January 16, 2016

Indirect relationship.  One aspect that we have observed is that as these two weeks of holidays have progressed towards a culmination, connection with our contacts have decreased.  The additional pull for outside activities has been that school is started this upcoming week.  Therefore, several people have older children and are traveling to Santa Ana to secure documents for settling in colleges there.  Hopefully, this will all settle out this week and we will be more in the mindset of routine.  All that to say, that Saturday was a little slow as well.  I spent the morning preparing for Sunday school.  Eliza and I had planned many activities and each took a lot of preparation.  Again, as we proceed, we will have a better understanding of the length of classes and the number of children we will have.  This will help our planning.  For the afternoon, we had a study with Jose and Kelly planned at the church building.  Since there was no electricity, we made coffee at home and took it in a cooler.  Perhaps one day next week when all the fiestas are finished the electricity will get turned on.  Dwaine and I left early to do some cleaning and arranging from last week. Cesar and Eliza came by about 3.  At 3:30, it was great to have the entire family to walk down for the study.  We were having the study for the history of the church and Jose had several questions about this, so it was good that he came.  We studied until about 5.  Cesar and Eliza came too.  I dropped Dwaine by the house for I had a meeting at 6 with Rachel in Apaneca to help plan for the teacher’s seminar next October, along with Linda, Betty and Luzelena.  Just as I was ready to leave, Nelson walked by.  I told him Dwaine was still at home and he could stop by and visit with him.  Then, he said all his family was sitting on our doorstep and they could all go in and visit.  Neither of us ever really got a count, but I think there was between 12 and 15 people.  They all went in and I left to pick up Linda.  I called Dwaine after a few minutes to tell him where some cookies were.  Later, he said that they stayed for a little bit and they did get to have a good Bible discussion.  One area where they often seems to be a questions is Jesus’ command to baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the gospel, vs. the examples in Acts often mentioning baptism in the name of Jesus.  They had some questions regarding this point, so they talked about it for a little bit.  I stopped in Salcoatitan to pick up Linda, but she wasn’t home at first.  I waited for about 10 minutes and then she arrived.  We got to Apaneca about 6 and Betty and Luzelena soon followed.  We met and planned until about 8:40.  That is fairly late to still have to drive back to Juayua.  I was glad Linda was with me for most of the drive.  She is great company.  I made it home close to 9 and then stayed up until almost 1 working on Sunday school.  

Meeting with Luzelena, Rachel, Betty and Linda