Some Pictures

 This picture was take yesterday while in service. Can you see what he is holding. It's a turkey (alive). He took it into the little store to be weighed and then drove off with it. Notice that the turkey is holding his head up so it doesn't bounce along the road. Hmmm

A view from the road while driving to the territory this morning

This is Maria, she took some magazines from me this morning and was very friendly. When I admired her flowers, she insisted on cutting me some to take home with me.

We went in the ministry with Jeni's congregation this morning. The day started off kind of dreary and cloudy but turned out to be a beautiful day.

Another view from the road. Did you know that the Dominican Republic has the highest mountains of any Caribbean Island

Between the ministry in the morning and our meeting this evening, we managed to squeeze in a few hours at the beach.

We leave the car underneath these tree in the shade.

The first week we arrived here, Cory signed us up to give talks in the school.  So tonight Doug had the highlights. He did a good job. I have a talk in the school in two weeks and Doug has a Bible reading coming up plus a part in the service meeting. So they're keeping us busy!

Life in the "Real" DR

This is not our first time living in the Dominican Republic. However, our son has always said to us that we've never experienced the "real" DR experience. Why? Well, because we've always lived in pretty nice places with 24 hr electricity, even sometimes air conditioning and there was always a pool accesible to us to cool off in. And we have never lived in a real Dominican neighborhood. So this experience is a little different for us. Cory's house has neighbors in front of, behind, and on both sides. So neighborhood noise is always there, sounds of kids playing, neighbors talking, working and of course there's the animals! Dogs, cats, chickens, cows, and of course the hated roosters! That really isn't too bad, things quiet down usually between 9-10 p.m. and it really is pretty quiet, well that is till the roosters start doing there thing and that usually begins in the early morning hours 3-4 a.m. and usually the hens get in on the chorus by 5 a.m. Oh well, we're starting to adjust to all of this background noise. Now there's the electricity, I was really worried about this. Cory has an invesor which is a battery system that charges when the power is on so that when it is off, we can still run lights, fan, computers. What you can not run on the batteries in refrigerator, washing machine, iron, or hair dryer. First week here, no problems.  The power came on regularly and we learned to work around it's schedule, batteries stayed charged, so no problems. This past week however was a little different. This past Friday evening a line went down somewhere that cut power to Cory's house and a few others on his street. He reported this to the electric company Saturday morning, however they didn't come to fix it until sometime on Monday. So we haven't had any power for three days, which meant we had to keep bags of ice in the fridge to keep things cool, no laundry done and we learned to make do with light from candles and flashlights. Ohh, so this is what he meant by the "real" DR. Anyway it's nice to have power back. So what have we been up to the past few days.  Thursday we spent the morning working in service with the Luperon congregation, so I had the privilege of working with Jeni for the morning. The restaurant where they are having the reception was in the territory so we got a brief tour.

Inside the Restaurant

Outside of the Restaurant

View from the Restaurant

Jeni and I walked up this hill to a very nice house, an older American man opened the door, so my first door of the day was in English, he was nice but not interested.

And again, cows are being herded down the main room, I get a kick out of this every time.

Yes the sisters are wearing long sleeves, the weather was cloudy and showery, so a little chilly for them.

Jeni came back to the house w/ us and went to our meeting w/ us.

After meeting, Cory & Jeni cook us some supper. (or are they dancing)

No they really are cooking.

This is it.

Cory says this dish has everything in it that you can get at McDonalds w/o the bun.

In service on Friday

That guy's too tall, the mic won't reach!

Luperon Kingdom Hall (where the wedding will be)

 Saturday was the one day school for all the Elders in the area so Cory was asked to help out with the Saturday evening meeting in Luperon. He conducted the WT study. Can you identify the public speaker for the meeting?? Mikey! Mike traveled probably about 45 mins. on his motor bike in showery weather to give the talk

Flowers at the Kingdom Hall

Jeni takes care of Magazines for her congregation

Hard to believe these two kids are the Speaker & the WT conductor

Since we went to the Saturday night meeting, Doug & I headed to the beach on Sunday for a day of rest.  Cory went to Imbert Sunday evening to spend the night with Christopher & Cheri. He caught a 4 a.m. bus to the capital to take care of his Residency papers. It's an 8 hour round trip, so a long day for Cory but all went smoothly. A brother met him at the bus stop and took him around to all the necessary offices including getting a medical examine. He'll have to return in about 20 days to finalize everything and then he'll be good for another four years.

This afternoon we headed into Puerta Plata to pick up the wedding dress. It really is beautiful! We also did some other shopping, Cory got some things for the wedding, and we stocked up on some groceries.

Putting the finishing touches on the dress!

Picking out the fish that will be used to adorn the tables at the reception.

Pizza for supper (was delicious)

In the Ministry

On Tuesdays the group meets in the morning to do Return Visits. There were only four others that met and they already had their arrangements made so Doug & Cory & I worked together. Since we didn't have many R.V's we did about an hour of door to door which was nice. Then we headed out to try some calls. Cory had two very nice calls, one I think could turn into a good study. I tried the young man I found last week and continued our discussion in the Truth tract. All in all, a very nice morning. Today there were 12 of us out (which is pretty great for a congregation with only about 20 publishers). We only had our car and one motorcycle to transport people to the territory. So Cory says, the territory is pretty close, so Dad can take the car with the oldest ones and the brother with the Moto transported two others. So the other five of us started out on our "short" walk. (yes, in this congregation, I'm one of the "younger" ones) When we started out I thought, oh this is a nice morning for a walk, the temperature is comfortable, a nice breeze, well, about 1/2 hour later we arrived at the territory. Now I'm thinking, wow, I'm tired, I need a break already and I haven't even begun.  Fortunately in this territory almost every householder invites you to sit down, for that I am thankful! I worked with a pioneer sister who has only been in the truth for 4 years. We had a nice morning and I got a new RV to go back on next Tuesday.

Break time! There were some women sitting here shelling peas, so our sister (the one on the far right) sits down and starts helping them.

Across from the ladies shelling peas is this little colmado (store) where 

you can buy a cold drink.

Doug & I did some studying here on Cory's porch, much cooler outside w/ a lovely breeze.

Neighbor boy of Cory's, he's always talking, we just never know what he's saying.

A view across from Cory's house, there's a beautiful humming bird sitting on a limb, can you see him? Probably not, he's very green and blends right in.

But the big news of the day is, Jeni went to Puerta Plata to meet with the woman who is making her wedding dress. It is almost completed and Jeni loves it. Next Monday she'll go back to pick it up. She is actually having two dresses made, one for the civil ceremony on Feb 12 and then the wedding dress for the ceremony at the Hall on the 15th.

Saludos a nuestro grupo! We heard that Anthony did a great job with his first Bible reading in Spanish, sorry we missed it but we're looking forward to hearing your future ones. Miss you all.

Day at the Beach

Punta Rusia

Punta Rusia is a  little town past Ensenada where they take boat tours to a reef (takes about 45 min. in the boat). Maybe we'll check it out another day.

 

 

Cheri shares her yummy brownies

 This beach is called Ensenada and is about an hour away from Cory's house. The water is extremely calm like a lake and you can walk along way and only be waist deep. There were a van load of Witnesses from the Imbert congregation who were at the beach (Christopher and Cheri's congregation) So we got to sample some of Cheri's brownies.

 They are a cute couple, aren't they.

Fresh Fish (yes I did eat the eyes)

There are different vendors that sell food at the Beach and you are served at a little table on the beach. We got to choose what fish we wanted before they cooked it. Today's fish were Parrot fish (very pretty & tasty). 

So it was a nice day at the beach, hopefully we'll have a few more of them!

Another beautiful Day

 Just thought I'd share some pics from our morning in service. The weather has been really beautiful. The locals are saying how cool it is, ya know, only 80 with a breeze. But it really is pleasant. We worked a little more rural area today which involved a lot of  hiking around but some pretty scenery. I worked with Cory this morning and made him talk to all the older, blind, deaf, or mentally incapacitated ladies that we encountered (there were at least three of them).  We did have several nice conversations and it was a fun morning enjoying Jehovah's creation.

Look at this blue sky

We did a lot of hiking today

A Common sight here

A Cactus fence

We hiked up this path

To reach this house

No one at home