Great News From A Former Study

A former study of mine who was making good progress in Bolivia and had became an unbaptized publisher while we were there, contacted me online today with some exciting news!

In his words "We're now official brothers" He along with his father were just baptized at the District Assembly that took place a few weeks back.  It would have been so nice to be there to see it, but it certainly warms my heart that he along with his father are now part of our worldwide brotherhood.  Here's a photo of him below.  Hopefully we'll be able to congratulate them both in person sooner than later.

Remodeling our Kingdom Hall

So it has finally come after years and years of trying to get our Kingdom Hall remodeled we have finally started. Our hall was in pretty bad shape. But now we get to destroy the old and remodel it into a respectable Kingdom Hall. The colors that were chosen were blacks and beiges. I can not wait to see how it will look. The past two weekends we have been working really hard to get the hall demoed for the remodeling crews to come. It was a lot of work. They completely destroyed out bathrooms and are planning to make them bigger. Our whole hall was gutted because of mold issues and because it was purple. :) It is so nice to see that all being taking care of. Justin is in charge of organizing all the food arrangements for the next two months. He is so happy that the English congregation has offered so much help, because us being only 40 publishers in Spanish would have made it very difficult to accomplish. We have had such a great time so far meeting new ones and seeing old friends. Justin and I have been assigned to drywall, but I have asked the brothers to teach me electrical as well and they said yes. I also got invited onto the demo crew. I can not wait to start remodeling. It was fun tearing down the old, but I cannot wait for the new. Also side note: Justin's study Carlos came every weekend with us at 6:45am - 6 pm. He enjoyed it so much and was very eager to help. Here are a few pictures of the before and during construction.

Before: Our Auditorium

Before: Sisters' Bathroom

Before: Sisters' Bathroom

Before: Downstairs Second School

During: Demo of Bathrooms

During: Carlos (Justin's Study) and Br. Guzman helping out

During: Ceilings are being removed

During: Bathrooms Gone

During: Auditorium Demo

During: Sisters from English feeding us yummy foods

Justin, Steve and Carlos waiting for lunch 

During: Me demoing the sign. SO much fun.

Our Growing Family

First off, it's worth noting that we aren't expecting a child which might have popped into your mind when seeing the title of this post. :) Instead it's to talk about some of the young ones that we've been able to work with recently.

Stephanie has been having a lot of success in the ministry as of late (just started her 6th Bible Study thanks to Jehovah) and 3 of them came to the Sunday visit of our Circuit Overseer this past week.  A few of her studies have kids which they bring so we've been trying to work with the kids so that the adults can pay attention to what's going on with the program. 

I snapped this picture tonight which shows a few of the kids that we're working with. 

Some of the kids

I never expected to take up a whole row at the hall (6 of them sat with us and the rest with their parents) but the kids automatically come up to us when they arrive at the meeting begging to sit with us.  They're really well behaved and look up the scriptures.  What's amazing is this is only their 4th or 5th meeting and they are getting better every time. It really has been a blessing for our family and we are thankful to Jehovah.

As a side note, we're currently having our meetings at a nearby hall because this coming weekend will begin the demolition on our Kingdom Hall.  The project is set to go for a month and a half so look for pictures on that.

The Past Few Weeks

So for the past few weeks Justin's mom, Linda, came to stay with us. We had such a nice time. We did a lot of service, went to Dollywood, tons of yard work, and even got some family photos done. It was nice of her to come and spend her vacation time with us and we enjoyed having her around. Even Zoey realized she was gone today. When we came back from the meeting she went into the kitchen looking for her, because Linda usually went there when we would come home. We were all sad to see her go home today. Here are a few photos from our family photo shoot and some from Dollywood.

Train Ride in Dollywood

Some retro cars

Fun times on the Merry Go Round

Waiting for the train to start

Honduran Bible Study & Food

Since coming back from Bolivia we have our days where we really miss it and days where we are happy to be back.  One of the biggest challenges about being back in the U.S. is the difference in the preaching work.  In Bolivia we would walk from house to house talking with many individuals in one morning.  Here in the U.S. we may find certain apartments or streets with a large number of Spanish speaking people but a lot of what we do is census work and driving to addresses in our territory.

Recently though we've had some good success finding new ones in the territory.  We've also started going to Yard Sales in the morning (not for shopping even though I love yard sales:) because there are always Hispanics at them.  We've been able to have some good conversations and find out what area they live in to follow-up on interest.

This week both Stephanie and I started new Bible Studies and Steph actually got another one this evening.  I've been studying with a man named Carlos from Honduras for the past few months.  Carlos has lived in Brooklyn for a while and now in TN for a short time and has been around the witnesses and studied a few chapters in the Bible Teach book.  He's really been progressing well and we are studying regularly.  We pick him up for the meetings and he's always well dressed, well prepared and even gave his first comment (actually 4 comments) this past Sunday.  He's also expressed interest in joining the school and going preaching.  This has really made the transition easier knowing that there are ones who are very interested here in the U.S. and that thanks to Jehovah we can make a difference wherever we live.

For a while Carlos has been talking up Honduran food and we've been itching to try it.  Just a few streets over from him, there is a family from the same village as his and they invited us over to eat Baleadas which is a very popular food in Honduras.  We had never met them but after giving greetings we started to eat. (We love Hispanic culture) Basically it's a handmade wheat tortilla with egg, sour cream, beans and cheese.  They were really tasty, in fact we both had 3!

Anyways we just wanted to keep everyone up-to-date with what's going on here.  We love you all, you can always contact us directly by using the contact form at the top of this page.

Carlos (Bible Study) and Stephanie enjoying Baleadas

District Assembly 2012

Two weekends ago, we had our District Assembly in Dalton, GA which was wonderful.  It seems like after every assembly you say, wow that was the best one yet and that's what our reaction was after being at ours.  We had the privilege of having a monologue the first day and being a part of the drama on Sunday.  Both went well and we made some great friends throughout the process.  This was our first time being part of a drama and we now have so much respect for the hard work and months of practice that the brothers and sisters put into it.  If you haven't had it yet, I won't ruin the surprise by posting the details here but it's very timely information.  There is a video below of our part from Friday and we also have a picture of everyone from the drama that was taken on Saturday night after our final practice.  What a wonderful organization we are a part of, Jehovah's love is evident everywhere you look especially at our Assembly's.

Our Part On The Assembly. Nuestra Monólogo En La Asamblea from Justin on Vimeo.

We Have Not Fallen Off the Face of the Planet....

I know many may be wondering what in the world has been going on with us since we arrived back in the U.S. We have been non stop busy. We bought a house, got a dog, have been working on assignments for the Kingdom Hall, Assemblies and Pioneer School. It seems that we have become just as busy as we were while living in Bolivia. Our congregation here is less then 50 publishers, we have 4 elders and 3 pioneers. Justin unfortunately was not able to continue pioneering here, but I have continued. It is not as easy here to pioneer. Yes it is easier in the physical sense, but since we are such a small congregation we do not have a lot of support. It is usually only about 5 or less out in service everyday. It has been tough, but we have found interested ones. Justin has a study that wants to study everyday. He comes to all the meeting, is prepared and wants to start preaching. I have two studies. One with a young sister in the hall and another with the sister of a gentleman who is on his way to being baptized as well. We are so thankful to Jehovah for blessing us. We recently went to a Spanish group 2 hours away in Kentucky to give a public talk. There were only 19 publishers. It was great to see them starting up a Spanish group. We miss Bolivia very much and especially our Bolivian family. I will try to keep this updated as much as I can. Here are some pictures of our house and recent happenings.

The Front of Our House

Our Backyard

Our Deck

Zoey Sleeping in the Blankets

Zoey Sleeping on Our Couch

Ready for Bark in the Park After Dark - She won 2nd place 

Our Living Room

Pictures in Our Living Room. I framed some of our favorite pictures from Bolivia.