Local Experiences

The following is an excerpt from some experiences I recently had. Enjoy!

 

 The Morning started of kind of ho-hum. nothing that special. I ran into a guy that oddly had a song book at his house. I only found this out, as a forgot my water bottle at the house he lived in (I was originally talking to his grandmother I believe) so I trucked back up the path to retrieve it, and there he was, holding the book! They kind of stick out ya know? That odd tanish brown, with slight golden overtones....so we talked about it a little bit, and I mentioned that if he wanted to, he could actually sing those songs with the  music, at the kingdom hall down the road! "Tomorrow " He said. I gave him the meeting time for the Thursday meeting and the Domingo.... Sunday meeting. So we'll see about that one.
    The afternoon experiences were somewhat of note, not just because they we good visits, but because the almost didn’t happen,  the Since this day we where working over on el ranchito side, the other side of the river that divides our territory in half, and so, something the local brothers and sisters do very regularly, which is always very nice, is invite us over for lunch(rice and beans made right) and while we finishing up lunch, we noticed the ominous rain clouds up above, and a where treated to a 45 minute downpour. This definitely dampened our spirits that the afternoon studies where not going to happen. you see, in order to get to them, you have to drive through a second river, that tends to rise quickly with the rain. To add to that, 30 minute motorcycle rides in the rain do not generally yield the best results.  but fortunately, the rain subsided, and off we went (albeit a more then a little late).
    40 minutes latter (the road was very slick and muddy, and Cory I was with couldn't climb some of the hills on his motorcycle) we arrived. I had caught the family about two months back, and finally had the opportunity to return the previous week, which was going to make this the third visit, second study. I've been trying something new (to me at least)where, as I don't offer the book right away to everybody. if they can read, I share mine with them, or maybe at best, let them borrow a book for the study only. the reason this is done is two fold, first it helps filter out the interest...no one is going to turn down a book if you offer it to them, so discretion is needed in that respect(a lot of the older ones can't read, either to never learning or just bad eyesight). the second benefit, is to help build aprecio....appreciation for the study and the book. The can see the way you mark up the book too which helps set a precedent...so after the study with the family and a neighbor, the main woman of the house, Maria-Luisa, who gets directed the majority of the questions, asked me about the study book, about the questions in it (I actually thought she couldn't read at first, turns out she was just afraid to earlier on). She said that it would be a lot easy for her to answer if she had her own copy, because then she could read it before hand...... Mission successful....Carefully pulled out the extra copy in my bag and passed it over...Marialuisa  passed it back to with a pen so as a could mark the section we where going to consider next week! I was happy to oblige....  So good progress there. Genuine interest in the bible, and a desire to learn.
    So the last experience of the day that was especially noteworthy, wasn't actually my door, it was my roommate cory's. It was on a neighbor down the road of my last call, on a man named Juan. We found Juan a few months back and had a nice conversation with him and his daughter in law, berli (well, sounds like that at least). Juan did most of the talking, as used to be some sort of priest/pastor in some church. but he was nice enough to write down and return for future conversation. Only that never seemed to happen. Sure we went back.  A lot really, just never could seem to catch him. he takes care of  a colmado (small convenience store, often no more then  a small shack with a large window on the side that folds down) down the road. Needless to say we weren’t exactly optimistic at this visit. In fact, as we where walking up the road to the house, Cory mentioned that if he didn't find anybody this time, he was going to stop trying.

    So when we get up to the top, we look around, and Juan isn't there, but out of the house pops out  verli and her young daughter. She was very excited to see us, and promptly invited us into her home, a small concrete/wooden structure with the tin roof and large sink hole in one corner of the cement floor. She told us that she had been waiting for us to come back like we said we would. She also mentioned that she had some book that she had a question about...she pulled a bible teach book with a page marker near the end of the appendix! She said that some one in Imbert (a nearby town with a small congregation)  gave it to her father in law, Juan.  She had read the whole thing! She also had received one of the placement bibles since the first time we stopped in, Juan had apparently requested it from the brother in Imbert with her in mind. So we where pretty excited by all of this, and talked for a bit, and Cory decided to offer  an official study with her, she said that was actually exactly what she wanted to ask us about as. When she read the book, She discovered that there where supposed to be witnesses who was supposed to do just that, study the bible with her. “I want that” she said.  So arrangements where made for every Wednesday afternoon to study the bible with her.
    the kicker is with that one, is that since the first call, my other roommate, mike, received a call from our friend jerry( a Mexican needgreater living in Imbert) with the phone number of some man named Juan, he had a nice conversation with and had placed a bible teach book with. Mike had been trying to find this call for a good 2 months, but no luck, and for whatever reason the just where never there at the same time.  See the connection? yeah, we never knew it was the same man since the address given to him, was that of the colmado where he worked at and not the house(plus its not like "juan" is a uncommon name or anything..)
    So the interesting thing to me, is that through a few connection the girl received her own bible and tech book, and almost had her house skipped over on more then one occasion. but with the team effort, shes having  the opportunity to learn bible truths.  you never know which seed will sprout I guess......
thats yesterdays service at least. Theres definitely lot of potential here.

If you watched the memorial video blog, you can find we had more then a 500% attendance to the memorial (118 to be exact) but a lot more really wanted to go, but our second memorial(one for each side of the river) was just so late for everybody. with no cars, it was a legitimate challenge. But we're happy still.