at a bible study where the brothers wife was and filling up the tank we were all good. 

The day was not over then, we still went to get all of our stuff at a brothers house 15 minutes the other direction and went through that. Made dinner, that brought back many memories, rearranged the house, blasted the neighborhood with Taylor swift, and watched a movie.