Recent Activity

Some exciting news...one of Andrea's studies, named Veronica, just got approved this last week to go out in service. So on Sat she did a long day in the rural territory with the group...we met at 9:30 and didn't get back until around 7pm! What a start to her service activity! The group had a picnic last week after the Sun mtg and even invited studies to come. There were 21 of us, 14 of which were studies! Lots of fun.

Many of the friends from the group have been inviting us over to have "once" (their evening meal, kind of like the equivilant of our lunch). And one couple in the group, Claudia and David, had us sing kareokee afterwards...I didn't do too good (the program rates how on tune you are) but it still was fun! 
I'll try to get more pics uploaded soon, but here are a few of them.
Take care!

Miners...

So after the meeting last night, at around 10 pm, all the local dogs started howling really loud. Andrea said they howled like this when the earthquake was about to happen. So we turned off the music we were listening to and heard that the towns siren had gone off. Andrea remembered that the chilean miners were rescued that day so we turned on cnn online and saw that sure enough the last miner had just been pulled out safely. Soon we could hear the sound of cars driving through the neighborhoods honking their horns in celebration.
Some of you have asked if it's true that one of these miners is a brother...well it turns out no. But the mother of one of them (Fernando Pena Villaroel) is a Witness and he is favorable to the truth. In fact, if I understand correctly, he wrote a nice letter to the witnesses from inside the mine and it got delivered to bethel and as a result bethel was able to send some literature down to him.
Things are continuing good here. I'm hoping to take some pics of the busy weekend coming up to be able to share. Hope all's well for everyone!

Safe and sound!

Hi everyone,
Just wanted to give a little mini update of how things have been going so far.
Arrived in santiago Wednesday safe and sound. Headed straight for donihue where the Ponce family lives.
A big highlight was that on the day that Juanito arrived from the states he, Patty, Vanessa, and I were all invited to have lunch at bethel. Juan Ponce, the dad, is part of a chilean legal comittee for the branch that meets once a year right after the annual meeting. So we all got to stay at bethel all day, and while Juan went to the special meeting the rest of us got to sit in on the bethel family study. Afterwards everyone was invited to another special meeting where they played a video that showed all the work that had been organized by the brotherhood after the earthquake. Then there was a breif but very motivating talk. And to finish it off they had all kinds of appetizers and desserts for everyone to enjoy...a day full of one priviledge after another!
The next day Vanessa headed down with Juanito to where he is serving in the far south called Cochrane. She'll be there for almost 2 whole months.
After about a week in donihue I headed down south to the town of Puertezuelo where there is a group of 14 publishers. I'm staying here with a sister from Mexico named Andrea who is such a sweetheart...very loving and welcoming.
The people here in general are so receptive of the good news and it's typical to have meaningful conversations where you can share several scriptures...very refreshing. Their typical attendance at the meetings is around 30 because of all the studies that regularly come.
Those are the main highlights for now. Hope all's well back home :)
Jenesia