The special pioneer couple in our hall, Luis and Maribel Tercero were our hosts because that was their last assignment. They are still in love with it and we could see why. Every meal we ate included something grown right there on the island. You'd never starve. The fish, mangos, cocoa beans and plantains. They have so many plantains (you know what they are right? They're like big huge not so sweet bananas.) that you dont need to buy them. Someone always has some to give away. Luis said when they first got to the island and were going door to door preaching, they saw a horse munching away on the cargo that it'd just been carrying. He went quickly to the door and said “Hey, your horse is eating your load of plantains!” The lady at the house just laughed and said, “No, dont worry about him, that's his food.” That horse had good taste. We love plantains now. When they are green you can make tostones. You peel the plantain and cut it in big slices and fry it a little on both sides, then comes the fun part, you take a glass and smash it! Then you fry it a tiny bit more each side and salt them. They're not sweet so Shane compares them to potato chips.

We all stayed at the Kingdom Hall since we were there in between meeting nights. And there's no real hotels nearby. Shane and I, pitched our two person tent inside the Hall to avoid the mosquitoes. I'm sure that did nothing but add to our 'we're-foreign, thus-we-are-weird' image. It didn't bother the brothers and sisters at all though. They're all so wonderful. They had a little welcome party for us when we came. They made enchiladas and fresh juice and put on music for us to dance. One of the pioneer sisters did all our cooking for us all four days. We gave her a little 'donation' when we left, but we couldn't really repay all the kindness and hospitality she showed us.

Bentura

Shane met a man who wants to study. He is 50 yrs old named Bentura. He told us he couldn't read, which isn't that uncommon so we didn't think anything otherwise. He had so many questions about what happens after death. One was, “If we go back to the dust when we die, why does the bible say we can live again on the earth?” Shane showed him the Enjoy Life brochure. You know, the one that is almost all pictures except for the captions. He started reading very very slowly. The truth came out, he actually could read he had just always been embarrassed because he reads so slowly. Shane showed him how to find scriptures in his own bible and soon he was telling Shane not to help him with it. He wanted to do it himself. He was so proud of what he was learning. His wife, Pastora, sat beside him the whole time. She was very interested in the conversation too. We're going back Wednesday evening after he finishes work. He owns several horses, they look pretty well kept too, not starving and struggling to stand like some of them here. He walks his horses up the mountains to the little pueblos on the other side and makes money hauling loads back and forth. It is so exciting for Shane to find some men who are interested in studying. Like the scripture says the women are already a large army here. But the congregation still needs the help of more brothers. Especially because the news according to the branch through the special pioneer in the other hall is, they want another congregation here in the next year. Our meeting attendance is at 120 and the other congregation is at 125, that with three elders and six ministerial servants between the two congregations.

Here is the finished photo of the Kingdom Hall. You can compare it to some that we took early on in the trip and see the big change.