Beautiful Feet: March 2016

Thursday, March 31, 2016

March 31, 2016

This morning we headed out to renew our studies with Cecelia but she was out so we went on up the street and gave out some more invitations to the Saturday ladies event and visiting with people we had already gotten to know. After that we went by the church building and got our plastic armless chairs that we had bought back when we were still meeting at Regina's house. We had bought 15 of those because they took up less space when we were meeting there but when we moved to the new location we bought 35 nicer chairs with arms so those first chairs mostly stay stacked in a back room. So we took those and the song books and went by to drop them off at Jose and Kelly's house since the in home gathering this week is at their house again. We had met at their house once before they were baptized but this was the first time since then. After visiting with them till almost noon we went home for lunch and a short rest. At 2 we picked up Cesar and went back up to Mario and Salie's house and we all went to see if Wendy and Oscar were home. Oscar had said he would not be working and the guys were going to study with him seperatly while Charlotte and Salie studied with Wendy. However when we got there Wendy said he had gotten a call the night before about a day of work so he was out. We left Charlotte and Salie and headed out to see who we could find. The first place we stopped was at the house of Daisey- Delmy's sister. She was home as well as her 27 yr old son Eber. He not only sat in on the study but also underlined all the verses and then at the end Cesar gave him a paper with all the verses cited on it. We had a good study and invited them to the services and the evening gathering at Jose and Kelly's. Then we walked by William Riva's house but he was not home again so we just went back up to Mario's house (our previous house) and visited and waited for Charlotte and Salie. When they got back we ran by home for a few minutes before going to pick up Regina and Arnoldo to go to the evening study. On our way we caught up with Jose Manuel, Rosalidia and their two kids who were also headed to the study. We told them to squeeze in so we had a really packed car but we made it. We had gone back by Cecelia's for a moment in the afternoon to tell her where the meeting was because it was really close for her and she had come last time. She came again as well as Flora Marina and her daughter Veronica. With them and the brothers and sisters who came we had a room full since their house is not real big. Afterwards Kelly served Atol (a thick hot corn drink) that is popular here and Charlotte had brought cookies. I passed on the Atol but several people had seconds. We made an appointment with Cecelia to study with her at 10 on Friday morning. It was a good day. Still seems amazing how quickly all has picked back up and how it almost seems that we were not gone at all.

Morning parade

School banners

Lovely ladies

Study at Kelly and Jose's

March 30, 2016

Picking back up. We were back in mode quickly. We had a twofold mission for the morning, giving out invitations for the ladies’ event on Saturday and renewing our studies. We picked up Cesar and Dwaine and I stopped by to visit with Kelly and Nicole for a few minutes. Their kittens had really grown! We had brought back some router attachments and a cord for a DeWalt motor Jose had and Kelly said it worked great. She even showed us a little evidence on the kitchen table. We joined with Mario and Seyli and split into our groups. Seyli and I went straight up the road from Kelly. We were giving invitations and visiting with friends. Alba lived at the end and her youngest girl, Jacqueline, seemed to have the same cold….flu that we have had. We planned a study for Friday. Afterwards we headed to Julia’s. Seyli and I studied for about an hour with her and she was glad Dwaine and I were back from our visit. I really encouraged her to come to our Wednesday night class at 6 and she said she would. Next, we headed up to the cemetery trail to give invites. We caught many people at home. Briseida was home and we visited for several minutes. While I had talked to her several times about studying, we always had a hard time catching her at home. Since she was there, we set up a time for Friday afternoon. On down the trail, Wendy was home and we visited again with her family. Last on the trail was Reina and she said we could start back studying on Thursday. Wendy and Reina both said they would try to come to service Wednesday night. The only person I missed on the trail was Esperanza. I had just met her before we left, and she said we could come and visit. Her son was home and he said he would tell her we came by. Lunch break came and we thought Arnoldo might come for lunch, but he never came. We had not clearly communicated, so we will just have to work on next week. I skyped with Leanna about a lab she was doing and then we rested about 30 minutes. At 2:45 Cesar came and Dwaine and he left to go visit Sister Ana. I left to go to Socorro’s. It looked really rainy and I had bought an umbrella in the States so that we could have a good quality one here. I thought I might try it out real quick, but alas it wouldn’t close. So much for the quality thing and it might be a little far for returns. Anyway, Socorro was home and she had really missed our times together…as well as me. I took her a picture of the three of us in a nice frame and she was delighted. She said her sister who lives in the States would arrive for a two week visit. That was great. Finally, we were heading to our Wednesday night study. To our delight, both Amelia and Julia came! That was a tremendous blessing. We had a house full of people, adults and children. It is a blessing to return. When we arrived home after taking Regina and family home and a stop at Selectos, I rested until bedtime and then rested some more. Dwaine worked on blogs and a lesson before retiring. Dwaine- Mario, Cesar and I handed out some invitations for the ladies event and then had a study with Delmy, we studied the difference between the old and new covenants and though she always shows lots of interest she is very resistant to making a decision and she always works all weekend. Next we walked up to study with Don Rafael. He was sitting on his porch. During our study he said he was baptized in the church when he was 25, he is 67 now. He said he still felt the Church was the closest to the Bible but took issue with us not using instruments in worship. He said he would attend on Sunday because his health would not permit him to come in the evening. We plan to study more with him next week about the music issue. During our study with Sister Anna we told her about Rafael and she wanted to study about why we do not use instruments also so we did. She was in good spirits. In the evening service Carlos taught from Acts and as Charlotte said we had a really good turnout.

March 11 - 29, 2016

We're back. I may have used this one before but it certainly applies again. On March 11^th we arrived back in Huntsville for a two week visit with our families and brothers and sisters at Central. We had a good flight and going through customs in Atlanta was much better than in Houston last time. We did have to wait in the airport about 4 hrs. for our connecting flight to HSV. We got into the airport about 10 pm and our family as well as some brothers and sisters were waiting to welcome us, including little Charlotte who was not too excited about having been taken from her bed. Saturday we spent the day with our family at our house and Sunday I got to give a report on the work here since our last visit. We spent the first week in Huntsville and got to have little Charlotte all week as we helped out Caleb and Della she had some surgery. She made a good recovery and we were glad we got to help as well as getting to spend lots of time with Charlotte. We did take a couple of family day trips the first week. Then Charlotte and I went to Mississippi the second week to visit her Aunt Nell. She is 88 and having lots of health issues so we would appreciate your prayers for her. On the way there we got to have lunch in B'ham with my brother and sister and their spouses. They are all doing well and we enjoyed our time with them. We ended up our visit on Sunday by Charlotte and me cooking pupusas for all the family at Caleb and Della's house. The only real blemish on our time back was that I brought back a cold I had caught here in El Sal and passed it on to almost the entire family. We had a good flight back here on Monday Mar. 28^th. And, even though Charlotte was pretty sick for our return we made it through. We arrived about noon and Carlos was waiting for us as soon as we got outside the airport. We had one bad event which was that the backpack with the computers fell over once and I discovered after we got here that my screen got broken. Fortunately while we were there I had bought an adapter to be able to connect it to the large monitor we had bought from our landlady a few months ago and with that it still works fine I just have a desk computer now instead of a laptop however we also still have Charlotte's laptop when we need to use one outside the house. The funny event was that the officer at the first desk where we re-entered kept our customs form and so when we got to the customs desk we did not have one and had to fill out another. Then they did not ask us to press the button for the light to see if we had to be checked but just waved us on through after glancing at our form. We lunched at Wendy's in San Sal. And then arrived home about 4:30 after a smooth flight and drive and dropping Carlos off at his house in Salcoatitan on our way back. Charlotte had said she was going to bed as soon as we got home but true to form she ended up unpacking every single bag and then staying up till after 10 pm. We did have a visit from Sister Regina, Arnoldo and Elizabeth about 6 pm. They were doing good and just wanted to make sure we had gotten back. We stopped by Cesar's door for a moment to get a key to our garage and he had a cold also. On Tuesday we met with our leader's group from Salcoatitan and Juayua. We did pass out some invitations in the afternoon for the ladies event that is this Saturday here in Juayua. Then we rested some and got ready for Don Santos, Sonja and Jimmy to arrive for their weekly study. About 5:50 we thought they had arrived early as someone knocked on our garage door but it was Jose, Kelly, Kiki and Nicole. We were so glad to see them and they were happy to see us. We told them we were planning to come by on Wed. morning but they said they could not wait to get to see us again so that was great. We worked out that we would get together at our house for a study on Friday morning at 8 since that slot was not filled yet. We had a good but short visit and right after they left Don Santos and family arrived. We visited over cookies that Charlotte had made time to cook despite her sickness and tiredness. Then we had a good study on why people should not wait to become Christians once they understand the gospel and they said they would be at the midweek services on Wednesday night. We certainly enjoyed our time with our loved ones and getting to see so many of you at Central but we are also glad to be back and be getting back in contact with our brothers and sisters and friends here.

Arrival!

Grandma and Charlotte

Grandpas and Charlotte

Happy 20th Birthday Leanna!

Charlotte Time

Trip to Nashville

Piano Time

Clifton returns to Auburn

Visit with my sweet Aunt Nell

New kitchen helper

Happy Easter

Early morning send off

Adiós

Clouds look like an ice field

Time to give out food from the States at Selectos

Visit from Kelly, Nicold, Kiki and Jose

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

March 6, 2016

Happy birthday to me again, all day with a surprise. This is already my second birthday in El Salvador. Today I turned 62. Charlotte said the worst thing was that it made her feel older to be married to someone so old but at least she has not reached 60 yet. If she lives long enough she will. She wished me happy birthday when she woke at 4 am to take her medicine. Then about 6:30 Caleb called to say happy birthday and I got a little baby Charlotte time. Throughout the day I received calls from all our kids, two of whom did not know how old I am. This morning for the first time since we have been here Sister Ana came to a Sunday service. Charlotte and I went by and picked her up and her daughter Sonja as well as one granddaughter Erica. It was so good that she was able to come. At 10 ‘til 10 Jose, Kelly, Kiki and Nicole arrived. This was the first time they had ever arrived early and the first Sunday service that Jose had been to since we moved to our new location and only the 2^nd timeever. We had a lot of brothers and sisters visiting from other congregations. Bessie, Isabella and her son came, as well as Regina's sister Sonja and one of her daughters. We did not have a lot of visitors but did have a really good turnout. Paulo and Suchil came and since they had not seen our new house we invited them over for lunch. It was also mentioned during the service that today is my birthday and the congregation sang Happy Birthday in English at the end. After our visit to the afternoon service in Salcoatitan we got home about 6:30 and I started washing the dishes then there was people coming in the door: Carlos, Linda, Karli, Briana, Cesar, Eliza and Abi, Mario and Seyli and Ricardo and Yoli arrived with pupusas and a cake and had a surprise birthday party for me. I really was surprised. Charlotte said she had tried to clean the house some without letting me know that she was doing so. It was a great day in spite of the fact that I am getting older.

Paulo and Suchil

Dwaine's Birthday Party

Monday, March 7, 2016

March 5, 2016

Double treat! What a blessing to have a wonderful team to work with. After only getting two hours of sleep on Friday night, everything came together for a great event on Saturday. We had 21 visitors! Some were new contacts from persistent door knocking and some were ladies we had known for some time and are having studies with. One lady in particular, Mirian said I had come by several times inviting her to different events. She said she went to church sometimes, but it was far away. She said we could come by for a time to share God’s word. What a blessing. Elisa served as the Master of Ceremony, Linda did our dynamic to get to know each other, Yoli did a great lesson on Hannah, mother of Samuel, and Seyli and Suleyma helped get our guest registered. Cesar and Luiz helped with ten children who came. I did the décor, food prep and craft. One of the greatest aspects of the lesson was Sister Ana came. She is our sister with arthritis. Dwaine picked her up and her husband carried her to the car. After the event, she asked for reconciliation and we had a prayer with her. Two of her daughters also came and one grandchild, Erica of 10 years. We are prayerful this will open the door for decisions as well as we are studying with them. Afterwards, we took them home and rested for about an hour before the next event….well, sort of…..a parade went by 30 minutes into the rest and it included bombas and a band. A branch of the Credit Union from Sonsonate is going to open in Juayua on Monday and this was an advertisement. Dwaine went out to take some photos, but I still ‘tried’ to rest. Brother Miguel, the preacher at Santa Catarina had invited us to visit their congregation after a 3 day evangelistic outreach where Carlos and Cesar could preach. We had 14 to go from Juayua and of these, 6 were visitors. Some had come to the ladies event during the morning. Sister Ana and some of her family also went. We arrived early and I was able to have a short study with lady who was visiting. She has family that are members at Santa Catarina, so we had a good starting place for some thoughts to share. Brother Miguel’s nephew and mother also came with us. The men study with Mr. Rivas, his nephew, and Seyli and I study with his mother. It is exciting to have visitors to join you to go to a place where you will also be a visitor. As a side note, we had a heavy downpour during the meeting. This is highly unusual. We have not had rain since December, and we were not expecting rain until April or May. It is the dry season. We take back dirt roads to come and go to Santa Catarina and at least these were not affected by the rain.

Ladies' Event!