So we are going to start off with a short clip of my first talk in Spanish. A 20 minute part on the service meeting to start me off. There is really no way to describe how it feels to give a talk and not understand the majority of what you are saying. There were a number of moments while I was on the stage that I thought to myself... what am I doing here?
Test your Spanish & see how much you can understand!
There are plenty of falling rock signs here and for good reason. Driving for any distance on any day you will see rocks on the road sooner or later. Makes sense since you are always on the side of a mountain.
I thought these next 3 pictures were pretty neat because we were about to get a rain storm & you can see it coming by the clouds.
It's getting closer & just starting to rain.
Not sure if you can tell or not but the rain was really coming down here!
Now the rain is over & everything is all cleared up!
This Tuesday we drove about 3 hours to the territory which was really close to the jungle & they had some really nice waterfalls along the way. It is weird to feel the temperature and humidity rising so rapidly as the elevation decreases. We found a public pool in Mendez that is 50 cents per person. Its only a three and a half hour drive from our house. The other option for swimming seems to be full public pools in Cuenca or Spas that are a bit more pricy.
Here we gave a tract to this girl who we think was waiting for a bus. We often give out literature and since often times people are just waiting or not to busy we see them reading it right away.
This was one of the pathways we had to go up to get to the house. You can't tell here but the pathway was logs at the top & it was rainy so it made for a real trick to go up & back down!
Here is another path the sisters had to go up. If you like to hike this is the place to be! There is a reason this country has one of the longest life spans to offer.
Still going & they usually zigzag as they go up!
Here is Alyssa (here from Hawaii) with the biggest leaf we have ever seen from one of the plants that grow in this area! I wanted to have a picture taken of Chelsea fanning me with two of them while I sipped a drink, but so far she is not having it???
Some bananas growing on the tree.
Yes here we had to drive through this little river! All kinds of fun. This is showing the back of the fruit truck that is used every Tuesday in the ministry. You just never know how many publishers we will have in the back of that baby!
This is a Dam at a river that we got a full tour of & got to cross it.
Here is another angle from the other side.
We made a stop at one of the Brothers dad's house. They took us out for a special treat into the fields!
More bananas here.
And then the brother started cutting down sugar cane. Yes, that is a machete he is using!
Here are some videos of the excitement!
We didn't get it on video but the brother's father who is very elderly started this machine with a shoe lace wrapped around the engine & he pulled it! We were surprised how strong he was & also that the machine started that way! They take the sugar cane and run it through this machine. That removes all of the liquids which make for a delicious drink. They add an orange or lime to the pitcher to give it an even better flavor. Then the brother tells me he has something else to give it an even better flavor and we proceed back to the house. So they have a local moonshine that they make from sugar cane. It seems to be very popular in our area. The brother was not taking no for an answer, he really wanted me to drink the beverage he made with a shot of moonshine in it! So as they say about Rome... I did not want to disappoint him. I immediately thought of our recent Watchtower that did mention it may be the custom in some areas for moderate alcohol with theocratic activities. Moonshine in the ministry just felt a bit strange. I was worried because there were about 25 of us this day and of course they wanted to watch me drink first. I started worrying I was going to be the only one with this beverage and then some of the others had some also. Strange thing we all decided to call it quits after enjoying those beverages. Siesta time!
To end our adventure, here is one of the bridges we drove over! Just a little scary!
