Thursday January 12, 2012

After service last night Chad and I met two brothers for dinner at Buffaluccos, the Mexican version of Buffalo Wild Wings. Jamie is one of the elders in the congregation here and his friend, Eudar was visiting from Veracruz. We feasted on Extreme wings and swapped stories of coming into the truth; each one was completely different. David joined us about an hour later when he completed service about at 9pm. Wow its great to be able to do return visits and studies until that late at night.

Today we spent in service with Loly Cavanaugh and her 2 year old son, Logan. What an encouraging story she has, but that's for another day. She is raising 3 kids and auxillary pioneering. We started the morning with some RV's and public witnessing in the Altabrisas Plaza. After about a half an hour of searching we found very few to speak with so Loly and I stepped into a coffee shop, Gloria Jean's. In asking if anyone spoke English, the manager overheard and came to the front as I was sharing a brochure with the clerk. He asked if everything was okay and I proceeded to share the January Awake on the Practicality of Honesty, he readily accepted both the magazines and an invitation to the meeting but said he would not be able to attend for awhile because the chain was still so new. Chad caught up with in time to order some coffee and a cookie for Logan. There wasn't any milk or cream out so we asked and again the manager came out is everything okay, we assured him that it was and we got some milk. It seemed though that he now felt more comfortable to talk. He talked about the company, his family, and even his background - he was born and raised in Turkey, living in England for a few years while studying world cultures decided to move to Mexico and just fell in love with the people. What a great conversation and return visit for a brother here in Villahermosa.

At ll:30am Loly and I did a return visit of mine only to find out she wasn't home, however, we had a great conversation with her brother, Carlos. Apparently he used to study the Bible with Carlos Barrios and said he really doesn't care for organized religion. So we shared Hebrews 10:24, 25 with him explaining how this is a loving arrangement to help others not just us, to keep in mind the day that is fast approaching. Which led to an explanation of the "day" meaning God's day to wipe out the wicked from the Earth. (Psalms 37:9) At the end of our discussion we were able to get phone and e-mail from him so Carlos could come back to set up visiting him again. He also urged that we continue to talk with his younger sister, Alejandra, because she needs direction for her life and encouragement.

Later we met up with Candace for lunch and a break at McDonald's. Logan needed some time to run and play. The air conditioning refreshed us and put us in the mood to informal some more. We went to Liverpool Mall and placed many tracts, magazines, and handbills. Chad and I both got return visits from it and wouldn't you know that of all places Chad found some one at the Apple Computer store :)

By the time we ended up back at home it was really time to leave again to walk back to the kingdom hall for the 5pm group. No one met, so we made our way back home trying to speak to ones along the way. Chad was able to find his return visit, Emelio, at the Crepas coffee shop near home. He was able to demonstrate a Bible study from the feature of the magazines. At this point we met back up with Candace to continue preaching this time in Plaza Cristal. We decided to take our first combie ride (6 pesos) and hope that 30 others weren't already crammed in the tiny van. We made it no problems and began to preach. As long as we were there at the grocery store we decided to pick up some items for dinner and head back home. What a long, great day!

Tuesday 1/10/12

Ok, sorry for not posting for such a long time we have been crazy busy. Two weeks ago was the CO visit (David & Esther Moore) and they were training a pioneer couple as sub CO's (Tanner & Lauren Schwaderer) so we had the privilege of having 2 traveling couples. It was very encouraging to see a brother and sister the same age as Camille & I being trained to be CO's. Last week we condensed a week long trip into 3 days. We were going to leave on Monday but took a couple days to go in service in order to catch our breath from the CO visit. So we ended up condensing 650 miles into 3 days :-O. It was amazing though!

We first went to Huatulco in the State of Oxaca Went to the beach and the English Cong. meeting their, which they were just approved from a group as a congregation on Jan. 1st. The next day we slept in and went to the beach snorkeling. Beautiful!

Next we headed for Tuxtla Gutierrez in the State of Chiapas. We spent the night with Tanner & Lauren at their simple apartment.

The next morning we headed for San Cristóbal de las Casas still in the state of Chiapas. This city may sound familiar since it was featured on the cover of the January Study Edition Watchtower. We preached their with quite a few vendors and some foreigners who we came across. We also did a little shopping.

So thats the general overview of last week. I also forgot to mention in their it was announced last Monday on the 2nd that Villahermosa English will be submitting an application to Bethel to split into 2 congregations.

I will let Camille fill in the details of other experiences but the one that brought me here tonight is below.

So the experience that brought me here tonight is quite typical of the helpfulness of the people here:

So we were working a territory near a hospital today (which are practically free to use by anyone by the way) so their were many communities for the professionals to live in which we came upon this apartment complex and I yell out "Buenos Dias!"(which is how you knock on doors down here by the way) through the tall gate that keeps us from entering. We see a woman poke her head out of the door in the far back corner apartment. So I stumble through telling her in Spanish "We are looking for people who speak English." and Camille helps me out with "Does anyone here speak English?" referring to the entire apartment complex. The woman replies "Uno momento" (Just a minute) she puts her dog back into her apartment and gave us permission to come through the entrance while at the same time she has already began knocking on all the apartments doors for us to see if anyone was home that spoke English. After knocking on 6 or 7 doors she said in Spanish "Everyone was working." We thanked her for helping us and proceeded on our way while writing the place down as possibly some unconfirmed English speakers (UES) possibly living there. We joked as we left that we should have asked her to come along with us to preach since she already had began by knocking on all the doors for us.

Never ceases to amaze me the overall genuine sincerity and helpfulness of those we meet door to door for the first time, and with no reservations what so ever. Not saying their are not people you should be cautious of like any city the size of Lansing or Grand Rapids, MI but in general the experience above displays the experience very well.

Also around the corner from the apartments we ran into 4 Dr's that allowed us to interrupt their lunch to give a witness. We placed the magazines on Trustworthiness and acquired one mans email to follow up later (as the CO suggested getting phone numbers & emails while he was visiting).

A little further down the street we found 3 more people that spoke English one of which was home to talk to us. She said she was "Christian" and her husband was "Catholic" however she said she was interested in the magazines.