So we left yesterday morning at 5:15 to go meet the group and to get our assigned partners for the day and break off into our assigned vehicles. Three vehicles went. Bro. Joel Villarael's 4-wheel drive Montero, Bro. Samuel Cianci's Suzuki, and Sr. Revelo's school bus/mini van. (The last one is mentioned as senor because he is still studying) So off we go to make our first stop in Julio Andrade to get our time started. That ended up being around 7:00-ish. Then we all get in the cars and head to Pylon, another town about 45 minutes to an hour from Julio. There we get out and do 30 minutes of territory before we have to regroup and head to our next spot - Santa Barbara. On our way to Santa Barbara we encounter this part of the high way that had this terrible mud slide from the rain the night before. Since Joel was the only one with a 4-wheel drive he could go right through, but Samuel tried to go behind him and got stuck. So all these brothers go out with these rain boots on and had to lift the front of his car and push him out. So Joel takes his truck and makes tracks in the mud to harden it a little so they could get through. So Sr. Revelo drives the van through and all of the brothers are behind him pushing the van. When it finally got through, Samuel got out of his car and Edwin Tucanes drove his car through the mud with a little bit of help from the other brothers. I have pictures of all of this below.
Hermanito Joel
Vernette
We were in Santa Barbara for about an hour and a half. That was a very interesting spot for me and I'm sure especially for my partner Maria Jose (16). We get to this one Panaderia (which is a bread shop) and Majo pulls out the Watchtower on the 6 Bible Prophecies. She explains each different prophecy in a good amount of detail and reads at least one or two scriptures to go with each one. When we were at the last one, she reads this scripture (I'm sorry I forgot which scripture it was) and the woman stops Majo and rereads the scripture out loud and looks up and says, "Does this mean God and Jesus are two different people?" Majo never skipped a beat! She said, "If you don't mind me asking, are you Catholic?" The woman said yes and Majo continued, "Most people in the Catholic religion believe that God and Jesus are one, but let me ask you another question: Pablo has a son Diego for example. They both have the same blood, both may have the same last name, but are they the same person?" The woman shook her said and said no. And Majo said, "It's the same with our creator, Jehovah. He created all living things on this earth, including the earth, and Jesus is his son, his helper. I have this publication that discusses in more detail the difference between Jehovah, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit..." and she pulls out her own copy of the Bible Teach book and turns to the appendix to that section and explains with scriptures and in detail the difference. The only problem is, she was not able to leave a copy of the book with the woman because no one would be able to go back and work the town for about another year or so and they were directed not to give out Bible Teach books, so she left her with the Watchtower and the Truth tract and told her that if she ever runs into Jehovah's Witnesses again to ask all the questions she had. The woman was so interested and for the friends here they can't even offer them studies because they don't have cars to get to them and very rarely do buses go through that town.
After that call, Majo and I went to find some of the brothers working the territory still and we hear this terrible squealing from a pig. Majo said that's what happens when they kill a pig, they go crazy! So we end up meeting this group and Vernette was sitting there on the wall and telling me to hurry up and bring my camera (which was in the car). This huge group of brothers got to see them kill the pig. I asked how they did it and Vern said the tied it's legs to this post, grabbed it by the front legs, flipped it over and stabbed it in the heart. The only problem is the knife was only like six inches long and they had to keep doing it over and over again which is why the pig was squealing so much. The poor thing had to suffer!
Right after that we were on our way to La Bonita. It's beautiful on our way there! There were waterfalls everywhere you looked coming down the mountains. So we get to this one spot where this is this beautiful waterfall that we actually have to drive through to continue on to La Bonita. But there was a Mazda truck stuck in the middle of it. So again all the brothers get out and put on their rain boots and try to pull the truck out. Still not working....so Joel comes with his Montero again and ties a rope to the truck and pulls him out. Joel was rescuing everyone yesterday. LOL Then a tour bus decides to go through. It was going well till it hits this one rock and literally almost tips the bus. And we are all standing there at the waterfall watching this bus start to tip over. Fortunately it stabilized and was able to keep going. The only problem was, Allan didn't want to go through it because it was supposed to rain which would make the waterfall even bigger and the two vehicles that weren't 4-wheel drive wouldn't be able to pass to come back through. So we never even ended up making it to La Bonita.
Maria Jose (Majo), Maria Laura and Gaby (Miriam Huaca's sister)
We went back to Santa Barbara to eat lunch and we were there for a while, then we got back in the cars and started home, but we worked till 6:30 because we preached at every house along the highway on the way home. We got home by 7:15 but we were completely exhausted from the day that Ashawnte was in bed by about 8:00 and I was in bed by 9:00. Talk about a crazy day!
Well, Ashawnte and I are back to being without hot water again, so hopefully it won't be as long as last time before we can get a tank again. Other than that, nothing much to report. We hope everything back home is going well and we can't wait to see everyone. We miss all of you! Love you tons!
Chao hermanitos!
