January 2012

Amanda and Alicia taking in the view.

Amanda couldn't resist their little faces so she bought 3 pieces of gum.

Really beautiful front entrance to one of the many houses in old town PV

Just some beautiful Pictures of our walk in downtown Puerto Vallarta...Enjoy.

Hi this is Chastity.  Lance wanted me to write down a few of my experiences.  I have already found two people who want to study the Bible with me.  One woman is Maribel.  She invited us right in, and we had a study right away.  We taught her about the Bible's  promise of a paradise on earth, and she was very excited and wanted to learn more.  When she grew up she was in a religion that had many rules without any reason or proof from the Bible.  She is so excited to see the truth in the Bible and wants to write down the scriptures so she can tell her mother.  Another person I am studying with, is Monica a 19 year old girl with a two year old daughter.  The first call she was busy but said to come back.  When we did, she told us that she would love to study.  She already had a spanish Bible teach book from her aunt who is a witness, which is why she knew God's name, Jehovah.  When I came back for what I thought would be showing her the study, she was all ready for her first study and had already read ahead.  She has so many questions and is excited to learn more.  Every time I come she is sitting with her book ready to study.  Everything she learns seems to touch her heart.  It is so wonderful to watch.  

We welcomed the Centro congregation for about a month while they did some renovations to their hall. Here is a picture after one of the meetings. As you can see the hall is packed. We were averaging over a 100 at the meetings with the two of us combined.

Just thought this was a funny picture. Guess that black leather can get pretty hot if it's not covered. 

Charlie and Chaz in the ministry.

Charlie visiting with his bible student on the golf cart.

More beautiful flowers. This was on our way up to the golf course where Charlie is studying the bible with one of the employees on his lunch break.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We had a congregation gathering at the Knapps after our pioneer meeting. Here we are all playing this really funny game that got a bunch of laughs.

---------------------------------------------------

Amanda decided to try again at planting a flower in hopes that this time the cutter ants would leave it alone. Well they did. However someone else did not. The next day it disappeared, someone dug it up and took it this time! All that was left was this hole in the ground with one of the flowers that had fallen off. Poor girl can't catch a break with her flowers.

Charlie is telling one of our spanish brothers that we ran into at the neighborhood store about a man he and I had just met around the block who wanted a bible study.

Though is hasn't rained since we have been here the flowers are still beautiful here.

We noticed some familiar books at this book bindery. Someone was having their Bible and Reasoning books bound together. They only charge $14US to bind them!

After service, we stopped at our favorite little churro stand. It was Alicia's first time having one and I think she almost cried with tears of happiness. 

Still not sure what this was but the locals use these long sticks (notice the little boy in the background) with hooks on the end to get these pea pod looking, green and red beans? I don't know how to describe them but the man saw us taking their pictures so he grabbed one and brought it to the car to let us try and then promptly sold us a bag for 20 pesos. They were interesting but in the end we decided that we didn't really like them too much. 

I don't know, I guess if I wanted to beef up my sales at my fish stand, I could think of a better way than to have one of my employees dance in the street dressed up in a shrimp suit.

___________________________________________________

Ok, now for one of the crazy field ministry experiences. So the other day, I was working with a local brother, Andres, from Puerto Vallarta who recently moved over with his wife, Natalie, to help out in the English congregation. So anyhow, Andres and I went upstairs to this house and while Andres was speaking to the householder I noticed this strange looking bird coming across one of the wires that were strung up. He came right up to the gate and was staring at us and didn't look so happy that we were there. The woman informed Andres that she nor anyone in the house spoke English so when we turned to leave Andres says, "you should get a picture of that bird". I pull out my camera and get a closeup and I think it sent the little guy over the edge. He began hissing at me and so we decided it was time to leave. As we started down the stairs I look back and to my surprise it jumps to one of the handrails and starts coming after us! I yell at Andres, "GO,GO,GO...It's coming after us!" We get to the bottom of the stairs, take a right and start running down the sidewalk and we pass the girls who are at another door. All the while laughing hysterically "It's still coming!!" It apparently jumped from the handrail to the awning that was over the sidewalk and as we were running down the sidewalk we could hear him right above us running too. We get to the END OF THE BLOCK and he's still in hot pursuit! Andres runs out into the street to see where he is and I stay put, protected under the awning. Andres says, "he's after YOU man". About that time the lady who owns the bird comes down to save me. She has this long bamboo pole and uses it to get the bird to go back and leave me alone. Half the people on the block at this point are now watching and laughing. So not only do the people here in PV have watch dogs, but apparently they also have watch birds!

Here's the picture that started it all. As you can see, he doesn't look too happy to be having his picture taken. We were told later that the bird is called a Chachalaca. 

Here is Andres watching as the lady is trying to get the bird to leave us alone and go back to the house. 

As we walked back by the house on the other side of the street I took this picture with full zoom. We were glad to see that she was feeding him and keeping him distracted.

________________________________________________________________

This picture was taken up in the hill section in downtown PV. Beautiful houses but scary streets!

Most of us have eaten eggplants before, like eggplant parmesan. Now you know what an egg plant looks like. Ok, I realize that joke was dumb.

Another picture for my brother-in-law. They love you down here man!

We found this market which comes every Saturday and is actually right at the end of the street where the Thereaults live. There are tents and tents of clothes. Some of it is irregular and new but most of it is actually....well, have you ever wondered where all the clothes go that don't end up selling at Goodwill stores across the US? That's right, they come right down here to Mexico! 

After getting their clothes the girls decided to grab some fruit and veggies. They are much cheaper to buy at the markets and usually fresher too.

Ever seen the TV show "HOARDERS"? I think we found another candidate. 

I think this is one of my favorite intersections in PV. Notice in the far, far distance a traffic light. Well, I am stopped exactly where your are suppose to stop for THAT light!! Good thing I can see far distances well! 

How could you not pet this little guy! 

The girls goofing around while Roland and Debra try to figure what street needs to be worked next.  

That's right....corn syrup especially formulated for your baby. What better way to help your child to grow up to be a strong, healthy kid. 

This is the iguana that I had to go and save Amanda from. It had crawled up a pipe in her back courtyard next to her washer. It got stuck half way into the pipe and just it's tail was hanging out. I must admit, I was even a little jumpy having to grab it by it's tail and pull it out. This is it in the bottle of a 5 gallon bucket so that you can see how large it was. 

Last Friday afternoon I was working in the field ministry with Roland and Debbie and we decided to finish the day working a street that we had worked earlier in the week but didn't find many people at home. There were about 6 houses to work so the Thereaults started at one end of the street with 3 houses and I started at the other end. I get to the last house which the not-at-home slip showed to be #1313 and that at a future date someone had found a man named Carlos who spoke english there. The front door was open and so I say in my broken Spanish, "Hello, we are looking for those who speak English. Do you speak English?" and the woman in the living room says in Spanish that her husband, Carlos, does and off she goes to get him. While I'm standing there I notice on the front of the house that I had mistakenly went to house #1311, not 1313! I'm thinking 'oh no we've already knocked on this door!' but I'm confused because she said her husband Carlos speaks english which is what was written down on the slip. Carlos comes to the door, wiping his eyes, explaining that he was taking his siesta. I apologize but he quickly says not to worry, that what I have to share with him is more important. He apparently already knew I was one of Jehovah's Witnesses there to share with him the bible. He invited my onto his porch to sit down and about that time Roland and Debbie was walking by and he insisted that they too come and sit down. We talked to Carlos for about an hour answering his many questions. He stated that his married daughter had recently began studying the bible with Jehovah's Witnesses and that now she is truly a happy person and because of the changes that he has seen in her that he too wants to learn what the Bible teaches. We set up a time that was good for him and promised to return in a week to begin our study. Interestingly, he told us that his wife NEVER wakes him during his siesta AND the house had been written down wrong on the not-at-home slip. According to the slip I should have knocked at the door of the next house and would have never found Carlos. I'll keep you posted as to his progress. 

I forgot to tell this funny story at the beginning of my blog. It happened the first week we were here. So here goes......the second or third day, I can't remember exactly, we were out for our morning run when I yell out in pain. "Something is in my shoe!" I take off my shoe and check it since something felt like a knife stabbing the bottom of my foot, only to find nothing. I continue to run and throughout the run every once in a while when I landed just right on a rock I would feel the sharp pain in the sole of my foot. This went on for the next couple of days and I felt it ONLY when I was running. I came to the conclusion, along with Chastity's help that I MUST have a plantar corn on the bottom of my foot. They apparently can be very painful. Once we came to this conclusion I looked at the bottom of my foot but didn't see anything that would resemble one but just decided that must be what it is. After about the 4th day of running and feeling like a knife was jabbing me in the foot every 100th step I decided to take a closer look at my shoes. When I got home I pulled out the inner sole and stuck my hand in my shoe and there it was, the culprit, I had apparently stepped on a sharp stick that punctured the bottom of my shoe and was sticking up just far enough to stab my sole whenever I landed just right. I pulled it out of my shoe and now I am pain free!!

Apparently overturned trucks are not allowed on this particular road. 

Chaz snapped this photo of me talking to a man who had shown some interest. He left me share quit a few scriptures but in the end felt he was too busy to study the bible. 

It's a sacrifice serving in a foreign country for sure. We had to pay $.35 to get a massage after a hard day in service!!! Unbelievable huh!..........that was sarcastic by the way. hehe.

Do you think this staircase is OSHA approved? No railings whatsoever!

These are condos that are being built right down the street from us and I was amazed at how they hoist materials up to the top with a rope and pulley. You can see the man pulling the rope and heading up is a 5 gallon bucket with concrete in it. They work SO hard. 

Our friends Roland and Debra arrived from Vermont a couple of weeks ago and here we are in the door to door ministry with them a few days after they arrived. It's nice having them in the congregation here with us. 

So the other day we drove up to the house and as we were backing in Chastity spotted this chair sitting on the sidewalk outside of our neighbors house. They were throwing it away and so Chastity was like, "Lance! Go get that chair! I want that chair for the house!" but before I could even get out of the car to get it this man walked up, knelt down to inspect it and.........

.....carried it away....lol. Guess we have to move a little faster next time. 

Here's the after picture of Amanda's flower that was attacked by the cutter ants.....lol.....not much left. 

This is the same cat in a previous picture that Chastity had befriended while working one of our territories. This time she brought along some cat treats and fed him. It worked, he was immediately Chastity's best friend. She picked him up and he began sucking on her skirt and kneading his claws into her arm. Quite a funny sight. She named him Frijoles (spanish for beans). 

While we were at the beach we saw this sad sight. The older man bent over was fishing and right when he cast his rod this pelican flew by and got caught by his lure. If you look close you can see it in the pelicans side. They worked for about 10 minutes trying to get he lure out. Pelicans are huge birds and he was fighting back at them as they tried to get the lure out. They finally succeeded and it flew away ok. 

Chastity soaking up some sun while I, like a kid, am playing in the water. 

Here I am, catching my first wave on our first trip to the beach this past weekend. There were some great waves and I decided that I'm getting too old for this. One of them smacked me down onto the ocean floor so hard that I was sure my foot was broken. 

Common kitchen here, outdoors in the open. 

Another frequent sight here, roaming horses. Not sure if they belong to people or what but we see them all the time just out roaming down a street. 

Here is a familiar sight in Mexico.....SMOKE!!!! They love to burn things and I mean EVERYTHING here. This is right outside our place at the end of the street and for the past few nights we have been practically suffocating from all the smoke. This person is apparently burning off the field but one of the problems is there are plastic bottles and other things that get burned and it creates toxic fumes. So yes, while we are enjoying the beautiful, sunny weather here, we are also slowly dying from lung cancer.