BBQ

Last Friday I got invited to my 1st Nicaraguan bbq. I wasn't sure what to expect but it actually turned out really good and fun. I also rode on a motorcycle for my first time here. Loved it! I felt truly Nica because my friend Roberto gave me a ride while his 3 year old son sat in front and I had 2 big containers in my hand. Sooooo Nican!

Anyway, it was Roberto with his wife Martha and son Samuel, Richard with his wife Leila and son Richard, Ezekiel with his wife Diana, Shelina, and I. We did it at Ezekiel and Diana's house.

I'd have to say it was really normal. Heavy on the meats but dessert was missing! Nica libres running freely (that's a Cuba libre which is rum and coke plus a splash of lime; but we make it with Nican rum). The best part is when we were all done eating and stuffed like pigs the general consensus was to dance off our bbq. Now, at first I thought this was a bad idea and would just result in the kids barfing everywhere but it turned out to be the best idea! We shook our money makers and Leila showed me some new salsa moves I can't wait to try out.

EFECTUESE TU VOLUNTAD

Here's our new brothers...Marlon, Celeste, Diana, Guadalupe (mother), Guadalupe (daughter), and Yolanda

Shelina and I. When I come back from the US in July she'll be my new roommate!!

We had our Special Assembly Day in Ticuantepe on Saturday at the Assembly Hall. It was beautiful as usual over there. There's some yellow trees in bloom that were just gorgeous. What was more beautiful was the session. We had a visiting speaker from Bethel, Armando Ochoa, that I got to meet after the session. You know what his job is? He's the overseer of the translation dept in Mexico Bethel. He's in charge of making sure 39 languages/dialects (including Sign Language) are properly translated and printed. Fun job, huh? He even included a little Sign Language in his talk to us. If you haven't had your SDA yet, heads up on the last talk. It was super encouraging at a hard time for me and literally had me in tears.

I had the privilege of helping with the baptism again and really enjoyed it. There were 14 baptized, 6 of which came from my congregation. One was the (now) sister who fed me lunch the day I went to Cana de Castilla (previous blog about that). Because the brothers from Granada Este were in charge of the baptism we were really excited about all the brothers in our congregation. It was beautiful to see everyone crying and congratulating each other afterwards.

We had a peak attendance of 1,047.

ENDANGERED SCHMENDANGERED

This is salpicon de pescado. Salpicon is usually beef chopped finely and mixed with onion, green pepper, and LOTS of parsley, but once in the house they made it with fish and it was super yum.

GULP....ok, this is indio viejo made with turtle. I was lured into eating this with the understanding it was lake turtle and was NOT endangered like sea turtles....I later found out they're ALL endangered. Honestly, I ate it out of ignorance! It was good, though, like seafood. PS--there is NOTHING done here to protect them. In fact, my neighborhood was thrilled to learn it was turtle season and bought many many carcasses from the fishermen. They have a creepy skeleton which Ollie also benefitted from.

Here's Alicia making guirilas. How to describe them? Think of the taste of sweet cornbread but in tortilla form and texture. They're really good. They mainly sell them in the north so if you want them here in Granada you usually have to make them at home. They're served with cuajada and crema. Cuajada is a homeade cheese here eaten really frequently. It's packed in water like mozzarella and had a mild flavor. I love it!

BLAST FROM THE PAST

Sometimes here I feel really behind on things because I'm discovering all this music that I think is new and really is YEARS old. It was never really my practice to listen to Latin music in the U.S. and I'm kicking myself for that because there's really some great hits out there. Here's some new discoveries...well, at least new for me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWkQbrfSvfs&ob=av2e

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E87B3t9cnY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww9i4PFQZIY

I've been learning new dances here too. I learned the mambo, the lambada, a little vallenato, and finally I can salsa!

CONMEMORACION 2012

I've been promising everyone a Memorial update and sorry it took so long to post it.

Our campaign went well...we covered all our town territory and even our 2 rural territories, so we were pleased.  We ended up with an attendance of 266 which I thought was a nice turnout being that we have 93 publishers currently.  However, some brothers were disappointed because last year we had over 300.  But last year was the 1st Memorial and this year was the 2nd....I personally saw some students and older friends attending the 1st one so they didn't have to get home too late.

Unfortunately none of my students came to either the Memorial or the Special Talk.  We ended up with 144 at the Special Talk.

You'll see in the pictures that we all look pretty shiny...that's because April (the hottest month of the year) started off with a bang.  Literally, April 1st was the 1st time it got over 90 degrees and it stayed there ALL WEEK.  The day of the Memorial was the hottest day to date...94 degrees during the day and about 90 at the time of the Memorial....OUCH!  Understanding this suffering has convinced me that we'll have a.c. in the new system :)

I was especially excited that after the Memorial a big group of us went to eat Chinese food.  It was the first time I had been invited with a group of Nicas to eat out.  I'm not sure if it's just not done because of budget or if I'm just not getting invited....either way I liked it!

Click on the picture above to see more....it's part of a Picasa album.