The Good and The Bad

Hi everyone, we've been sorry to hear that many of you have been dealing with the cold and flu. It's been the same for the congregation here. Every meeting there is someone new that is missing because of  "el gripe" (cold or flu). Doug and I both had it, Doug had it much worse than me which is unusual because usually I'm the one that gets the annual cold and Doug doesn't catch it. But this time Doug had a pretty miserable time with it but I didn't get too sick and it didn't last too long. But finally we're both feeling pretty good and we're hoping that there are no more sicknesses for the rest of our time here. So that was the bad, now the good.

We had the opportunity to visit with our friends, the Radimersky family. We had made arrangements early in January for a beach day together with the family. They live about 3 hours from here so we picked a beach about half way between us and were looking forward to a day at one of our favorite beaches (Playa Grande) and catching up with our friends. Of course when you pick a date weeks in advance you never know what the weather is going to be like. As the day approached, our weather took a turn for the worse, Friday it rained off and on, Saturday - total rain, Sunday not much better (monday is our beach day) We kept hoping that the weather would change. It's still raining when we get up Monday morning but we decide to keep our plans and hope for a few rays of sunshine. We met up at the apartment of a Brother and Sister from Austria, they are friends of the Radimerskys and where they had spent the night. It was still raining off and on so we visited awhile and I was served the BEST cup of coffee that I've ever had, Seriously! I haven't been drinking much coffee since we've been here because I just don't like how I make it and haven't found a good place to buy it. So when David offered me a cup, I said sure. As I'm sitting there chatting with Richard and Rebekka, I hear coffee beans being ground (I'm starting to get excited). It was so good and I'm thinking, even if the sun doesn't come out, this was so worth the trip. Anyway it's about lunch time by now and we're all hungry so decide that at least we'll go over to the beach for lunch, which is known to serve some of the best fresh fish you can buy. We sit out on a cliff over looking the water and yes there is blue sky and sunshine now and the fish arrives along with rice, platanos, french fries, avocado. And yes, it's the best fish I've ever had! Or maybe I was just really hungry, anyway, it was really good. Here are some pictures of the day.

Ordering lunch, that's David, the coffee maker on the right

The Radimerskys, The surf board belongs to David but even though they couldn't stay for the afternoon on the beach with us, he left the surfboard because Lucas (the 11 year old) desperately wanted to try surfing, but unfortunately none of the rest of us knew anything about how to surf.

This monkey is carved out of a coconut. a man came around with box of them at lunch and tried to sell us them for 800 pesos each, Rebekkah thought they were kinda cute so offered him 250 pesos for one, the man said no and put his monkeys back in the box and left but later another man comes walking down the beach with the same box and Rebekkah again tells him that her final offer is two for 500 pesos, without any arguing he says ok, which two do you want!

Happily for Lucas, this young Dominican Man was offering surf lessons, after Rebekkah did a little negotiating and a price was settled on, Lucas got his first surfing lesson, it began on the beach and then was taken into the water. He did really good and we had fun watching him.

That's Lucas getting up on the board for one of his first times!

Some more good things: Doug and I were doing some Return Visits the other day and were walking up a main street in one of the territories when a woman called out to me from inside a store, at first I thought she was just trying to get my business but no she recognized us as Jehovah's Witnesses and wanted to know if I had any of those magazines to read. She told me she Loved reading them. How nice is that to be stopped and asked for literature! In doing door to door the other Saturday I was invited in by a teenage boy. He was so polite and gave such intelligent answers to my questions. I decided to offer him the Good News bkl and explained our Bible Study arrangement and asked if he's like to have a bible study which he said yes to,  so I made arrangements to go back the next Saturday, which Doug and I did return and had the nicest study with Luis who is 14 years old, his 16 year old brother was hanging around and listening also. No parents were home either Saturday and the two older boys were watching their 2 year old brother. I've since found out that the mother studied in the past and even attended a few meetings but is not doing anything now, but obviously some seeds had been planted with these boys so we'll do a little more watering while we're here.


  Some of the Beautiful Friends in Our Congregation!

A Bible Student with a pioneer from Germany

Aren't they adorable

Joann from England and Katia from Finland

Ok, the best good news for last, Cory and Jeni have their tickets, they'll be arriving in the States May 3!