My House

I realized that I never put up pictures of my house so here are a few pictures of the inside of my house.  I finally almost finished getting every thing how I want it.

Family Room and Dining Room

Kitchen

Bedroom

Curtains in my Bedroom.

Bed with my Chair Night stand

Bathroom

 I still have a few things to finish up.  I painted in my bedroom but I need to finish some of the trim work.  This is the first time that I have ever painted the walls in a place that I live.  In my bedroom 2 of the walls are cream and 2 are this blue gray color.  As you can see from the photos my bedroom is really big which I really like because it help keep it a little cooler.  I also painted the windows/center block things in the family room green.  There are still a few more things that the owner still need to do to the house like put in the tile floor in the kitchen and family room area and put in the drop ceiling but over all I really like it here.

Noisy Neighbors

So over the last couple of weeks really late at night and really early in the morning I had been hearing a whining noise but I hadn't seen what was making the noise until just a couple of days ago.  Well it turns out that the neighbor dog had puppies.  She had 12 puppies.  When the mom would leave the dog house where the puppies were the puppies would start crying.  Once I saw them it was hard to annoyed because they are so cute.  The neighbor has sold all but 2 of the puppies he is going to keep 2.  The dogs are a mix of golden retriever and some thing else so the neighbor was able to sale them instead of just giving them away.

These are the 2 that he is going to keep.

As you can see we were all happy to hold the super cute little puppies even though they had been so noisy who can deny those cute little faces.

Since marty love puppies so much I took the puppies to see him.

He loved the little puppies and started to lick them.  He would be a great dad.

This is just 3 of the 12 puppies.

Wedding

This is Yulesa she is getting married as you can see.  Last Saturday was her wedding.  I was the driver for part of the day.  I picked her up and took her to the Kingdom Hall and then took her and her husband to the reception.

Nieces and nephews of the bride.  The two little ones on the left are twins and if you look really close you will notice that they have blue eyes.  The little boy has one blue and one brown.

We arrived at the Kingdom Hall a few minutes early and she was still waiting on the rest of her family to arrive in a different car and there isn't a place that she could wait in the hall with out everyone seeing her so we waited in the car for a few minutes.  She was very happy and relaxed.

Listening carefully to the talk.

The groom didn't know what to do with the vale when it came time to kiss the bride so he just put it over his head to.  It was cute.

Bride and Groom and Bridal Party

Br. Batista from our hall.  He took tons of pictures.

Anne Batista was one of the bridesmaids.  As you can see she looks great.

The Marcus Family.  Now there are 3 girls left in the house.  But probably not for long because 2 of the girls have boyfriends.  Yamilet who is on the far left side in purple had a brother that she has been getting to know come from about 3 hours away with his family and I guess he talked with her parents so she might be the next one to be getting married.

The Cake.

There wasn't enough room in the kitchen to cook for the 125 people that were there for the wedding to they had to cook come outside also.  The food was really good.

Yule had a wedding dress made but it didn't come dancing ready so Doris from our hall bustled the dress by hand so that Yule could dance.

The Reception was at the Marcus's house.

Bridal Party Dance

Br. Batista and Doris cutting the rug.

Elvis and Doris Dancing.  Doris is a dancing machine.  She danced all night long.  Like all wedding we danced the electric slide but here the call it the Boogie Boogie.  Over all the wedding was alot of fun and very pretty.

 

  

Meeting in the Dark

Last Thursday the power went out in the afternoon around 3pm but even though the power was out meeting plans went ahead as normal.  Other times the power has been out before meeting but it always came back in the beginning of the meeting or at least in the middle of meeting but not this last Thursday.  Meeting starts at 5pm so it wasn't dark when meeting started but as the meeting progressed it got darker and darker.  Since there was no music for the first song it was hard to get started but a couple of people knew the melody of the song so the brother did 1, 2, 3 and we started and it went ok.  At the being having no power was no big deal everyone just tried to talk louder for there comments.  As the evening progressed it got darker and darker and people started using there cell phones as lights and a couple of people had flash lights.  For the next song one of the brother came up with a great idea of how to play music for the song.  Elvis pulled the back of his car up the the window in the Kingdom Hall and put the CD in his car and played the music.  He has a speaker in the back of his car so it worked out great.  As it got darker it got harder for the speaker to be able to see his notes so one of the other brother would stand behind him and hold up a flash light on his notes so he could see.  It was a cool evening so even though there weren't any fans it wasn't to hot in the Kingdom Hall.  Over all the meeting went really good and everyone was happy seeing how we were able to have the meeting even though there were no lights.  After ward those of us with cars made sure that everyone made it home safe since it was so dark out.  It was over all a great meeting and everyone left energized seeing how great it all turned out.  Holy Spirit is amazing.

If you can see it this at all there is the speaker and the other brother behind him holding a light up for him.

Guess Whose Under There

Our Kingdom Hall here has grass, flowers and bushes around it so every couple of weeks we have to trim it down.  There is a brother from a near by hall that works outside that has voluntared to help maintain our hall since we have so few brother but this last time he wasn't availabe to do it so we had to find some one else to do it.  Guess who is all covered up and ready to do some weed wacking?

Under all of those protective clothes are 2 of humble elders.  They go from platform to yard work.  They are truely humble brother.  They don't let titles get in the way of things.  They are always ready to take care of the congregation even if it means getting dirty.

The 2 brothers on the right are the ones that are cutting the grass with the weed eaters.  They clean up really good.

El Cope - El Campo Country Territory

In service we were working one of the far out territories in an area called El Cope.  We meet a couples house that is on the way there and then finish driving to the territory.  It takes about 30 mins in car to get all the way to the territory.  The road isn't paved but the road isn't to bad it is just far back into the mountains but since it is so high up it has some great views.  You can see the oceans from some places and since it is kind of in the mountains it is a little cooler.  Here are some photos of our morning preaching there.

This is the group that was working the area that I was in and also Br Batista he was taking the photo.  He loves to take photos in service. Since they are from Panama city preaching in our rural territory is new for them to so he is always taking pictures.  On my left was my service partner for the morning.  She is a newer publisher so she still gets really nervous at doors but she did great and we had a great morning together.

The view plus if you look really hard you will notice that there is a house in the middle of all of the trees.  We went down this path and did some houses they were off the beaten path.  It still amazes me to see where some of these house are.  If you didn't know the area you would have no idea that there was a house.  We are always double checking with people when we see random little paths and asking if there are house down them and over 50% of the time there is.

Br Batista walked and did the house in the middle of nothing and we continued walking down the path.  I tried to get him at the house but he was leaving as I took the picture but if you look really hard he is behind the trees to the right of the house.

At last we made it out of the path back to civilization.  This day it wasn't to bad of a walk but one day I remember we went down this same path but then took another path that was off it and we were walking for what seemed liked for ever to me and I didn't feel good because i had a swollen bug bite and had no water but I survived only thanks to the help from a sister that was visiting me from WA Paris.  So this day when we were head in the same direction I was having flash back to that long morning and was relived when we didn't go down the other little path.  There were very few house in the area and there was something going on at the school so there was alot of not a homes but we had a nice time talking to each other and to the people when we did find them home.

2 more come out from the trail and just in time because like 2 minutes after it started raining hard.



Kris picking up people as we finished the territory.  She had a full car load.

The Back seat.  I count their were 9 the car.  Since there are so few cars when we do country territories we have to squeeze in but no one minds every one is happy to.  The friends really like doing the far out territories because the people are normally very friendly and it something different.

After we finished service we all regrouped at the couples house were we met for service as it rained.  The sister was very nice and gave everyone crackers and water as we sat for a little while and talked.  They are the newly baptized couple.  There house is nice but they don't have power so it makes things a little difficult but they manage.  There is only one house next to there so it is really peaceful and relaxing at there house.  Over all it was a very enjoyable morning.

The Prince Came Back

So the toad came back. :(  I think it was a different member of the family this time though.  I was in my room reading and I heard this loud splat sound come from the bathroom so I went to investigate and the toad was sitting right there on the floor look right at me like why are you looking at me crazy.  I went and got my garbage can again and tried to put him under it but in such a small space it is harder and a little more scary because he jumped toward me a couple of times.  He could jump really high and started to climb the walls.  I got him off the wall but he jumped toward me and I screamed.  I was trying to not scream because it was like 10:30 pm and I didn't want to wake any one up but I couldn't help it.  The next thing I know I heard a know at my front door and Elvis calling my name.  He came ready with a broom, some how he knew that it was a frog.  That is one of the great things about having a couple as my neighbor I know that if I need help they are right there to help me.  I guess Elvis had just gotten into bed when he heard me scream so he wasn't sleep yet.  I was very thankful for his help.  Trying to get him out of the bathroom was hard because it was such a small space.

Here i how the toad entered.  He must have climbed up the wall outside a ways and then he jumped in through this whole in my bathroom.  I think this is the same way that the one that jumped on my bed entered.

He wasn't to bad looking and man could he jump high.

To make sure that no more toads/frogs came in through my bathroom I duck taped the whole up and so far it has worked now more have come in through that whole. :)

The rest of the night I didn't sleep well because with every little noise I was wondering what it was as I lay in my bed, but I was at least happy to know for sure that if I screamed that Elvis would come to my rescue to save me from the animals of Panama.

Afternoon at the Beach with my Study

I have a study with 4 different moms that are all sister so I have gotten to know the mom's and there kids some.  Two of the older girls that are in middle school and high school had a vacation week so they asked me to take them to the beach on day since they don't have a car to get there so I agreed and so several of the kids came and there dog to.  Here are a few pics of our beach afternoon.

In the Car on the way to the Beach

At last we are the beach but oh know Angel fell.

This is Joevana and one of her 3 kids named Gretil.  Gretil didn't really want to go in the water so she stayed on the beach for a while.

Poor Angel fell in the sad so he came to his mom to have her fix him up.  She wiped him off and back to the water he went.

This is Gunfee.  She loves the water.  They love there dog, they treat her like a family member which is rare to see here in Panama.  She has a great family.  I guess when she was a puppy she broke her back and thought that she was going to die but she made it through it.  Since she couldn't walk for a while they had to carry here outside to go to the bathroom and stuff but now she is just fine.  They really love her.  She is a good dog.

Everyone in the Water except me and Gretil.  The waves were to big for little Gretil so I stayed and watched her.

Gretil keeping me company.

Got to love the beach.

The beach was beautiful.  The waves were a little big so it made it a little hard with the kids but at the end of the day everyone had a good time and is ready to go back.  I really hope that this family makes progress.