Tandapi

We went to visit two young couples that we really like here. Rony and Brittany and Bradley and Amanda They only live an hour and a half away in a small town called Tandapi. It was crazy! I can't believe how diverse this country is. Just a short bus ride away and we are in "the cloud forest" in the middle of jungle and towns so tiny they pretty much have one road and a few side streets. The meeting was full of bible studies and half the audience was children. This tiny little boy did the bible reading and an 8-year-old girl had a talk.. adorable. It was all in spanish so we didn't understand everything completely but since we already had that meeting in English it was easy to compare the two. Service the next day we met at the hall at 7:30 am and then drove an hour and a half on the highway and go off on this crazy little dirt road up into the mountains and worked the little houses on the way and a tiny town up top. It was amazing!!

 Jaclyn was working with a 19-year-old Ecuadorian sister named Evelyn.. she doesn't speak English. I think almost every house we read scriptures. Jaclyn was at one house for quite a while, the lady gave them each a couple little oranges, a piece of bread, and some juice or something. Jaclyn was too afraid to drink the drink in case it would make her sick so she signalled to Evelyn that she couldn't drink it and Evelyn gave it to someone else for her haha. I was working with Amanda; her and her husband are from San Diego and have been here 2 years now. It was super awesome to see her preaching in Spanish so fluently because when they moved here they didn't know any Spanish. About an hour up the mountain we came to a road with about 6 houses on it so we all were able to get out and do a couple of doors. Amanda and I went to a door, a man was walking out and she briefly explained why we were there.. he was very pleasant and told us to wait for him..He waked into the next house which had been converted into a little store.. we call them 'tiendas'. So about a minute later he signalled us to come in.. We walked in and he had already set up chairs for the other friends in our car group, gave me and Amanda chairs and then he and his wife sat down to listen to us.. So here we were, the two of them sitting and eagerly waiting to listen to the 7 of us :) Such an awesome experience!

The couples are super fun. In the afternoon, after preaching there was a going-away party for Bradley and Amanda because their 2-year visa is up and they have to go home. It was an experience too. They made ceviche (soup) for everyone. There was some dancing and weird games haha. Overall an awesome weekend! There are pictures in Picasa that you can take a look at.

Well thats all for now, hope all is well with you :)



Alyssa