January 12, 2016

Moving days and Happy Birthday. My stepmom turned 85 today!  So, we gave her a birthday call early in the morning.  She asked how I would feel if I could make it to that age?  Blessed, I’m sure.  The first of the moving days arrived for Carlos and Linda.  They were moving from Ataco to Salcoatitan.  Ricardo had helped them to find a home.  Dwaine volunteered to help them move and I volunteered to take lunch.  So, we got the cooking done early, soup, chicken salad sandwiches and salad.  We wanted to do some visiting, but we were uncertain when we might get the call to help.  Our first contact was a man named Rafael.  That is Dwaine’s first name, Ralph, in Spanish.  We had given him an invitation for opening the church and he said that he would let us come by and read the Bible.  He was ‘cortando,’ cutting coffee.  That process is a 3 month job and many people work in the fields.  It should wrap up next week, so we will return.  Across the street, was a lady, Celia, who had visited the ladies’ events and was always so friendly as we passed out invites.  She was home and invited us in to read the Bible.  We had a good study on the parable of the sower.  She had a Mormon background, but was eager to study.  She said we could return, so it was a great start.  Next, we tried to find a neighbor, Jose, who was a caretaker for the garden.  He was not working this morning, so we headed out to visit with Kelly.  We got the call that soon we could go to Salcoatitan to help, so we headed home to pick up the lunch. We got to Salcoatitan and they had already unloaded their first load from Ataco.  Rather that eating, they wanted to go to Ataco again for another load and for Linda, Karli and Briana.  It was already noon, but everyone needed to be together for the eats.  So, I decided to drive back to Juayua while Dwaine went on to Ataco.  I had been helping Leanna gather some information and try to switch colleges so that she could take some courses that she needed to apply for a program at Wallace State.  It was a process of many calls.  In the end, while she was working all day with access to a phone, I dropped all her classes at Calhoun, hoping that she could register at Snead on Wednesday.  That was a scary thing to do.  She will have to hand take a transcript to them on Wednesday and register.  Hopefully classes will still be open.  I was able to process some information over a skype call with her during lunch and then, the call came everyone was back from Ataco.  So I headed out to serve lunch.  Linda game me a tour of the house, a kitchen, living room, bath and two small bedrooms.  It was small, but freshly painted, clean and really quite pretty.  One small negative…..they have water each day until 11 a.m.  Then, it is cut off for the remainder of the day.  Imagine, I felt bad when I didn’t have water in the kitchen at our first house, but Linda will be water for a good portion of each day.  Afterwards, several went back to Ataco for one smaller load, but Dwaine and I headed on home since we had the car.  I had the study with Socorro.  She was doing well and told me she had her checkup for her broken arm coming up on Friday.  I offered to drive her to Sonsonate, but she said she was riding with a friend who also broke her arm on the same day that she did.  I asked how that was possible and she said the husband of her friend was driving.  We had a good study on discipleship.  Afterwards, we waited for our landlord and family to come for a study.  Dwaine had stopped by the hardware store earlier in the day and they said that they would come.  However, they did not arrive until about 8.  They had gone to a meeting and were running late.  We thought we would just visit, but he had some questions after visiting on Sunday.  The primary thing he asked was why there were so many churches.  Dwaine talked with him about this and shared some verses.  Sonja, his wife, said that she couldn’t come last Sunday because she had a migraine.  They will be traveling this upcoming week taking their older son to Santa Ana to start work on a medical degree.  We had really thought, they wouldn’t come, so it was good they stopped by.  He is always good for his word.   

Moving Day for Carlos and Linda

Helpers!