OUR THANKS!

We want to thank all those that helped make this trip possible, we love you! :)


If want to hear more experiences and talk with us we have Skype, feel free to call us! we will answer any questions you have! :) Skype name is: Sdot7Rod

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Goodbyes and Hellos

Hey everyone! Tuesday was a big day! It started in Garrand, Saint Lucia which is where we stayed for 4 days with the Augustines and company!

Stephen and Faith

This is the company! :)
Shadow(close) Toby(back)

Tinker
This is where the pigs are! :)
 Their home in Garrand, Saint Lucia

Balcony

The day before which was Monday is when we booked our tickets on the plane for Tuesday. We were originally going to take the high speed catamaran but because of all of the hurricanes the water was too rough and all of the boats were cancelled untill Friday of this week. So our plane ride was Tuesday at 245PM from Saint Lucia to Antigua with a connected flight to Dominica. We arrived at Dominca and the plane that we were on only had ten people on it in which only 4 got off (including us).

Anthony!!

S.Diego!!
Dominica from the plane!
WE ACTUALLY AND FINALLY MADE IT!

Leaving the airport!

 When we arrived at Dominica and got into the terminal a brother who worked at the airport asked "are you one of Jehovah's Witnesses" and then he took us to the brother that was waiting outside and greeted us with a giant hug and said "Welcome my Brothers!" From there we went straight to the meeting! :) So we landed first at 540PM and the meeting started at 630PM. We rushed to the missionary home and dropped off all our luggage and jumped in the back of the pick-up truck.

Missionary Home (second floor)

 We made it to the meeting with 5 min to spare and were sweating out of our minds! :) The singing at the meeting was extremly loud and there were only fifty brothers and sisters! It felt as though we were at a District Convention because we had to sing louder to actually hear ourselves. During the meeting we were announced as part of the congregation and following the meeting everybody greeted us with warm and loving hugs, hugs and more HUGS! We made plans for service the next day, Wednseday for the morning. And of course we want to share with you a couple of experiences we had while out in service our first day HERE in DOMINICA. hahaha not in Saint Lucia.

Meeting place for field service! Wednesdays

The first experience was Anthony's! In Anthony's words - Peter and myself went to one of his calls we parked on the main road and he started walking into the bushes then i noticed it turned into a trail which had dirt/clay steps. A minute or so into the trail we arrived at a house which turned out to be his wife's on/off study. We spoke for 45 min to an hour. She had been sick and not able to move for a few days and was mostly blind. We shared eight or so scriptures encouraging her to keep up her studies and she was very thankful and she now had a big smile on her face. I'm not used to talking for so long, usually we just have a 5 min conversation and thats it. Really, what a refreshment it is when REAL talking is involved!

Brother Griffith and Me! (notice NO tie)

The second experience. In S. Diego's words - At the meeting for field service i was teamed up with my partner, Brother Cilroy. An extremly wise brother who was older with youth like qualities. We worked the Carib reserve which is south of Marigot and there is a lot of walking involved. We visited two or three of Cilroy's calls and was able to talk to each one for a good 40 min! :) The amount of scriptures Cilroy tied in together to help encourage and teach his calls was impressive. He must have brought out at least 15 scriptures just from memorization! There was a steep hill that we had to climb down in order to do a couple of doors, it took us about a 5-10 minutes to walk. When we arrived at the houses i was able to use my presentation at the doors and was able to receive my first call! I talked to a teenage boy for about 30 minutes and he had many questions including what gods name was. It was amazing to me how many questions he had as a teen, and that to me was quite amazing. Both of us talking now - Those were just a couple of experiences and hope to share more with all of you and skype us, if you want to hear more experiences and with more detail!!

15 min walk through woods to get here. my (sdiego) first calls house is on the left.

 Two sisters and Me at service meeting group

 We climbed down the "cliffs of insanity" (our words) to the beach and rocks to see a gorgeous view of the island! Enjoy!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is on our way from the airport to the Missionary home! the ocean and the 1 of 365 rivers on Dominica!


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This way to the beach!

Cliff Jumping anyone!?
See even the chickens follow Jesus command and go out by twos! :)



Monday, August 30, 2010

Service and the Brothers and Sisters in Saint Lucia

The experiences that we have had over the past couple of days has been amazing! The new techniques and skills we have learned out in the ministry so far (only being out 2 days) has improved our quality of service. Not only that but our outlook on how to deal with people and how to keep a conversation going for longer than 1 minute has improved tremendously! Whenever we talk to someone it is for AT LEAST 5 min and they enjoy hearing a scripture read to them. Even though they dont mind hearing a bible scripture read to them they have a tendancy to drift off during the conversation. So in order to keep their attention the best thing to do is explain the scripture while reading. We were able to work with a lot of the younger brothers and some sisters out in service! All of the brothers we worked with were between 17-20. The zeal that they have for the ministry is tremendous!

Kimba, Dave, Ron, Trevor, Zimren

This is on our way to service with 15 people in the truck! :) 

Of course you know that we have a lot questions for them, but they have the same if not more questions about our ministry back in New England. When working with a couple of the younger brothers they only wanted us to do the doors so that they can see how WE do our presentations and how they can benifit from it. We were told by the younger brothers here, that they know us "New Englanders" as extremly tough brothers and sisters! They think that our territory is wicked hard and that we have the guts to do anything! So when we (back home) are in the ministry we have all of the brothers and sisters here on the island rooting for us! So know that you guys back home, and the territory that you are accomplishing is well appreciated!!


This is what some of the roads look like in the territory

Kimba

Zimren