Service experiences

Update - it was announced last Thursday that we were added to the pioneer ranks retroactive as of November 1 (although we were pushing for September 1 they would only retroactive it back as far as the 1st of the month we became recognized as citizens rather than tourists). 

We had a horrible start to the month because of immigration paperwork and sickness.  We only had 12 hours by Nov 15th.  Fortunately, even though there are no afternoon groups, we were able to get our time.  58 hours in the last 2 weeks.  It helps that we are getting quite a few RVs and BSs.  We are now almost self sufficient.

Service Experiences -

Confession time - I know public witnessing should be arranged through the body of elders.  I made excuses that our congregation had no arrangements and we just used a sign, not a booth or a table or anything else like that - "just a sign!"  Still the elders lovingly said something and asked us not to use the sign.  We decided to still do public witnessing - we need some way of witnessing after everyone goes home at 11:30 am, especially as territories are only available to group overseers for the morning field service - but by approaching people in the parks and wherever we could find them.  This led to an amazingly productive avenue of service.  Let me explain.

We usually just sat in the plaza during lunch doing public witnessing.  There is some pedestrian traffic, but only about 4-8 people per minute. We realized we couldn't go to that same plaza every day and approach people because soon we will be witnessing to the same people over and over.  So we thought about where there might be more people. 

Within our territory, 2 days per week, there is a used car 'mercado' where everyone parks on the side of the road waiting for someone to inquire about their car.  There are literally 400(?) maybe more cars parked with their drivers inside or close by.  We decided to go there instead of the plaza and preach car to car.

I catered my presentation to the audience mentioning 'I realize they may have a little free time on their hands and I wanted to leave them something brief to read in their free time'.  Then I would offer a tract.  If interest was shown I went through the tract with them.  Almost everybody allowed me to go through the tract.  We were there for about an hour on Saturday afternoon.  Unlike the morning service that same day, we had no "not-at-homes"!  We now know where all the people are on Saturdays.

The last call we did was amazing.  We had passed by about 5 cars without witnessing to the occupants.  Then I saw a lady sitting alone in a large 1 ton truck for sale.  I felt I couldn't let another car go by without witnessing.  Am I ever glad we didn't pass her by.

The lady's response to the question will we see an end to suffering one day was "yes".  I commented that she must be a bible reader because most who don't read the bible say 'no, suffering is a part of life'.  She said yes she's a bible reader but she doesn't go to a church.  Her children just started going to the Mormon church but she didn't know where to go and she was 'searching' for the right religion.  She didn't know what to use as criteria to determine what was the right religion.  So we shared 3 scriptures on how to identify the right religion (use Jehovah's name, preach, be no part of the world's politics, wars, moralities).  She was visibly affected by the scriptures and asked where our meetings are located.  We gave her the directions as best as we could (for over a month we've been asking for printed meeting invites but there haven't been any at the meeting, so I went home and printed my own the next day after the meeting Sunday). 

Although she didn't show up the next day at the Sunday meeting (we even prayed Jehovah remind her that morning so she could make a conscious decision to come or not) I still have high hopes that we will see her next Saturday when we return to the auto market.

Update on our call with the man who makes statues.  He seems to be the ladder we climbed to reach his brother Milton.  We have made appointments with Grover (the statue maker) a few times but he stands us up.  Last time his brother answered the door.  So we used the Good News brochure and he picked "what does the bible teach about the future of religion".  At the doors we usually only do about one or two questions (subheadings) within a lesson before the householder has enough.  This day was so blustery that our hats were almost being blown off our heads, his metal gate was being banged around and we weren't really wanting to stay standing on the sidewalk talking for very long.  Yet every time we finished a section and asked him if he wanted to go on to the next he said 'yes'.  We did the whole lesson. Then, unlike usual, we had to excuse ourselves because we were late for another study.  We were there for almost an hour.  As we were leaving he picked the next topic and asked us if we had any videos that we could leave for him.  We offered to bring some with us next time.  His interest seems really genuine as often he can't even understand the question I'm trying to pose in spanish yet he tries hard to answer from his heart.  We can tell some of the things we were saying (such as when we read Ezek 18:4) are very difficult for him to accept, yet he reaches the right conclusion based on the scripture, with prodding, and you can see the gears working.  We look forward to studying with him again next week.  Hopefully the weather will be nicer.

I wanted to share a final experience that I've been encouraging Rachel to write about.  She doesn't like blogging though.  Her and another sister were out in service when a young boy started to follow them around.  At the same time he was stuffing his dirty little face with a sandwich.  He kept asking them questions.  At one house they knocked on the gate.  There was enough of a gap under it that this little boy decided to be helpful when the householders delayed too long in answering.  So he laid down and stuck his head under the gate and started yelling "we see you are home".  Meanwhile their dog was barking at him, likely more interested in getting some of his sandwich.  The little ones here are fearless of dogs.  He just continued slapping the dog and yelling at the homeowners.  Finally they came to the door a little perturbed and chided Rachel and the sister for allowing their son to behave so badly.  So after explaining they didn't know the boy they were able to continue with their presentation.  It's not unusual to have stray children follow you around in the ministry.  It's not the first time since we've been here and likely will not be the last.

Sorry for the lack of pictures this time.  We will try to get more next time.
Lots of love from us to you!