Memorial

At our memorial this year we had about 120 in attendance which was great considering that we are only 38 publishers and 2 hours before the memorial started it started raining super hard which made it so that many invited people were not able to come.  Here in Panama the week of the Memorial is Holy week so most people have several days of the week off supposedly for God but people use the week to go on vacation and party hard so this also makes transportation hard to get.  The bus here are privately owned so if a bus driver takes the day off then there is just one less bus on the route so the week of the memorial is difficult week to get around but even though it rained hard and was hard for many to get the bus we still had a full Kingdom hall and all enjoyed.  Here are a few pictures of the evening.

Br. Batista with his student Elvino.  The student was in a very bad car accident about 2 years ago and still has some memory problems because of that but he regularly comes to meeting and is slowly progressing.

Yamilet, Maria, Avela

Sister Marquez and 2 of her daughters Kathrine and Roxy.

Grenda and her daughter Naomi and her Husband who is not a witness.  It was nice that he was able to come to the memorial.  He was very nice hopefully he will come a little often, you never know.

Grenda's Husband in the middle and his Mom Chabella on the right and Alexandria who lives with Chabella who are both witnesses.

Me and Majudy.  She is a unbaptized publisher and has been for years but has recently decided to get serious about getting baptized so the elders asked me if I would study the book Keep Yourself in God's Love.  Hopefully she will soon be taking that step to finally get baptized.

Chabella on the far left and her granddaughters.

Elvis and Chabella.

Walter, He is studying with Elvis and is originally from Colombia but is not living here in Panama for work.  He grew as a Witness but never got baptized and is not trying to get his life together and become a witness.

Elvis with his student Walter

Brother and Sister Sanchez

Batista Family

Kelly in the middle in the strips with her husband and mom and sister in law and her kids.  Kelly is the only witness in her family but her mom is studying and so is her sister in law and her husband has studied in the past.  It was nice that they were all able to come.

Well that was my memorial, what a night to remember.

Circuit Overseer and District Overseer Visit

We just had a wonderful Circuit Overseer Visit and we also had the privilege of having the District Overseer for the whole week also.  They are both really great Couples.  Our CO is from Mexico and just arrived here in Panama just a little over 6 months ago.  Just last year the Panama Branch office was closed as were all of the other central American Branch Office except for Mexico.  Now the Mexico Branch office is in charge of all of central America so that has changed things alot and has meant that lots of CO's and Missionaries have been moved around.  It is interesting to see how the different couples adjust to different countries.  The District Overseer is from Panama.  They are a very nice couple and I realized that about year ago I got a flat tire and a man came out of a house close by to help me change it and little did I know that that person was the District Overseer.  He recognized my car.  We had a good laugh about it.  The week that they were here went by so fast especial because we here in the invitation work for the memorial but the visit was truly a blessing, just what the our congregation needed.

Circuit Overseer: Hermanos Ballenas and District Overseer: Hermanos Portes

First Day of Visit service.  There was a good size group about 20 which is about half of the all publishers.

And off we go in to the territory

Our two elders and the Circuit Overseer in the middle.

Circuit Overseer : Hermanos Ballenas

District Overseer: Hermanos Portes Aren't they so cute.  They were the youngest assigned Circuit Overseer here in Panama, and you can still see there youthfulness.

Yup you are seeing that right there is a sister working in the literature counter.  Since there are so few brother in our hall the sister have had to step in to help with a few things.  That is Doris working in Literature.  She loves it so much because she like to organize so she couldn't be happier with her assignment.

Me with some of the other sisters.

I had the privileged of making dinner on Friday night.  I did it in different sister house because I was making enchiladas and need to make a alot and since my oven is so small it was going to be to hard to keep the food hot so Kelly was nice enough to let me have everyone over to her house.  It went good.  The CO and his wife enjoyed my wannabe Mexican enchiladas and were grateful so have some spicy food.

Sunday service after meeting.  I was not looking forward to service after meeting on Sunday because it is always so hot but since it was the CO visit I decided that i needed to just go.  I was very glad that I went it wasn't to hot and the time went flying by and it was the first time that I was able to work with the DO's wife.  When we doing things that Jehovah tells us to do it always seems to work out good.

First Day back in Panama Service in a Month

First day back.  So after my month long vacation in Washington and in Mexico it is time to get back to work. I arrived back in Panama on a Thursday afternoon with hopes make it in time for our Thursday night meeting but with going through immigration in the airport and traffic I wasn't back to my house until about 6pm and our meeting starts at 5pm so I wasn't able to make it to the meeting.  It was nice to back "home".  I cleaned at little got some food and went to sleep tired from the long night and day of traveling.  I was planning on trying to go in service on Friday but I slept through my alarm and woke up at 11am.  I guess my body need more rest then I thought.  So Friday I went grocery shopping and went and visited a couple of friends from the hall letting them know that I was back and then went to bed early still tired from traveling and trying to readjust to the heat again.  Saturday morning I woke up on time and went out in service.  It felt so good to back out in service in our territory here.  It was great to see so many from the hall in the morning and be back in the territory.  I was happy to be back to our dirt road territories and really having bible conversations with people in the territory.  Here are few pictures from that day.

Annie

Naomi, my picture taker.  You will notice that one of the pictures is from a low angle, it is because Naomi was taking the pictures for me.

Xenia

Grenda and Annie

It is nice to be back here in Panama in the preaching work with my congregation.  I can't believe that I have now been living in Panama a year.  Time flies by when you are in the work of the Lord.  Since I have been here a good period to time it is nice because I finally am not guess so much of how things are done here and I feel like a part of the congregation.  After being in Washington for a month it was hard to come back to the heat here.  I enjoyed my cool/cold Seattle days but I missed the sun to.  Happy to be "home".

Circuit Assembly

Well it has been a while since I posted anything, sorry for the long delay.  I was in the States for a month visiting family and friends and since I have gotten back it has been really busy so I will try to caught you up on what has been going on with the next couple of Blogs.

We had our Annual Circuit Pioneer meeting on a Friday and then the Circuit Assembly on the weekend.  I am in circuit 14 and there are 121 pioneers, 4 special pioneers and average 5 studies per pioneer.  Here are a few pictures.

Xenia and her 2 studies on the left.  This was there first time at an Assembly and they really enjoyed it.  At first they said that they were only going to stay for the morning but then they ended up staying for the whole day and really enjoyed it.  I study with there mom but she was working so she was not able to come.

Looks like I wasn't the only who wanted to wear purple. Doris, Me and Doris's Mom. I felt like a giant next to the mom.

Yule and her New Husband Reuben.  They now are in the El Valle congregation and are both pioneering.  He was in 2 parts on the Assembly, they are a very cute couple that is putting Jehovah first.

Avela and Maria.  Avela is a unbaptized publisher and making great progress and has just made herself a part of the congregation and her sister Maria is working to become a unbaptized publisher.

Kelly's Mom, Kelly and Me

District Overseer Giving Final Discourse.

It was a great assembly.  Can't wait to the District Convention this Year.

Another House Guest

Last Sunday I was at home hanging out in my room reading.  Since it has been windy lately I have started leaving my back door open so that I can a breeze.  All of the sudden I heard the dogs outside of my door running and round and barking so I went to go see what was going on and I saw this iguana sitting right outside of my door.  I screamed and ran for Elvis next door to come and get rid of it.  I was screaming because I wasn't sure if it would be aggressive or not.  When I ran into Kris and Elvis's house hysterical they are all calm so then I realized that I must have been over reacting so I asked if they are aggressive and they are like "No" they don't do anything until less you corner them and are attacking them.  A few minutes later Elvis came to my house and put the iguana on a broom pole and put him up in a tree so that the dogs would leave him alone.  As Elvis put the iguana on the stick the iguana was all calm and cool about it like thanks from saving me from these annoying dogs.  I had never been afraid of iguana before but when you see one at your door that looks like it is about to come in your house it is a whole different story.  Lesson learned no need to be afraid of  iguanas in the future.

Mr. Iguana

Gira????? What is a Gira?

This last Monday we had what is called a Gira in our congregation.  A gira is basically when a congregations most likely from the city goes to preach in rural territory to help a congregration cover territory that is not worked very often.  My congregation is pretty small so the amount of territory that we have, so one of the congregations in the city contacted our brothers about doing a gira in our area.
There were about 70 brothers and sister that came from Panama City to come out in our rural territory.  They arrived around 8:30 am and were there to preach all day with us.  The brothers divide everyone up into smaller groups and assigned captains and then we started preaching.  Because it was Monday, not a normal service day for my congregation, there was not many out from my hall so the few of us that were out helped the groups that we were assigned to, to work the territory in the best way possible.  Even though I have almost been here a year I still know all of the terriotries really good so I was happy another local sister was also in my group.  I really liked my group, I made some new friends.  It is always fun to meet new people.  Here are a few pictures of the group in the morning.

Making arrangements in the morning.

As you can see we were a huge group.  But thanks to the brothers it was all very orderly.

Lunch time.

This is a very nice couple that I met and hit if off with and we joked around all day long they were part of my group.  I originally had only planned to stay for part of the day but I was having such a good time that I decide to stay the whole day but I hadn't brought lunch with me but when you are with Jehovah's people you will always be taken care of.  The couple invited me and another sister from my hall of have lunch with there family.  They had tons of food with them, hot dogs and tons of condiments, chips, hot soup, cookies and drinks.  I started call them the local restaurant because they had such a big spread and shared with everyone.  It was fun getting to know them and some of there family that was also there.  The brother grew up here in Panama but didn't learn spanish until he was 15 years old because the area he lived in in Panama City was a english speaking area with mainly people from Jamaica and other Caribbean islands.  He is half Jamaican and half Barbados.  When he spoke english I could here alittle of the Jamaican accent he said ya man a couple of times.

Some other sisters that were in my group they were very entertaining.

It was a long day, full of good company, lots of walking in the hot sun, preaching and making new friends.  The bus came at 3:30pm to come pick the brothers and sisters up and take them back to Panama City.  All enjoyed and the congregation wants to come back again to preach some more here.  It may not seem like a long day 8:30am to 3:30pm but when you factor in walking all day up and down hill and the blazing sun it very quickly becomes a long hard day.  I got home around 4pm, tired but really happy have made new friends, gotten some new return visits and studies and content knowing that I had my best for Jehovah.

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.