Wow... its been awhile

As i write this, the house is quiet... no slamming of doors, no moans of nnnnnnnnooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! to be heard.

Yes my family left after spending 2 weeks here.... not that i came out of my room very much to notice.

Dont you just love doors that you can lock?

ANYWAY.... by todays date i see i haven't written in this blog in almost 2.5 years.

So you might be wondering what i have been doing since my last post.

Just a reminder our Regional's are late in the year... considering they places dont have AC thats great.


In 2012/2013 our first DC now RC was in Guadalajara, in what i was told was a Cockfighting arena.  Pretty neat.

We took the bus along with most of the rest of the congregation on what was supposed to be a 3 hour tour.... well we didnt shipwreck, but the driver got off on the east side of town looking for our hotels only to find out we were supposed to be on the NW side of town...

I didnt get a picture of him, but i remet (is that a word) a brother there that i hadnt seen in over 20 years.

But here is a picture of me and my parents.

In April 2012 (couple of months later) we had our 2nd memorial.

Since it was at the KH we decided to do our own flowers.  And i got stuck stripping... well i volunteered but still.

The finished product was very nice.

Yes thats more than half our KH... from the very back.... doesnt seem very big but it seats more than 90.  We have no 2nd school, and the bathrooms are outside.

Hey, but we are moving to a new KH, where we dont have to make sure there is running water.

Ill post pics of that later... maybe.

Dec2012/Jan2013 we had our 2nd DC/RC in guadalajara.  It was in an open air stadium.  We were TOLD that it is NEVER cold there and that it NEVER rains.

So knowing that it was open air i took my big umbrella thinking ill keep the sun off myself, LOL... well i didnt need it for the sun anyway.  It rained every day except sunday, and it was in the 40/50s.

I stayed under cover the whole time and allowed someone else to use the umbrella.  but it was cold inside too... just not wet.  I kept warm by going to electric water dispenser and filling my cup with HOT water... and dipping my fingers in it ... it was the ONLY way to keep warm and it caught on quick since no one brought anything for cold weather.  what little the stores had in the area of the hotels quickly sold out.


In Nov/Dec we had our 3rd convention here... but it was in Leon.  Much closer.. about an hour away.

Next time i will post some service pics.

the great campestre fire of 2012

This week I had wanted to spend this post talking about service here in Mexico, however event have led me to move the service post to another date.

Tonight, while on the computer about 8 pm., I smelled something burning, but thought nothing of it.  A few minutes later i hear some mumbling downstairs and water running.  I thought at that mom had gone down to water some plants, still think nothing of it... A few minute mom is screaming upstairs at me.  I go down stairs, and mom says there is a fire outside. 

I go outside and I get flashbacks of the farm fires, with everyone trying to keep the grass wet to prevent it from getting to the house, cause dad has a hose in hand watering the concrete walls of the house.  The field is basically black.  No one knows who started the fire but I figure that whoever did it was trying to remove all the dry brush.  Many neighbors come out and talk about the crazy fire, and the fact that there used to be rats in that field to, and probably arent anymore.  Dad tells the security guard to call the fire department, but even with some fires still going in the field he says no its almost out.  After awhile even those fires disappear, and the guard says he will keep an eye on the field as he makes his rounds tonight.

After a 20 min meet and greet with the neighbors we all migrate to our houses.

Tomorrow ill add pics of the field.

Welcome to My Blog

We have been here for 6 months... At least 3 times a week I have to pinch myself to remember that this is real and not my imagination.

 We arrived back in December.  Dad, Manuel, and I drove in from Texas.  We arrived at about 10 at night.  It was a crazy drive, we had so much fog south of Monterrey that we couldnt see 20 feet past the front of the hood.  

Getting across the border wasnt exactly a Kodak moment.  We arrived late that night, cause we left Houston that afternoon.  We knocked at every hotel along the highway, but since it was 2 weeks before the holidays, they were almost all booked... what wasnt all had single rooms for like $150 a night, and calling that motel seedy would be a step UP.  We were looking at crossing the border and trying to find a hotel in Mexico for the night but I think Manuel suggested we try downtown Laredo first.  We found a very nice hotel that had a suite for $150... whoo-hoo.

This picture was taken from our hotel suite window ledge/balcony.  Its the border crossing we used the next morning. 

We go across the border.  There is a mixup as to where which direction we are supposed to go, and instead of crossing into mexico, we somehow turn around and cross back into Texas.  We get to the border and the guy is like and where are you coming from? we say Houston, and he is 'theres a Houston in Mexico?'  At this point we realize that we never made into mexico.

We arrive in Nuevo Laredo, and drive around looking for immigration.  We get our papers, which is a long hassle, and drive on.  We cross the 2nd border crossing checkpoint (about 30 miles inland), and play the dumb americans well, and they just wave us through. 

As we pass Monterrey we get into heavy fog.  But once we pass the fog its beautiful.