Beet Harvest

I'm here working in the States for the beet harvest again.  This year, there are about 25 of us here!  The harvest has started off slowly because it's been unseasonably warm-- to warm for processing.  Ironically, after many days in the 70s and 80s, yesterday it began to snow!  Here are some pics of us hanging out with friends in the local congregations at picnics and visiting their meetings....

Get To Know Our Needgreaters- Marissa

Get To Know Our Needgreaters-Manuel & Marissa

Where are you and your brother from? We are from San Jose, CA in the US.

Why did you choose to be a need greater? An elder in our congregation is now serving in Granada, Nicaragua along with his wife, and they invited us along with a few other brothers and sisters to come for a visit to experience life as need greater.

Why Nicaragua? That is the place where we were invited to go. So we said yeah why not!

Have you served anywhere else? No. We have done seldom worked territory before, but we have never had a chance to get a taste of what life would be like to serve as a need greater.
How long will you be here and how long have you served thus far? We stayed in Nicaragua for 5 weeks. We hope to return again though.

How did you prepare to come? We talked with other brothers and sisters who had already had the privilege of visiting Nicaragua before us. We also talked a lot with the brother who invited us. All the brothers and sisters gave us very good advice on what to expect in Nicaragua, such as what the climate would be like, the cuisine, all the bugs and mosquitoes.

Were you worried about anything before coming? Although we are very young and this was our first trip without our parents we were not really worried at all. We made the trip with a very close friend of ours whom we have grown up with, and the three of us made sure to watch out for each other the whole time. We also we prayed to Jehovah that his Holy Spirit would be with us on our journey and trusted in him. Knowing that our fellow brothers and sisters would be there to greet us also gave us a calm heart.

Have you had to overcome any challenges to get here or while serving here? Financially, it was quite an expense but thankfully we all had our parents who helped out with our trip and actually paid for the majority of the trip. But even then it was a bit of a struggle, but Jehovah always provides, and somehow he made it so that we were able to make our trip and help serve with brothers and sisters in Nicaragua.

Do you have any highlights or good experiences from being here? Too many to count!! One highlight in particular though was being to attend the meeting on a floating kingdom hall with a missionary couple. That was an amazing experience.  Doing service in Granada in general was always a delight. It was very, very hot there, but the people for the most part were always very nice and receptive. That is very different form the States, because we do not always get very nice responses. It was so nice to be able to speak with so many people who were actually open to learning about the bible.  One of the greatest blessings was creating relationships with different brothers and sisters in Nicaragua. We know feel that we have a home away from our own home. We consider the brothers and sisters in the Granada English Congregation to be our Nicaragua family. It’s such a blessing to have that feeling.

How has being here brought you closer to Jehovah? There was less distractions while we were staying in Nicaragua, we were always in service and always with the friends. That definitely brought us closer to Jehovah.  All our days there revolved around our service to Jehovah. We enjoyed a lot of spiritual and uplifting conversations with the brothers and sisters there. After we came back from Nicaragua Manuel decided to become a full time pioneer, a big part of that decision was because all of the encouragement he received from the brothers in Nicaragua, and he will be attending Pioneer school this July.

What do you do in your free time? We have busy schedules, we do a lot of service as Manuel is a full time pioneer, and I am in my second year as serving as a continuous auxiliary pioneer. But when we are not in service, we are just like any other teenagers. We hang out with our friends, listen to music, and go to the movies a lot.

What advice do you have for others thinking of coming? Bring lots of mosquito repellant!!lol. Bring good walking shoes! Try the fritanga! Stick close to the friends. And most important pray to Jehovah before making your decision. And Enjoy yourself!

Fiesta!!

After all of that preaching, we know how to have a good time!  Here are some pictures of parties, gatherings and just hanging out :-)  We are always having get togethers- usually with lots of food, dancing and loud music.  At other times, we get together and just watch movies, play cards and relax.  By no means are we all work and no play!

We love to eat!

 I think one of our visitors brought a Wii on this evening

 Playing a game where a blind folded person has to feed rice pudding to their partner at lightning speed.

 Visiting an island called Ometempe

 Cooling down outside after dancing up a sweat with friends!