There were 26 students and it was a blast. There was a great mix of old and new pioneers. (yes we count in among the OLD pioneers) And we were with a missionary couple who recently arrived to Nicaragua. She is seated in the front row in the pink shirt and he is in the back row two to the right from Shane. Their names are Alberto and Sonia. I personally liked how they arranged us in the picture. Other than I would have preferred to have been standing with Shane. With Shane in the middle, I call it the "volcano style arrangement". Its creative, fast and kind of blends everyone's different height in. Alberto and Sonia says the Gilead picture took 4 hours!

Here's how they lined us up before the photo.

We were the tallest!

This brother, Fabio, is serving as the only brother in a congregation that is divided among three different pueblos. These sisters are pioneers in the congregation. They walk 2 hours from the pueblo they live in to get the meeting for field service where Fabio lives. They walk back home after a full day in the ministry and make the same walk again for the meetings. They say they enjoy their territory though because they leave the house at 6am to make the group by 8am and they meet very many nice farmers on their way to the fields. The people are kind and humble and dont mind stopping to talk for a bit about the Bible.

The sisters were shy to start with in the class, but our instructors kindly and firmly got them to give comments and they had great comments. They knew how to put things in the simple way. I really like that. Its useful for our territory here. And the sister in the orange and black dress used an illustration about how the ministry is like planting seeds, you always put more than one seed in the hole, just so that if one doesnt come up the other one will, just like you should try to talk to more than one member of the family that way if one isnt interested, the other one just might.

I volunteered to do a demo on showing personal interest in someone when they say they are sick. I was shaking I was so nervous...but I had all the energy I needed to study for the evening after that.

Here we were in the evenings for several hours of homework for the next day. Its work, but its worth it. And interesting that we could all study the same information, but find so many different interesting points. Sam and Shallen in the picture are a great couple. She is from Arizona and he is from Britain. They live in a town a lot farther out than we are. And they just now have been married one year.

A really great surprise on the weekend before the class started is that this couple from Corn Island came all that was to see us!!! Rose and Miguel and their daughter Angie (not having a very good day right then. She didnt want her picture taken.) Rose is a newly baptized sister and Miguel is studying and making good progress. He worked with the Spanish version of Survivor when they came to film in Nicaragua. So he treated his family to this vacation afterwards. We were soooo happy they made time to see us too.

They came over the sea, up the river (here's a shot of their's from the river) and to...El Rama. A town that gets all the cross country traffic because its on the river. It's a big trade town.

One of Rose's pictures from the market there.

And we had our 7th anniversary

I baked brownies with chocolate frosting. We ate it by candlelight. Not really to be so romantic...its just the power had gone out. And we took picture of us in the dark.

Our group is going good here. We've had two bible students show up to the meetings. The only shame is that we werent there to greet them. One time we were heading the the airport to get Shane's mom (we had a great time with her here, sorry no pictures of that) and the other day we were in Managua for a meeting at the branch. But they say they liked the meetings anyway and want to come again. What a great territory where students attend the meetings even when you are there!

written by  Shane Perry on October 8, 2010 from San Dionisio, Nicaragua
from the travel blog: Shane and Vanessa's Nicaraguan Adventure
Send a Compliment

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Hooray! Happy anniversary (wow 7!) and Happy 2nd Pioneer School completion! You all look and sound like you're doing great. So happy for you both and excited to hear and see all your studies and stories. We think of you all often and please please give our love and hugs to all the friends we know and wish we knew! Love, Thea & Ryan

written by  Thea on October 14, 2010

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Two pans of brownies? How long did it take you to finish off both pans?

written by  JM on November 1, 2010

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Two pans...in one day (shamefully)

written by  Vanessa on November 4, 2010

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