just another day in ecuador

A million times I´ve said I was going to do it-- to make a blog and put pictures & stories online-- and finally I have! So, here's a little bit of news about what's been going on...

Memorial 2010
We had great support for the Memorial invitation campaign. Amazingly we were able to cover most of our town territory in only 5 mornings! And by the end of the following week all of the rural territories were covered too.

On this day we had around 60 people at the meeting for service. And to get to the territory.... 22 of us fit into one minivan!!

Getting ready for the memorial also involved a few practice sessions with the brothers for the new songs.

This group of kids definitely stole the show.

We had really nice attendance in Puerto Lopez this year. Our congregation (Including the group in Machallia) has around 65 publishers. The total memorial attendance was 373!

The woman in the blue has been studying for quite a while and had made some good progress. But she has always been afraid to come to meetings because of what her family might say if they found out. This was her very first time inside a Kingdom Hall... and to her surprise, she found her sister-in-law was also there (The woman in yellow). Neither one of them knew that the other had been studying the bible. She also met a few of her friends and neighbors whom she hadn't expected to see. So, it was a really positive experience for her and I'm hopefull she'll continue to attend.

Zone Visit

The Zone Visit in Guyaquil had an attendance of over 30,770! It was amazingly hot that day and everyone had umbrellas to hide from the sun. All the colors made the stadium look like a giant flower pot & the songs were like thunder.

Friends...
Well, what else happens around Puerto Lopez when we're not in service? ...Here's this month's award winners in the categories of:

Biggest bug (he was about 7 inches!)

Smallest snake
Prettiest sky

It´s been really, really, really hot here this past month. In fact, it seems to be the hottest month anyone can remember. Our remedy to escape the heat has been lots of time at the beach :)

Ecuadorian football... or, well... something like it?

You probably heard that after the huge earthquakes in Chile, a tsunami alert was issued that reached up to Ecuador. That morning we were all glued to the TV wondering what would happen... fortunately by the time the wave got here it was only 23cm high. Still, it was nice to see that our brothers were organized and well informed, in the event something should happen here.

(hehehe) Practicing for the big one!

Today was our last day as roommates

Tomorrow at 3:30am I leave for a trip to the jungle, and not long after, Vanessa will leave for Canada to get married. Goodbye my dear friend... It sure has been fun!