OK, this blog covers a lot, it makes up for our missed time! Get ready.....
Beautiful rainbow one evening on our way the meeting.
Here are a bunch of random photos. Some are from a graduation party, some are from playing football in the ministry, some meeting parts and some just whatever. Zakkary gets to do mic's here during the meetings which is pretty cool.
Here is Mizael's graduation party.
The thing here is to take pictures with everyone in groups. Here is all the single sisters.
Here is all the single brothers.
Now for all the Married brothers. They did one too of all the married sisters I just didn't get a picture.
And one of the whole family
Doing some informal witnessing at the hospital here in Paute. Everyone was fine, nothing to worry about.
Here is our video of convention reminders at the kingdom hall. Many times when a video is to be played for the meeting they use someone's TV.
Here we had a BBQ day at the park here in Paute!
Soccer at lunch break in field service.
Service. It is quite normal for most to use their umbrellas to block the sun!
Zakkary doing microphones. It is much harder when you don't quite know everyone's name just yet.
At this house in field service the lady wanted to give us all some apples! how cute! then she asked the other sister if she could cut some grass for her guinea pigs. She was pretty old & I don't how she does it on her own!
That is a lot of grass!
Unique flower we found along the road.
We got invited over for dinner & we got to help make dinner which was tamales. They take corn & then ground it up and mix it with some flour & sugar, then you put some in the husk of the corn put some cheese in the middle and then fold it up. It is quite a process & I am very surprised they let me help since I had no clue what to do. but once you are all done with that process they stack them in this HUGE kettle to be steamed.
Here they are all stacked up waiting to get put into the big kettle.
This is what they look like cooked! They taste pretty good!
Here is Jaclyn & Alyssa doing the demo for the booklet- "good news to people of all nations"
Here is a little video of what it is like to drive through a tunnel in our territory. You literally cannot see the person sitting beside you if Jeremy turns the cars lights off! (yeah, we tried it) Bad place for the car to break down.
Pictures of Mendez where our territory ends. Super humid and super green.
This is a well traveled bridge in Mendez. We were all questioning if cars really drive on it when this taxi came zooming across.
What can I say we knew we were going to the jungle so we bought a machete. They are sold at pretty much every hardware store here and most people walking on the road seem to have one. Price $4.50.
They have some really cool flowers here! Alyssa is from Hawaii & she said they have a lot of the same flowers there.
This ladder goes all the way up the side of the mountain. We tried to pay Zakk $10 to climb it to the top but he wasn't having it.
So we finally went to the zoo in Cuenca. It was a good deal, $11.00 for all of to get in & $2.00 to park. What they don't tell you is that it is practically a hike uphill the whole time!
Some of the walkways.
A nice view before you start the tour of the zoo. This is Cuenca.
What we assumed to be the bears den.
Here is the bear.
Here is a short video we took of the bear.
A deer.
Some Birds for bonnie!
Turtles!
Here are 2 videos of the monkeys! They are very talented & at the same time funny to watch!
We followed this truck for awhile & if you can see there is no back on it or any ropes or anything preventing the rocks from falling out onto the road.
This is one of the Bother's houses that we meet at for service on a Tuesday. First we meet at the hall, then we go about a hour until we get to his house. Then once we are all there, they do the meeting for service & make partners.
This is how the dogs go for a ride here! standing on top of everything in the back of the truck! We thought for sure they would have fallen out when they went around the turn!
Here we are in service and you can't tell but the lady behind the counter is actually preparing guinea pigs. I took the picture wisely, I didn't really enjoy seeing them!
Here is Margarita & Kaiser & Mateo (our most productive bible students) watching the new video "How can we be sure the Bible is true?" We have been going to study with them every week. We will talk more about them later on.
Pigs for sale!
Our neighbor one day out on her roof with a broom cleaning it off. Scary part was it was still raining a bit! We asked and apparently this is normal.
Nothing that a zip-tie won't fix!
This day we were on our way to our study with Margarita & Kaiser, but the whole week it had been raining. So this is the result of what happens with that much rain!
Cleaning the mud and rocks off the road.
From a 2 lane (possibly 3 lane with how some people drive) to only one lane after that much mud comes down the mountain!
So we eventually came to a halt here because the mud coming down the mountain caused a tree to fall across the road which made it impossible to get through until they cleaned it up!
Here are 2 short videos of the mud, mountains and rocks all over the road as we drive!
Back to the study with Margarita and Kaiser.
So this day Jeremy was in Cuenca with Michele getting al kinds of paper work done for his drivers license so the other two girls & I went on the bus to get there. When we got there we found out that they are not moving anymore! They moved to the house right next door. Today Kaiser's sister was here & so she sat in on the study also. About half way through the study, Kaisers parents came and we thought that they would want to stop the study so they could visit with their family but they said no they want to listen too! So in total there were 5 adults and 2 kids studying with us. We were saying it could almost be like a meeting at the kingdom hall. There two oldest kids are now done with school for the year so they also sit in on the study.
Their daughter five years old handed Jaclyn the baby and ran off to look for her mom for us.
Here was the following week and again Margarita, Kaiser & his sister were all there for the study! 10 of us all together. Obviously we would normally make this multiple studies but since they are an hour and a half away it seems fitting to keep it all one.
This is one of their daughter's Genesis & she was so excited to read the scriptures! I let her use my Ipad & she thinks that is the greatest thing! Especially since you can just click on the scripture & it pops up!
We got invited to a kindergarten graduation party! The little girl on the left is the one who graduated and I think the one on the right is her cousin.
They were so happy to be dancing in the street literally!
And now the convention or as they say in Spanish Asamblea. No we won't spoil it for anyone!
My assignment this year was Audio & Sound. It was an interesting experience having the circuit overseer and other brothers making recommendations for slight changes at times and not really understanding some of their instructions.
I had to take a picture of the parking guys because there were 2 of them! Yes only 2! It's so different than what we are used to with going to Reading! Here they have their conventions at their assembly hall, but still to only have 2 guys in parking is amazing! Of course many take a bus & then get a taxi to drop them off or the congregation gets a bus for everyone.
The Girl's- Jaclyn & Alyssa had an interview for our convention. They did great!
So remember the picture from earlier of the pigs on the truck, well what they do is drive down the road & hold one up, which of course it makes squealing sounds & we assume that alerts the people that they are selling the pigs! So today we actually got to see this act in motion!
So this week Kaiser was working in Guachapala so we had Margaritas study in he morning & Kaiser's study the same evening. We were able to show him the Kingdom Hall & then we had the study at the girl's house. We wanted to download the JW library app onto his tablet since he doesn't have internet. So here is Alyssa showing him how it works. We also invited him to the Thursday meeting the next night & he said yes. So we picked him & his son Josue up for the meeting!
Some pictures of the James family. They had a anniversary party for their daughter Amanda who lives in China with her husband (who is from Ecuador). They are visiting for a bit.
Aaron & Amanda (brother & sister) dancing together.
